Newcomer Orientation - Website Navigation
Posted: Fri 18 Nov 2005, 18:34
A little bit of personal opinion and some suggestions:
During the switchover to the new website(s), I'm afraid we have inadvertantly done Puppy a disservice...
The page at Puppy that people get when they come to us via the link at Distrowatch, (which is the route by which many, if not most new folks come to us) now points to http://www.puppylinux.org - which is fine, BUT, even though that is ostensibly our "Main" page - it is not (currently at least) a very good starting point for newcomers to become aware-of and to navigate-to all the many varied Puppy Sites and Pages.
In my opinion, the Place where a newcomer firsts lands when visiting a Distribution's Web Presence should offer a clear idea of everything that is available, and an extremely easy and intuitive method of navigation to get there.
Although puppylinux.org is a nice page, it is not a visually striking page; the links are small, and not emphasized, and it is unclear, even to me, being familiar with all the Puppy sites, what-all is available, and how to get there. This could be very off-putting to a newcomer.
We do, however, have a page that fulfills that role extremely well, and that is:
http://www.pupweb.org/
...It is visually striking with lots of color and large print, and it acts as an excellent central map and point of orientation for the new and uninitiated person, looking to get familiar with all the myriad resources Puppy Linux has to offer.
With that said...
1) I believe that it is imperative that we get our link from Distrowatch changed as soon as possible to point to PupWeb.org instead of puppylinuxorg, to avoid dumping new, interested folks into a page where further navigation is not so clear.
Alternatively, it would be just as good to re-do the puppylinux.org page to have the same kind of large, clear, colorful links to everywhere as pupweb.org has. ... (or something similar but perhaps a bit smaller, that would work well on any page)
But one of these two things should happen ASAP, (in my humble opinion).
2) Additionally, I would respectfully beseech the webmasters and puppy-powers-that-be to come together - soon - and work out a master plan for navigation between the many marvelous, but scattered Puppy web-resources, and most importantly,
...to make navigation to ANYWHERE easily available from EVERYWHERE,
and to do so in some kind of standardized format so that it's super-easy to jump from say... developer-news at goosee, to general news at wiki, to the forum, to the main page, to any of the many Puplet pages, to the download areas, to dotpup areas, etc., etc., etc. ...and so that vistors continue to feel well-oriented and not lost in the bewildering plethora of sites and pages that compose Puppy's extensive web presence.
Right now, Pupweb is really the only place where you can do that... and I think it should be available everywhere, on all sites and pages, and in a similar form and location on the page, to make navigation as easy as can possibly be, no matter what page or site you are currently on.
Pupweb.org could be the model, or starting point to develop an overall, integrated inter-site navigation system that all our wonderful scattered Puppy Sites deserve, and which would make it easy for all newcomers to find everything that is available...
So - Do the Puppy faithful out there think this is a good idea? ...or have I once again had far too much coffee and gotten way too excited and zealous?
Thanks for listening.
Respectfully,
kcin
During the switchover to the new website(s), I'm afraid we have inadvertantly done Puppy a disservice...
The page at Puppy that people get when they come to us via the link at Distrowatch, (which is the route by which many, if not most new folks come to us) now points to http://www.puppylinux.org - which is fine, BUT, even though that is ostensibly our "Main" page - it is not (currently at least) a very good starting point for newcomers to become aware-of and to navigate-to all the many varied Puppy Sites and Pages.
In my opinion, the Place where a newcomer firsts lands when visiting a Distribution's Web Presence should offer a clear idea of everything that is available, and an extremely easy and intuitive method of navigation to get there.
Although puppylinux.org is a nice page, it is not a visually striking page; the links are small, and not emphasized, and it is unclear, even to me, being familiar with all the Puppy sites, what-all is available, and how to get there. This could be very off-putting to a newcomer.
We do, however, have a page that fulfills that role extremely well, and that is:
http://www.pupweb.org/
...It is visually striking with lots of color and large print, and it acts as an excellent central map and point of orientation for the new and uninitiated person, looking to get familiar with all the myriad resources Puppy Linux has to offer.
With that said...
1) I believe that it is imperative that we get our link from Distrowatch changed as soon as possible to point to PupWeb.org instead of puppylinuxorg, to avoid dumping new, interested folks into a page where further navigation is not so clear.
Alternatively, it would be just as good to re-do the puppylinux.org page to have the same kind of large, clear, colorful links to everywhere as pupweb.org has. ... (or something similar but perhaps a bit smaller, that would work well on any page)
But one of these two things should happen ASAP, (in my humble opinion).
2) Additionally, I would respectfully beseech the webmasters and puppy-powers-that-be to come together - soon - and work out a master plan for navigation between the many marvelous, but scattered Puppy web-resources, and most importantly,
...to make navigation to ANYWHERE easily available from EVERYWHERE,
and to do so in some kind of standardized format so that it's super-easy to jump from say... developer-news at goosee, to general news at wiki, to the forum, to the main page, to any of the many Puplet pages, to the download areas, to dotpup areas, etc., etc., etc. ...and so that vistors continue to feel well-oriented and not lost in the bewildering plethora of sites and pages that compose Puppy's extensive web presence.
Right now, Pupweb is really the only place where you can do that... and I think it should be available everywhere, on all sites and pages, and in a similar form and location on the page, to make navigation as easy as can possibly be, no matter what page or site you are currently on.
Pupweb.org could be the model, or starting point to develop an overall, integrated inter-site navigation system that all our wonderful scattered Puppy Sites deserve, and which would make it easy for all newcomers to find everything that is available...
So - Do the Puppy faithful out there think this is a good idea? ...or have I once again had far too much coffee and gotten way too excited and zealous?
Thanks for listening.
Respectfully,
kcin
Your name's on