[Scooby] Re: [General] Scooby project landing page

[Priscilla Chung]

So it seems to me that there are two very distinct issues here. One  
is about the content and the other is about aesthetics. From my  
interpretation of the Fogel quotes, it speaks less about aesthetics  
as about content, clear writing, and clear organization. I understand  
about the ecosystem, and how it is important to have engaging,  
clearly written documentation. In my opinion, for Scooby 0.1, the  
content is more important than aesthetics.

That said, from a PM's perspective of Scooby all that is needed on  
front facing pages is a link somewhere on the main OSAF page to  
Scooby (and Cosmo), instead of being buried on the wiki. A Scooby  
centralized page that helps route developers to the right parts of  
the wiki.

The other point which is obvious but seems to be another project all  
together is the organization of the wiki. And to touch on Brian's  
point, everything already looks inconsistent: OSAF front page, the  
Chandler launch page, and the wiki, all have different organizations,  
different formating and different aesthetics. If we're serious about  
the branding for OSAF and the ecosystem of products, we should start  
by choosing  common look for the OSAF front page, wiki and the  
project home pages.

-Priscilla


Sheila Mooney wrote:
> Sorry if this is repetitive...
>
> + I really don't think there is any disagreement that we want to  
> have something better than this....http://wiki.osafoundation.org/ 
> bin/view/Projects/ScoobyHome.
>
> + I also think there is agreement that we want to have some key  
> pieces of content like links to the blog, mailing lists, how to get  
> involved (whatever seems reasonable at this stage). I personally am  
> not crazy about links to placeholder pages that say "in progress",  
> but that's just my opinion.
>
> + Where we really disagree is giving the Scooby 0.1 landing page  
> the same look and feel as the Chandler landing page to make it more  
> like an "official" part of the ecosystem. To address one of Brian's  
> replies, it's not that we think putting together a custom html page  
> is beyond our capabilities over the next 2 weeks. Mimi is simply  
> pointing out that it's not as simple as Pieter just using the  
> Chandler page, adding the content and tweaking a few things. Matt  
> and others will have to do SOME work. When we decided in mid-Jan to  
> just package up whatever "Scooby" we had by a certain date, test it  
> for a day and put it out there, the PPD team just assumed we would  
> go with something sufficient but low key as a landing page. Low key  
> certainly doesn't imply crappy or that we wouldn't follow most of  
> the principles described by Fogel. Since the Scooby releases are  
> expected to be more frequent, we could plan for a more full scale  
> landing page in 0.2.
>
> For all the time I have spent over the past 2 weeks on this, it  
> might have been better spent working on the larger branding effort  
> we need to tackle for all our products including the "ecosystem". I  
> don't think that when we designed the Chandler 0.6 landing page we  
> were thinking of the look and feel for all the products, the  
> ecosystem or how we want Chandler 1.0 to look. For me, one take- 
> away here is that perhaps it would be a good idea to start thinking  
> about this sooner rather than later.
>
> Just my 2 cents.
>
>
> On Feb 13, 2006, at 7:07 PM, Mimi Yin wrote:
>
>> Ted,
>>
>> I think one of the issues of pulling together an HTML page that  
>> incorporated some Chandler landing page elements to tie the  
>> landing pages together was that it would require resources (ie.  
>> Matt) for building it.
>>
>> There seem to be 2 issues:
>>
>> 1. Resources and time (less design and more front-end  
>> implementation, I think whether we do a wiki page or a custom HTML  
>> page, the design team will have to expend a comparable amount of  
>> effort)
>>
>> 2. What is the cost of waiting on a custom landing page until 0.2?
>>
>> All things being equal, a scaled down custom landing page that  
>> feels like it's a member of the ecosystem (as in related to  
>> Chandler) would be great. But 2 questions are:
>> + Can we accomplish this AND release on time?
>> + If not, are we willing to hold the release for a custom landing  
>> page?
>>
>> Mimi
>>
>> On Feb 13, 2006, at 6:24 PM, Ted Leung wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Pieter,
>>>
>>> Pieter Hartsook wrote:
>>>> Hi,
>>>>
>>>> There have been some discussions regarding a "landing page" for the
>>>> Scooby project that we thought we should take to the maillists for
>>>> comments.
>>>>
>>> I'm confused about what you are asking for here, other than a  
>>> high level of visual polish.
>>> When we left the meeting last week <http://wiki.osafoundation.org/ 
>>> bin/view/Journal/MtgNotes0208>,
>>> I thought that we had agreed on a plan for the landing page,  
