Re: [Haskell-cafe] Leaner Haskell.org frontpage

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 5:17 PM, Jason Dagit wrote:

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 3:11 PM, Derek Elkins wrote:

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On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 12:31 PM, Jason Dagit wrote:

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On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Thomas ten Cate wrote:

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By the way, the most valuable pixels, right at the top of the page, are wasted on wiki stuff. Compare http://www.haskell.org/ with, for example, http://www.ruby-lang.org/ http://python.org/

The thing I like the most from the ruby page is the top box of content where it starts describing ruby with a "Read more..." link adjacent to a code snippet.  Because I doubt anyone will agree on *the one* best code snippet to show people, I think there should/could be a pool of fun snippets and loading the page picks one at random.  I have no idea if the wiki engine supports this.  I also like the strip of links at the top with things like, "Download", "Community", and so on.  Something I think the Haskell page does much better than the other two, is the listing of events and hackage updates.  Both of those sections feel "inviting" to me.  It makes me curious and I want to explore.

The python page looks at least as cluttered as the haskell page. Neither the haskell page or the python page have the same look and feel of the ruby page.  I think the shaded/gradient backgrounds actually add a lot to the visual experience.  I also like that the boxes have a different bg color for the box title and the box contents.  I also like the use of icons on the ruby page.  The "Download Ruby" link/box with the download icon is very inviting.  I just want to download it, even if I'm not going to use ruby!

Perhaps we could have a contest similar to the logo contest but for homepage asthetics redesign.  I think the content on the haskell page is great, but the visual style of the presentation could be improved considerably.

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If, like the consensus seems to be, the page should be made more friendly to beginners (who are unlikely to want to contribute to the wiki right away), then this should be moved elsewhere, or at the very least made smaller and less obtrusive.

Optimizing for newcomers seems wise. Jason

This is what I see when visiting the Ruby page: "DoS vulnerability in BigDecimal"

That's true.  And I never said we want to copy the ruby community :)  In fact, I'd prefer to not be associated with them given the community's blatant unprofessionalism and sexism (cf. CouchDB presentation at a semi-recent ruby conference).  I do think their page has more visual appeal though.  So other than pointing out the DoS, did you have feedback?

I admit it; you caught me. I'm not a newbie and I don't use the front page terribly often, but I do like most of the links that are on it. The Ruby page is certainly prettier, but the layout of the Haskell page is fine in my opinion; the difference is mainly eye-candy. On another topic, I know people have expressed that they have liked the fact that the entire Haskell site is a wiki; this expressing openness and community involvement. I personally don't find the Haskell front page too cluttered and I think most of issue in that vein could be resolved by simply making sure the most important/newbie-oriented links are "above the fold" and appropriately emphasized/categorized as is partially done already.