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By chrisstrahl on
The Drupal.org redesign team has made significant progress in the two sprints since our last update. Since beginning work with the contractor team, we have completed over 50 issues related to the Drupal redesign. We’ve also created a volume of documentation and posts related to our community initiatives and the redesign implementers group. We also presented a panel session, held BOF and sprinted at Drupalcon Copenhagen.
If you’re interested in looking at the work that we’ve done, it is all visible in the issue queue tagged with “drupal.org redesign”. You can also view our progress on http://redesign.drupal.org [user:drupal, pass:drupal]. Finally, you can also check out a video showcasing some of our progress.
An Overview
The redesign is entering its 8th week of development with our current team of contractors. We’ve made amazing progress, and this coming sprint (sprint 4) will be the last sprint where we add new features to the minimum viable product (that is, the version of the redesigned drupal.org that we’ll launch with). That’s right, a feature freeze is near. After that, there will be tasks related to testing, theme tweaks, content revisions and QA. We’re close. So close, in fact, that we’re getting a deployment checklist ready and prepping for a launch date announcement. There are just a few more things we need...
So How Can I Help Get A Solid Launch Date?
There are currently three areas where we really need some help:
- Marketing copy writers / editors / reviewers
- Screenshot creators (working with the marketing writers)
- Quality Assurance lead and testers
Right now, we primarily need marketing content created for the redesigned About page. Lisa Rex is coordinating this effort, and needs some good writers to fill in the new parts of our home. Ideally, we’ll have some attractive screenshots to illustrate this copy. All content issues are tagged ‘drupal.org redesign content’. Find yourself an issue to work on, or contact Lisa if you’re interested in helping and have questions.
Soon we’re going to be coordinating a major Quality Assurance effort for all of the new redesign features. We’re looking for someone immediately to help coordinate the QA efforts, and we’ll need several community volunteers to assist us in a couple of weeks when testing begins in earnest. If you’re interested in helping out as a QA lead or just want to do some QA testing, contact Chris Strahl.
Some highlights from the past two sprints:
Project module - 3281d
Derek Wright, Chad Phillips and Michael Prasuhn have been putting out some exceptional code. We currently have the following features ready for release:
- An amazing and flexible framework for project metrics was completed in sprint 3. The new metrics system will allow us to mine data from drupal.org in ways that we haven’t been able to in the past. Need to grab information about how many comments a day are posted to a random set of 500 nodes? Want to know what the most active days of the week are for code commits to the 10 most active projects? All of this is now possible. Here is a sample of what we’ve got so far.
- There is now a Maintainers tab within each project, available to project owners, that allows control over different aspects of your project! You can assign individuals access to Edit project, Administer maintainers, Administer releases, Maintain issues and Write to CVS. The best part is, when we move over to Git, we won’t have to rewrite this functionality!
- Many improvements were also made to Version Control API (with a lot of work from Sam Boyer) and project browsing and filtering. Version Control API is going to help us move forward on the Git migration, while project browsing and filtering enhances the way that we use drupal.org on a daily basis.
Prior to launch, we’ll be fully implementing the metrics system throughout the site and doing some pretty awesome stuff with visualizations and the sparklines system. This lets us create simple browsing features and visualizations for the individual project pages. We want to take the work we’ve done and enhance the way that people browse and view projects on drupal.org.
Search - Achieve Internet
Bill O’Connor has nearly completed all of the objectives set forth for the search / Solr part of the redesign. We’ve gotten through the following:
- Through the help of Peter Wolanin and Narayan Newton, drupal.org and all of the associated sub-sites can now run off of a single Solr index. This allows us to search multiple *.drupal.org sites at the same time! This new multi-site search will be rolled out with the redesign and include drupal.org, groups.drupal.org, and association.drupal.org in the initial launch.
- All of the facet blocks and project browsing features that called for use of Solr in the redesign plan are functioning beautifully. This will be visible in the form of those handy navigation blocks that are faceted based on the attributes of the modules, themes or other pieces of content you’re looking for.
Prior to launch, we’re also going to have the ability to search uploaded documents on all of our drupal.org sites using Solr and Tika. We’ll also be rolling out a new search box dubbed “how can we help you” with some advanced searching options for users.
