What do you think? (was Re: [Ambassadors] fedoracommunity.org portal design)

[Al Thomas]

----- Original Message ----
> From: Máirín Duffy <duffy at fedoraproject.org>
> Sent: Tue, 17 August, 2010 18:23:48
> Subject: What do you think? (was Re: [Ambassadors] fedoracommunity.org portal 
>design)
> 
> Here's some static HTML  mockups using the scheme Felix suggested:
> 
> http://duffy.fedorapeople.org/webdesign/fedoracommunity.org/html/16Aug2010/
> 
> What  do you think? Does it work? North America looks a little weird...
> how do you  think it should be handled, or do you think it's fine?
> 
> Also do you notice  any missing countries? India doesn't seem to have a
> site?  :(
> 

Great to see this progressing and still love the design.

It is pretty amazing so many people across the world have taken the time to 
develop their own Fedora regional websites and the earlier single page design 
gave me that impression. So a single directory page of regional websites which 
can only grow and further impress people with the widespread adoption and 
interest in Fedora across the planet is one way to go. I don't think people have 
too much problem navigating a clearly signposted directory page, even if it is 
long.

On the other hand there is a strong relationship between the Latin America 
Ambassador Region and the region specific websites, with a lot of the sites 
being under the proyectofedora.org domain. Maybe this should serve as the model 
page and a bit of a rethink goes on about the other ambassador regions because 
it's a nice idea to integrate the Fedora Ambassador regions into the 
organisation of the regional sites. It seems a bit odd though to have one site 
on the North America page. Also this is currently fedoraproject.org so not even 
sure they have their own site. Unless North America is going to rapidly expand 
with the number of regional sites, such as individual States in the USA, then I 
think the Ambassador regions could just have their own page. This can be the 
same design as the regional site directory, but serve a different set of contact 
information.

In terms of usability I would suggest the whole area for each item in the region 
navigation menu becomes clickable. Although the hover effect is nice, it is 
confusing as it does not lead to navigation, only by clicking on the words does 
anything happen and this is a much smaller area compared to the hover area. It 
would be unfortunate for people to leave the page because they thought the 
navigation didn't work. This is probably on the to do list, but if not I think 
it is an important usability issue.

So in short: Get all the ambassador regions to be like Latin America :-) or go 
for a long regional site directory page with Ambassador regions on a separate 
page with similar design.

Those are my thoughts, hope they help in some way,

Al