>>> which called for incorporating elements
>>> from the Chandler project page (the left side navigation) into  
>>> the Scooby project page.
>>>> When Scooby 0.1 is released we will have three major components  
>>>> of the
>>>> Chandler ecosystem in place as official active OSAF projects;
>>>> Chandler, Cosmo, and Scooby. For each project we want to make it  
>>>> easy
>>>> for potential developers and others to quickly and effortlessly get
>>>> information about the project in order to encourage them to get
>>>> involved and begin to build an active community. This effort is in
>>>> keeping with Fogel's observations about packaging and presentation:
>>>>
>>>> "A related mistake is that of skimping on presentation and  
>>>> packaging,
>>>> figuring that these can always be done later, when the project  
>>>> is well
>>>> under way. Presentation and packaging comprise a wide range of  
>>>> tasks,
>>>> all revolving around the theme of reducing the barrier to entry.
>>>> Making the project inviting to the uninitiated means writing  
>>>> user and
>>>> developer documentation, setting up a project web site that's
>>>> informative to newcomers, automating as much of the software's
>>>> compilation and installation as possible, etc."
>>>> --- Producing Open Source Software: How to Run a Successful Free
>>>> Software Project by Karl Fogel, p. 10
>>>>
>>>> When Chandler 0.6 was released we collected information from  
>>>> various
>>>> sources and created the Chandler landing page
>>>> <http://chandler.osafoundation.org> as visually appealing home page
>>>> for the project that organizes and clearly leads visitors to
>>>> appropriate pages for more information. Some of the links on the
>>>> landing page go to wiki pages, some to the OSAF website, some to  
>>>> the
>>>> group blog, and some to secondary html pages on the landing page  
>>>> site
>>>> itself. By creating the landing page site instead of using the  
>>>> wiki we
>>>> had more control over the design of the page and made it more
>>>> attractive and easier to understand and navigate.
>>>>
>>>> We of course want to provide those interested in Cosmo and  
>>>> Scooby with
>>>> similar easy-of-entry access to information about those projects as
>>>> well. The question at hand is, What do we do over the next  
>>>> couple of
>>>> weeks to prepare a landing page for the initial 0.1 release of  
>>>> Scooby?
>>>>
>>>> There are a continuum of solutions:
>>>> 1) At one end we can create a "landing page" on the wiki and simply
>>>> continue to provide a redirect from <http:// 
>>>> scooby.osafoundation.org>
>>>> to the wiki.
>>>> 2) We could make a simple html, mostly text-based page that  
>>>> would free
>>>> the landing page from the wiki navigation and editing kruft and  
>>>> allow
>>>> a more appealing presentation of the content.
>>>> 3) We could borrow from the work done on the Chandler landing page,
>>>> keeping much of the navigation aids and style the same but  
>>>> modifying
>>>> the content to target the Scooby 0.1 release.
>>>>
>>>> At this point, I'll interject my opinion, that if time and  
>>>> resources
>>>> allow, I am in favor of option #3. I see the advantages that Fogel
>>>> pointed out in having good presentation in the project web site  
>>>> early
>>>> in the project in order to lower the barriers to entry. I also  
>>>> believe
>>>> reusing similar design elements on the different project landing  
>>>> pages
>>>> not only makes it easier for someone who is familiar with one  
>>>> project
>>>> to more easily find their way in a sister project, but it subtly
>>>> reiniforces the familial relationship among the projects.
>>>>
>>>> There is some concern that a graphically polished landing page for
>>>> Scooby may inappropriately set expectations that the software is  
>>>> more
>>>> mature than the 0.1 release is. I think that we can set  
>>>> expectations
>>>> appropriately through the messaging/content on the page. And as the
>>>> project matures we can maintain the interface and change the
>>>> expectation messaging. Similarly, at this early stage in the Scooby
>>>> project some of the documentation (like some of the features and
>>>> functionality) may not have been created yet. Again, going back to
>>>> Fogel...
>>>>
>>> If you look at the website for Subversion, which is the project
>>> Fogel is currently working on, you'll see that our project pages
>>> go way beyond the Subversion site in terms of graphics, etc. I'm  
>>> sure that Fogel finds the Subversion site adequate to the task.  
>>> So I don't really think that we need to spend a huge amount of  
>>> effort
>>> beyond the basic look of the Chandler project page.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Scooby mailing list
>>> Scooby at osafoundation.org
>>> http://lists.osafoundation.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/scooby
>>
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