Infrastructure - Tag1 Consulting
Narayan Newton and Rudy Grigar completed the following infrastructure tasks:
- The site git.drupalcode.org is now fully running and stable. It was used as a part of Randy Fay’s presentation at Drupalcon Copenhagen.
- A load testing framework for the redesign based on work done on The Examiner project is done. This will be the basis for most of the load testing for all of the new redesign features. This lets us quickly create and run load tests for the complex features we’re about to roll out on the site.
- An infrastructure plan to move all of the *.drupal.org sites to BZR and get them all set in terms of infrastructure. A public post of this is coming.
- Search can now be run from a single Solr index across multiple sites. This also allowed us to rework the Solr infrastructure in a more sustainable way.
This sprint will focus on getting the initial load tests going and developing a go-live checklist for the site. We’ll be updating the community when we need QA volunteers.
“The Architect” - Neil Drumm
The following has been done as part of the greater community initiative:
- Implementation instructions for developers are finalized and updated.
- “How to work on the redesign” has been updated.
- Created the “Community Spotlight” forum to collect responses.
- You can now geolocate yourself on your drupal.org profile! We’ll be using this feature on the map widget and other parts of drupal.org. Just edit your profile and select “save my location”. You can even see where you’ll end up on the map!
- For your dashboard, we are working to improve Homebox. For content, we are using flag page to keep track of useful pages. We are planning to add more blocks, like “My Issues” and “My Projects,” laying groundwork for adding issue subscriptions.
- Created the “How to get involved” block on the Getting Involved page.
- The home page is coming together with help from content volunteers, theme developers, and Jon Skulski developing the “Sites We Made with Drupal” slider.
Neil will be continuing to coordinate the completion of the theme and working on the remaining issues associated with the redesign. This sprint, he will be focusing on completing the dashboard and planning for upcoming testing.
Project Management - Kieran Lal, Lisa Rex, Chris Strahl
The PM team has been working to ensure the redesign effort stays on track. In addition to running sprint planning, deliverable reviews, and keeping up with the communication to the community, we’ve accomplished the following:
- Chris Strahl has been contracted with the Drupal Association to step up his project management involvement for both the redesign and the Git migration.
- Lisa Rex’s involvement has been supported by Growing Venture Solutions.
- Weekly theme meetings have been organized for the team leads, architect and some project managers.
- A new community spotlight forum has been added. Individuals, teams, themes and modules can be written up into a community spotlight. Selected spotlights will be featured on select pages within the new site. You can read more about how to be featured in the community spotlight.
- Content for the high-level overview of Drupal’s features is being organized, and needs some writers/editors to help. These pages will form a prominent subsection of the About pages.
- We have deployed a new advertising section on the hosting page. This will help generate revenue for future drupal.org projects.
- We have recruited additional development resources to assist Neil and the greater redesign effort with some development support.
- Members of the PM team helped to organize and present sessions at Drupalcon Copenhagen.
As we near the completion of this project, the PM team is busy ensuring that nothing slips through the cracks. We’ve been coordinating with Jacob Redding, the Drupal Association’s managing director, to make sure budgets are in order, and we’ve been working hard to complete a redesign backlog. With this, we’ve been able to define an “end point” for this project’s minimum viable product, and we’re now pushing toward that goal in the current sprint.
Everything Else
This project is complex with a lot of moving parts. Unfortunately, we can’t showcase every feature that we’re going to implement. However, if you’re interested, check out the full list of completed issues to see what else we’ve accomplished.
Bluecheese Theme
The theme has seen some good improvements from Keith Jay, Carl Wiedemann, and others. The remaining issues are in the Bluecheese project queue. The main pages are going well, but as always, there is a lot of detail work as the site functionality and content gets filled out. *.drupal.org has an especially broad range of things to be themed.
What about Git?
Moving forward, Git is going to be managed separately from the rest of the redesign. While in Copenhagen, the Git team met with the Drupal Association and presented a plan for implementing Git Phase 2 for the Drupal community over the next several months. In anticipation of the acceptance of this plan, we’ve separated the Git project from the rest of the redesign efforts. Chris Strahl is going to assist Angie Byron and Sam Boyer as the project manager. Initial planning of the project backlog is visible, and the community can expect an update from that team soon.
