Gentoo Foundation Website Redesign Contest -- the vote

PseudoKrazy · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:02 am Post subject:

Awesome desings... I agree that a lot of them seem "too busy". I prefer the simpler layouts.

dmartin · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:13 am Post subject:

All of those are amazing. I voted for Aaron Shi, but I was completely awed by all of them. Personally, I wish they could all be implemented with a selector like CSS Zen Garden, because they are all phenominal.

lousyd · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 4:37 am Post subject: Stupid Pictures

Hey, so I thought I'd reply to this because I know that everyone will see my post and it won't get lost in the...what...eleven pages? Twelve pages now?

Anyway, I just want to say, I really hate stupid pictures that mean absolutely nothing. I feel like the Gentoo Powers are slowly (but perceptibly) moving Gentoo to more of a business than a community-led thing. Like they want Gentoo to be Mandrake or SuSe, except with the well-recognized power of community to support them. Good or bad, it kind of turns me off. Vote No! to stupid pictures.
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scuervo · n00b Joined: 22 Jun 2004 Posts: 5 Location: Eugene, OR

longodj · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 5:18 am Post subject:

Slyde · Guru Joined: 14 Jul 2003 Posts: 314

Athas · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 6:53 am Post subject:

I don't like Aaron's. It feels like an ad for a mainstream, commercial distribution (and is that a Flash movie at the top?!). I prefer the simple Iris theme (the colorscheme could be changed, though). It doesn't waste space on unnecessary graphics, but does what a website should do - convey information.
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gencorp for simple design and easy access to information

but the corp pic has to go :evil:

gentilOGR · n00b Joined: 04 Oct 2004 Posts: 1

No doubt, I vote for gencorp!

Must have for a website:
- a search field on each pages!
- a "where am I ?" menu or indication (the site is quite big!)
- a logical structure, and a logical visual representation of this strucure
- the largest possible real info space (no big banner, logos, images, "nice" design tricks)

Hope this helps!

Oliver

Buge · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 8:18 am Post subject:

First of all, congratulations to all finalists. I really like the entries, and can imagine why the judges had such a hard time reducing it to these last ones. (they are all excellent, really.)

However, I voted for Aaron's design because IMHO it appears to be the most professional design. Unlike the other design's he wasn't afraid to use the purple theme strongly, and did an excellent job with it. Personally, this is also why I wouldn't have voted for Iris on Mirror, as it overemphasizes the green contrast color. As opposed to Derek Gerstman's design, Aaron's design show's that he as tried to accomodate the Gentoo site to fill up the entire width of the page, which I believe is important for such a content rich site as Gentoo.
I really enjoyed the Charles-Andre Landemaine's gencorp's use of the anonymous office image, which gives the site a very professional look, (Oh, and the fact that he seemed to have designed the site with a Mac or a Mac-themed WM in mind :-)

but in the end, the overwhelming purple on Aarons's site just did it for me.

Just a few thoughts.

- Philipp

yoyoned · n00b Joined: 19 Sep 2003 Posts: 13

Derek Gerstmann

pauldv · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 9:13 am Post subject: Analysis

Before I cast my vote I'll make a short analysis of each of the candidates

Aaron Shi This design looks clean allthough a bit "corporate". The menu's seem well designed and there is real space for news items. The main part that I like less is the writing of gentoo with infinity.
Charles-Andre Landemaine - gencorp While the design looks clean and nice it seems that a HCI guide was not consulted. The main menu items are nondescriptive requiring people to search through the menus. And the menu items provided at the bottom of the page are way way too many to be accessible. Further they leave no place for news items. While it is desirable that more than one item can have a place.
Charles-Andre Landemaine - gentech The design looks quite ok, and the menus appear to give a better overview. A nice touch is the customization of the advertisements. Again lacking however is a good place for news items. The picture on the front page with the people talking should be replaced by some nice picture of some gentoo developers .
Derek Gerstmann The menu in this design looks nice, but one's eye is directly draw towards the "purchase" icon. Further the front page looks like a gate or welcome screen. Welcome screens of this nature have proven themselves to be annoying for users and loosing their function as frontpage as there is no actual information on them. Further offering 4 different links will cause people to experience a lot of lost in hyperspace syndrome as those options will NOT get you where you want. For example, knowing what to look for I can not find where I should go for the list of IRC channels.
Iris on Mirror Well, the page is very green. This has allready been remarked here though. Besides the greenness the color of the main text does not provide enough contrast and as such is hard to read and makes the text seem to be less important than it is, being the main content. The menu structure provided by this design is largely similar to the current design including it's flaws. Considering that the amount of pages that should be accessible from the frontpage will probably grow this does not solve all our problems, but is only a graphical, not functional redesign. Last on the documentation sample page there is no way to go anywhere but the frontpage (presumably). This flaw should be relieved IMHO before the design could be used.

