website mockups, what is fedora?

[Toshio Kuratomi]

I have a nice point by point reply to this but after I wrote it I
realized that it's not going to do any good.  You misunderstand what I'm
saying in a ton of places.  And I'm sure that I must be misunderstanding
you in a ton of places as well (like the banner ads, your explanation
that they all go to the spins.fp.o overview was something I didn't
understand).  So replying to everything we don't see eye to eye with is
just going to make for longer and longer messages with more and more
tangents.  So let's try something different.  I'm going to just quote
where we agree and see if we can build anything up from there.

And a disclaimer: I'm not a member of the KDE SIG.  I can attempt to
talk about what I think they're thinking and feeling but I only attend
their meetings or read the #fedora-kde channel occasionally.  If Rex
speaks up with something different about how the KDE SIG feels, take him
as authoritative, not me.

On 08/21/2009 12:31 PM, Máirín Duffy wrote:
> On Fri, 2009-08-21 at 11:24 -0700, Toshio Kuratomi wrote:
>> I buy into the too much choice argument but the current mockup doesn't
>> make clear that the user has any choice at all.  If that's intentional,
>> there's no room for compromise here.  If that's not intentional, then it
>> needs to be worked on as a priority as without that, none of the people
>> who are not on the get-fedora page will have anyreason to make the spins
>> page better.
> 
> The choice on the page right now is, "Download Fedora" or "Download a
> different Fedora." That is intentional. Does that make sense or is this
> problematic to you?
> 
Speaking for me and only me, this choice makes sense to me.  I don't
think that it's extensible to be perfectly fair in this situation (GNOME
+ KDE + XFCE + LXDE + [Sugar] by the criteria of different desktop) and
I do think that "Download a different Fedora" can be made into a better
way to get to the redesigned spins than what is presently available.

> With that intention in mind, I totally admit maybe the "download a
> different Fedora" choice isn't prominent enough. I'm thinking adding a
> colorful/graphical banner to the sidebar to drive traffic to spins.fpo
> might be a good solution.

Excellent, doing something to enhance the "other choices link" is pretty
much all I'm driving at.  How much more prominent it needs to be, I
think, is where the compromise with the other spins will come in.



You also asked these questions which I think would be a good place to go
next:

* Why does the KDE SIG feel disenfranchised and demoralised by the mockups?

Remember when I said how we perceive this problem that you might be
looking at it as the poor design of the current site is driving away
lots of new users and the current contributors will "get over" any flaws
in the new design once the new design is up?  You came back with a
statement that if the result of your redesign was only that people felt
that they got over their negative feelings for the new design, you
wouldn't be doing this.

You've put a lot of hard work and effort into the new site.
Aesthetically it is worlds better than the old page.  Functionally, the
expectation is that it's a lot better as well.  If you release it and
the best that people can come up with is "well, I don't hate it as much
as when you first proposed it", that would be a huge let-down.  You've
done too much great work for people not to appreciate it.

That feeling is what the KDE SIG is feeling and for a similar reason.
They've put in a lot of hard work to make sure that KDE on Fedora rocks.
 It's up-to-date compared to other distros.  It's got people watching
for bugs and applying them to packages before the packages even get to
rawhide.  It's grown by quite a few new contributors over the past year.
 All in all, they're feeling successful and they know that they're
producing something that's great.

Now they see the website mockup.  Wow, it sure is beautiful!  Such an
improvement over what we had currently.  I'm sure glad Fedora KDE is
part of this.... Wait a minute.  Why isn't Fedora KDE part of this?!

At this point, people are feeling angry.  They've put in a lot of work,
making a stellar product.  And what they think the mockup is showing is
that their work isn't going to be easily findable anymore.  There's a
big button that says download Fedora and little text that says "More
Download Options".  What the hell, they think, don't people appreciate
the work we've done?

Then they go and attempt to provide input about what they find wrong
with the new design but they find out that people aren't interested in
listening to them.  Sure they've done work for on segment of Fedora, but
they aren't on the Board and they aren't the designer who made the
mockups and the mockups *are* satisfying the explicitly stated
requirements from the Board so what's the problem?  Don't you think it
looks better?  Come on, take one for the team!  It doesn't matter that
you aren't featured on get-fedora, if someone manages to find
spins.fp.o, they'll still be able to find kde there!

At this point, they are getting tired of being angry.  Instead, they
feel undervalued, not respected, not appreciated, powerless to affect
change, unlistened to.  The word for those feelings is disenfranchised.
 They also feel that they can put all the time they want into making
their piece of the project really shine but it doesn't make a difference
in the end -- their needs aren't being met.  The work that they've put
into Fedora isn't going to be seen.  The effort that they've spent
making Fedora better isn't visible.  This is where they start feeling
demoralized. [Now continue reading to the next question]

* What besides no link on get fedora to KDE is wrong with the page?
  * And implied by this: what's some constructive things we can do to
make those things better?

The answer to this question is problematic.  Because the simplistic
answer to the question, as you know from the feedback you've already
gotten, is that only the lack of a link to the KDE spin is what's wrong.

But that answer isn't the real story.  If I go to the doctor, I'll tell
him that I have a stomachache that won't go away.  It's up to the doctor
to figure out that I have the flu, cancer, or krone's disease.
Similarly, "There's no link to the KDE spin" is a report of the symptom.
 I think the cause is what was written in the first answer -- The KDE
SIG feels that their hard work is being undervalued and disregarded by
not having a link on the page.  They care deeply and passionately about
Fedora but it appears that the people who have power over Fedora don't
care about them and their work to make Fedora better.

The cure is to figure out how to redesign the page to show that their
work *is* valued.  I think this means showing how people can download
their product easily and intuitively if they want to.

The implementation of this cure is the hard part where you each have to
"spin your wheels" making new proposals that the other side can
criticize.  Right now, I think you are so far apart that the criticism
is simply rejecting the other side's proposals.  (Proposal: "Direct link
to KDE spin but Default spin highlighted more prominently and given
first position?" Answer: "No!"  Counter Proposal: "One button to Default
Spin and tiny link to spins page"  Counter Answer: "No!")  But if you
keep moving your proposals closer, there will be a point where you will
start building on each other's suggestions instead of rejecting them.
This is a hard process, made harder because you're the doctor in this
scenario.  You are the designer.  You have a grasp of the different UI
elements that are available.  So it's very likely to be your bag of
tricks that will be used to direct the people who want choice to the
spins page while letting the people who fear choice be comfortable
picking the default solution.


-Toshio

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