Re: [ART] Website mockup rev1

[Mark H Weaver <mhw@netris.org>]

Hi Luis,

Luis Felipe López Acevedo <felipe.lopez@openmailbox.org> writes:
> Here is a revision of the last website mockup [1].
>
> White header
> http://sirgazil.bitbucket.org/static/temp/img/guixsd/home-view-white-rev1.png

The design is beautiful, but at this stage in our development, I think
it targets the wrong audience.  It will probably be at least a few years
before we can target the "Average Jane", and we shouldn't try anytime
soon.

For example, it would be a tremendous drain on us to draw a bunch of
people to our IRC channel who may not even be able to start their own
IRC client software.  At this stage, forcing users to run their own IRC
client is a helpful barrier to entry that we should not try to overcome
with an easy web interface.

Also, you have replaced "Dependendable, Hackable, and Liberating" with
"Libre, gratis, secure, and malleable".  I prefer the words we emphasize
on our current web page.  Ludovic has given several talks and had many
discussions with other GNU hackers, and settled on the words he chose,
and the language used to describe them, based on his experiences.  For
the audience we currently need to attract, I think that we should stick
with his language.

So, for now I think that our page should be aimed at skilled developers
and sysadmins, and so instead of headlining things like clip art of a
computer monitor, we should instead headline the unusual technical
features that we offer, with links to the best documentation, papers and
talks where they can find out more, and with information on how to get
involved without trying to lower the barriers to entry more than is
appropriate.

Does that make sense?

That said, our current web page could definitely use graphic redesign
and reorganization of its content, and I think you would be a great
person to help with that, if you can do so while retaining its technical
focus.

Thanks again for all of your help.  We are fortunate to have such a
talented artist helping :)

      Mark