I’m with @tgeorgeux in not really liking the term “Projects” for a website targetted at end-users, though it’s fine where it’s secondary information (e.g. the Firefox and Gnome sites) or for an audience already familiar with open-source.
One thing to note: while I do agree that the website is targeted towards end-users, it is also one of the most visible public-faces of the Jupyter community. So we are not only designing for what a potentially new person will think, but also designing for a look and message that the Jupyter community is proud to put in a prominent location.
Not saying that the word “product” falls on one side or another of that conversation, just that we are optimizing for more than just “what will a newcomer think when they see this”
I think that will appeal to people in a management position but might put off more causal browsers.
On the other hand maybe it’s best not to get too hung up on the terminology, go ahead with the general design and rename the category later? For instance if (this is just an example, I don’t want to in any way dictate the design) you went for a Mozilla style home page where new users see the main products/tools dominate the page and are naturally drawn to them, with content for more experienced Jovians behind a “projects” menu, I think that would be a good compromise.
We’re really appreciative of the feedback on the word Products. I know we’re still trying to figure out the best verbiage to describe them, but I’d also love to hear feedback on our categories. We’re currently categorizing them as Frontends, Servers, Kernels, Infrastructure, Widgets, Customizations, and Standards/Protocols. Do these categories make sense to the community? Would you know that JupyterHub belongs under Infrastructure?
We’re hiring a graphic designer to do some custom illustrations for us and wanted to run a couple rough sketch ideas by you all before we pass them along to the designer. Let us know if you like the space metaphor:
I like it because it makes me think we can “infinitely” extend this to more “layers” like “these extensions are like the moons”, “these related projects are like the other planets”, “the asteroid belt here is like …”, etc.
Once the team sends a brief out the graphic designer things will move quickly. Is there any way we should be promoting or sharing this thread or getting the word so people can have input?
Another point is this plays well with the Jo V. Un illustrations that Tony Fast and Nick Bollweg worked on. I’ve passed those to the team. Here’s a slide deck of the loveable little astronaut.
I know this is more work for you, but if you have some particular design decision you want input on (like the phrasing of products vs. technologies, etc) maybe you could create a little google form or something and put it here? I find it a little hard to track a long discussion like this and know what to comment on.
EDIT: Or just a a survey that shows each screenshot one by and one asks for comments.
In threads like these, I try to keep the top-level comment updated with the “latest status” of conversation. E.g. any calls to action for participants can go there, mockups, latest proposals, etc
Thanks everyone for all the feedback so far! It’s really generating great discussions.
We’re trying to do some quick A/B testing to see how the general public would perceive and understand the content, and we’re hoping you guys can help us recruit some test participants! (The tool we’re using is called Lookback which will require a google chrome extension and can be easily removed after.) Here are the 2 versions of the website:
Is there any way to provide feedback without installing a chrome extension? I’m not willing to do that, and I don’t know any family or friends that would want to install an extension just to look at the test websites. Sending out a quick link would be much easier to get broad feedback.
To second @jasongrout’s point, I think we are going to get a really biased sample of opinions if we require people to use Chrome and to install an extension before giving their feedback…
So all remote unmoderated testing options that we’ve considered require chrome extensions to enable recording. But since this is an issue in recruiting participants, we decided to scrap this test and just go through a professional testing site (will be funded by UCI). And instead of testing 2 versions, we are creating a high fidelity mockup prototype with a happy-medium of the 2 content versions I posted last week. We are aiming to launch this test this coming week. We’ll keep you guys updated on any changes that come from the data
