[Haskell-cafe] Leaner Haskell.org frontpage

[Jason Dagit]

On Thu, Jul 9, 2009 at 10:00 AM, Thomas ten Cate <ttencate at gmail.com> wrote:

> By the way, the most valuable pixels, right at the top of the page,
> are wasted on wiki stuff. Compare
> http://www.haskell.org/
> with, for example,
> http://www.ruby-lang.org/
> http://python.org/


The thing I like the most from the ruby page is the top box of content where
it starts describing ruby with a "Read more..." link adjacent to a code
snippet.  Because I doubt anyone will agree on *the one* best code snippet
to show people, I think there should/could be a pool of fun snippets and
loading the page picks one at random.  I have no idea if the wiki engine
supports this.  I also like the strip of links at the top with things like,
"Download", "Community", and so on.  Something I think the Haskell page does
much better than the other two, is the listing of events and hackage
updates.  Both of those sections feel "inviting" to me.  It makes me curious
and I want to explore.

The python page looks at least as cluttered as the haskell page.  Neither
the haskell page or the python page have the same look and feel of the ruby
page.  I think the shaded/gradient backgrounds actually add a lot to the
visual experience.  I also like that the boxes have a different bg color for
the box title and the box contents.  I also like the use of icons on the
ruby page.  The "Download Ruby" link/box with the download icon is very
inviting.  I just want to download it, even if I'm not going to use ruby!

Perhaps we could have a contest similar to the logo contest but for homepage
asthetics redesign.  I think the content on the haskell page is great, but
the visual style of the presentation could be improved considerably.


>
>
> If, like the consensus seems to be, the page should be made more
> friendly to beginners (who are unlikely to want to contribute to the
> wiki right away), then this should be moved elsewhere, or at the very
> least made smaller and less obtrusive.


Optimizing for newcomers seems wise.

Jason
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