Concluding there are 5 good designs that all have some room for improvement (a.o. from eachother). The candidates are also very different, even the ones from Charles-Andre Landemaine. Assuming that the designs are not set in stone yet and some changes can be made this would be my ranking:

Aaron Shi, especially with the gentoo text logo redone.
gentech, with a replacement picture
Iris on Mirror, with a better foreground color and the menu structure redone
gencorp, also with a menu restructuring
Derek Gerstmann, for this design the content of the frontpage should be redone. The current content is confusing

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UncleTom · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 9:34 am Post subject:

I nearly voted for Aaron Shi because it definitely looks nice, but the infinity sign and the "rocket fuel not required" were a bit too much in the end.

So I vote for Iris on Mirror because it is simple and clean and in my opinion works better for a community website. I would put the page summary on top of the page though, not amongst the advertisements.
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Muso · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 9:36 am Post subject:

larryas2 · n00b Joined: 11 Mar 2004 Posts: 3 Location: annapolis, MD

Even though Aaron's seems to be the popular now, I think gencorp provides a clear functional interface. My problems with the others:

Iris on mirror - way too many choices in the list on the left
Derek's - too spartan
gentech - too "in your face", too many menu options
Aaron's - it's ok, but I think we can do better

Clean and simple, but it doesn't have the menu hierarchy that gencorp supports which will allow better organization and clearer navigation.

my .01

Apreche · Guru Joined: 18 Sep 2003 Posts: 506 Location: Beacon, NY

I voted for Iris on Mirror based on the layout of the site being less like a business trying to sell something and more like an open source project trying to provide information. However, the color of it needs to be more purple and less yellow.

HelloWorld82 · n00b Joined: 05 Oct 2003 Posts: 46 Location: Germany

Irir on mirror has a "new and orignial" design. Aron shi looks like "Transgaming.com", and Derek Gerstmann's one looks like apple. Thought they also look nice, I prefer having something new .

agoossens · n00b Joined: 24 Sep 2004 Posts: 13

Well, I'll toss in my 2cents

Aaron Shi: Banner has to go. Period. The infinity sign and the rocket fuel pun don't do anything for the corporate image - I can see where he was coming from but it won't work. The main page looks slightly...dull, but the handbook page is nice!

gencorp: Tooooo busy. Navigation is a nightmare and again, banner has to go. Still, I like the overall design; it just needs to be reworked a fair bit.

gentech: The "gentoo" text at the top looks a little "cheesy" and the navigation bar is way too high.

Derek Gerstmann: It looks like a mac rip-off, I'm sorry to say. Whilst the general concept was nice, companies wouldn't take a second look. You don't want to be reminding companies of your competitors, do you?

Iris on Mirror: This is the nicest of the lot. It's a good mix of content with whitespace and it's not too busy. Sticking with the old fashioned "sides menu, middle content" layout - I like it. It might be just a tiny bit boring at the top of the page, however.

+1 to Iris on Mirror, although I almost chose "Keep it the same".

rdx · n00b Joined: 05 Sep 2002 Posts: 54 Location: Switzerland

i really hope that "iris on mirror" can catch up to aaron.. aaron isn't bad, but too cold and from the technical side, there has to be more space for information and less space for pictures - gentoo should have a technical orientated outfit..

Proteus · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 1:07 pm Post subject:

I never thought that there are so many opinions on how a web page should look like...

However, now it seems to me as if it can't be right for everyone.
Except if it were possible to do a "moular" design where the design is independent from the content entirely.

