lubuntu-desktop team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/25/2011 04:02 AM, Martin Olesen wrote:

> I am showing this to more people than the ones who are registered
> users of the wiki page. If I demand that they begin with a
> registration I will lose half of the responses.


OK, please at least link to the demo site and response page from the
wiki page, so people who know about the wiki page find the other one.
Maybe do the reverse too, so those who read the comments on Google Docs
can easily go read the other comments on the wiki page?

I think real beginners will find it hard to ignore the lack of pretty
graphics and theme, so you might want to mock up something using
Raphael's proposed "simple blue Ubuntu" theme before exposing this to
large numbers of real newcomers.

>>  (1) Seven tabs is too many; let's keep it simpler than that.
 

> Fine with me, but that does not help me much. Which tabs do you
> want?


Rafael's first three choices borrowed from the ubuntu.com site (Home,
Download, Support) are nice and simple, and self-explanatory.  Their
purposes are each very clear.  His next two were Community and Wiki,
which may also be appropriate, but seem slightly less "obvious" for real
newcomers ("what exactly will I find under Community, a live chat with
Lubuntu people?  When do I need to use Wiki, and what *is* a wiki?").  I
think things like "Modify Lubuntu" are potentially a bit too scary for
newcomers to be top level items ("you mean I have to hack on it??") and
so should be avoided :)

So maybe just Home, Download, Support, Community.  Then have links to
wiki-based information as needed within the site, and discuss the
concept of a set of online documentation that all in the community can
easily add to and improve, under "Community" (and, with emphasis on what
it contains, rather than on editing it, under "Support")?

I like the idea of differentiating between "Trying out Lubuntu" and
"Installing Lubuntu"; these could be sub-pages under Download (so we
encourage people to download it, try it, install it, in that order), and
the Installing one could be linked from under Support too.

Incidentally, have you considered documenting use of a VM for trying out
Lubuntu without removing your "old" operating system?  More techie than
booting from a LiveCD, but also much closer to experiencing "the real
thing".  For users with decent PC hardware, it may be much less scary to
set up Lubuntu in a VM than to repartition their hard drive or remove
Windows!  Once you find yourself needing to ask "what if the computer
has four primary partitions already?", you are not meeting the needs of
newcomers any more!  Are you going to explain UEFI booting and
configuration, for those with modern motherboards, too? :)

>> (2) Proposed site home page is basically content-less, and so not 
>> useful. Not even a button to download the most commonly wanted

>> Lubuntu ISO!
 
> Correct, this is an early test. You will see more and more content
> being added over time.


OK, but getting the front page correct is really important.  Deciding
what should be there, and what should be on subsidiary pages, can make
or break a site (cf. your comments on all the videos that used to be on
the front page of the old lubuntu.net!).  So this should be thought
about (and tested) early in the design process.

>> (3) Proposed site content (and look/feel/theme) does not connect at
>> all to (or address the whole issue of how it relates to) existing
>> online Lubuntu documentation at wiki.ubuntu.com and help.ubuntu.com


> As I wrote, "please give suggestions regarding text, layout and
> navigation. Pictures, colours and the like come at a later time."

Never mind how it looks, for now.  Your proposed pages include things
like hardware requirements, which are already documented elsewhere; are
you proposing that the new site will ignore the wiki and so we end up
having to maintain that information in two different ways on two
separate pages?  If not, how does the new site "blend into" the existing
wiki pages?  Once browsing within the wiki, how does a user "get back"
to the lubuntu.net site?

For theme and navigation, I like Rafael's "make it look like a simpler
blue Ubuntu site" concept, but the graphical look is less important to
me than ability to easily find information, and to know that information
is likely to be correct and up to date.  For that, the basic principle
of how and when the lubuntu.net site links to the existing wiki pages,
and vice versa, needs to be clearly established, and then consistently
implemented.

>>  (4) In English, we say "operating system" not "operative system".

>> There are a couple of other places where the English needs tidying up.


> Sure, we need a native Brit to proof-read. I'll correct this one when
> I get home. Did you find any more of these?


I am a "native Brit" (born in England, although now living in
California); my father is a (now retired) schoolteacher with an M.A. in
English from Cambridge University... so he made sure my English was
pretty good :)  I'm not volunteering as an official site proofreader,
though.

Here are a couple more: "run as a live boot" feels awkward; "run live,
directly from a CDROM or USB stick", maybe?  "way different" feels
unnecessarily "California slang" in style; "very different" or "much
faster" might be clearer?

Jonathan