With xml and css and all that stuff available today that should not be too hard to do, or is it?
I am not up to date with my web-design knowledge so the input of anyone who is is very welcome.

That way we even had the chance to use a full-blown, graphic packed design when we want or can afford it (like at home with a dsl line or cable modem and a flatrate) and we could use a minimal, no-graphics-at-all, stripped down design when we are on the road or anywhere else where traffic is expensive or cpu power scarce.

Most importantly I think that this approach would be WAY BETTER than having another contest with the two finalists of this contest (as was suggested before) and having follow-up contests every year or so.
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legine · Guru Joined: 27 May 2004 Posts: 555 Location: Germany

Hard to say which I like most.
Aron Shi:
I feel that the side is offering all I need on one glance. This is a very good startingpage. At the dokumentation the picture in the left-upper-corner does somehow not fit in. I would like to have here a page which fokuses on the important things here.
gencorp :
I do not like the Newspaper look. (pleas go to page 3 to read more.) The picture is blured, suggesting gentoo is has not a clear vision (something like that) - I do not believe this is a good thing to show.
I like the colors and the Dokument struktures. Clean and streight.
gentech:
Uhh reminds me of Suse. Very bad. This is the cold coperate side for me

Cold but suggesting a friendly tone. And the eyes register the BUY -Button at once. Not nice not nice

The Dokumentation page is surounded by menues and Advertisments. Hmm looks distrakting to me. I would like to have a more open one.
Derek Gerstmann:
I like the picture. It is logical build and telling what is inside Gentoo...
I do not like the Menue you realy have to read, nothing for a lazy manlike me. A menue is missing

I believ the rest should look like today? hmm...
I would like to see more on this concept but it is to view to vote on this one!
Iris on Mirror
The old design in new colors. And yes I do not like the chosen color either. I normaly like green more than purple and I like the design we have today. But this green.... Yes if this design wins, please change the color to purple.
In the end:
I look at the contests and it seems to me then the designs is a good pictures throught page designs you can find on the web. the fact that the old design is not presented as is tells me that a change is wanted. I ask myself do we need a new design? Is the one we have now not good for the future?
- For me it is all I need. If I have to chose for the goal the become more professional and more buisness like I would chouse Aron Shi design. Because it is the best compromise between buisness and community.
But since I use at the moment Gentoo at home, I will vote for no changes. This is the best design for a comunity, and its the most Gentoo style. It was the Gentoo theme untill this was, and hopefully it will remain the theme for the future

Wiebel · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 1:40 pm Post subject:

And another 2ct, as if they were needed

I voted for Iris, for lots of the already mentioned reasons, true it could do with a little more purple, although i really like the green, purple should be just more dominant, keep some green stuff. The text color should be darker or more saturated for the contrast, although it might loose a bit of the "light feeling".
A completely other thing is the navigation, i didn't have had any problems with the old one so Iris looks good to me but i see the point in having a fresh navigation. So my vote was very optical, so to say.

As someone already mentioned, I'm not too sure if giving some designs to a voting is a really good thing at all. Ok it feels very communityish but everybody looks at the designs (which are all great, btw) and sees some flaws here and there, making suggestions, says combine this with that, but in the end everybody is to choose one of them _with_ all the flaws one sees, which feels a bit like choosing the least evil and due to the fact that designs are all good it's not very pleasing to feel this way. So please go for another round with the chance for the submitters to improve their design and vote again or take the whole voting as a mere suggestion, or perhaps a split up between graphics and navigation would do the trick, i don't know. I'm sure the votes would be different if Iris would be more purple or the banner in Aaron's design would be smaller, to pick up some of the most popular suggestions.

mmuser · n00b Joined: 18 Apr 2002 Posts: 39

It was definately between Charles-Andre Landemaine - gencorp and Shi's web page but the one thing I liked (since it looks like Shi's is going to win) is the search field in the handbook page? do you think we could add that to Shi's page?

pSy85 · Posted: Mon Oct 04, 2004 2:06 pm Post subject:

I like the one from Aaron Shi as the "Gentech" from Charles-Andre Landemaine.
I give my voice to Charles-Andre, cause only a few people do that!

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