Comments
Woah. Awesome summary,
Woah. Awesome summary, awesome work, folks! :)
Daniel 'sun' Kudwien
makers99
Update Drupal.org to the
Update Drupal.org to the newest version before release it. Drupal 1 to Drupal 5 did, not drupal 6. How about D7?
Updating drupal.org to D7
Updating drupal.org to D7 would be a ton more work. I can't speak for the other redesign contributors, but I'm ready to release the new drupal.org !! It's been two years or so since this project started.
Improvements to drupal.org will be ongoing and continuous, including an upgrade to D7 at some point in the future.
Yeah very nice work, gg all !
Yeah very nice work, gg all !
Also, here's a short
Also, here's a short screencast giving an overview of the recent redesign progress.
http://blip.tv/file/4046713/
Kieran and I made it during Drupalcon Copenhagen.
Added a Link to Video in Main Post
Thanks for linking that Lisa! I've added it to the main post.
2 years work and now its out of date
Yes i know there is a new code of conduct on Drupal and you have to be nice
But that doesnt mean you cant be honest
The current Drupal design isnt what you would call a pretty site by any means
The typography is awful, its clunky and looks 10 - 15 years out of date
So it badly needs a redesign
Heres my honest assessment of the new design
If you look at the front page its a complete mess of visual elements
The header is the perfect example, there are 7 elements that have been crammed in
If you scan the page, your eyes dont take anything in
Its like the idea was to try and cram in as many elements as possible as a showcase of features
The search box seems to be suffering from gigantism
Its completely out of proportion with the rest of the site
That green colour make me feel queasy every time i look at it
There are other colours apart from blue, it looks to similar to the current design
If you go to the getting-started/install page, you have a colour combination of light blue, dark blue, green, yellow and beige
The contrast beween the dark blue strip and the blue in the header is too strong as well
Having 2 rows of tabs doesnt work for me
You have the tabs in the header and then another row of tabs below them
Whats the purpose of the huge beige blocks on the documentation page, only the text in the blocks work as links
From a ui perspective it doesnt work because you expect each row of the block to work as a link (css display block)
Then when you click the block and nothing happens you think its just a heading or something
There is no visual clue the text in the beige blocks are links, because they are arent the same colour as the rest of the links on the site
What are the blocks supposed to be, they look like a pop out css menu without the menu
You would expect some kind of hover effect on the blocks and the whole row to be a link
People become conditioned as to how different styles of navigation on a webpage work, and the beige blocks arent at all obvious for your average user
The community page looks unbalanced, the text under the tabs is smaller than the text in the sidebar
Which means you focus on the sidebar and not the content
It looks too much like lots of people have been working independently and all the bits have been bolted together
There doesnt seem to be any overall master plan for the ui, colour scheme, colour contrasts, or general branding
Eating your own dog food
Its will look rather odd to be promoting Drupal 7 if the Drupal.org is running a Drupal 6 site and theme
If you are playing devils advocate you could say it took 2 years to update the Drupal.org site and by the time it was finished it was out of date
Wheres the html5 and css3 stuff ?
css media queries, semantic markup, offline application cache
It is not difficult to build an html5 drupal site that works in all browsers even IE 6
I havent said im going to hold a burn a drupal handbook day
So dont start issuing fatwa's
But its an open source project and people do all this for nothing so you not allowed to criticise it
People who visit the site wont care if the design was done by a team of volunteers, they will just judge by how it looks
Of course i expect the standard drupal response which is to shoot the messenger
Your just trolling, why dont you contribute to the forums, why dont you help out then, what do you know, we will ban you, etc
If you search drupal you can find a list of sites i have built so you can see if i know what im on about
Just because something is open source doesnt mean you cant point out its flaws
Otherwise it just a case of the Emperors new clothes
+1
I agree absolutely. It is personally agonizing and astonishing no one else thinks the same.
In comparsion: WP site with almost no-scroll front page, http://modxcms.com/, http://www.djangoproject.com/ etc looks so professional and eyecandy and useful at the same time.
Even http://acquia.com/ and http://drupal.com/ and drupal gardens looks much more better.
(It seems more people will be attracted to these, and sorry to say this keeps me wondering if this is on purpose). And even the current drupal.org has far better visual appeal.
However I am sure no one will respond positively and make a re-change, and perhaps there will be loads of useless (useless to me) counter-arguments to this. So I quit :)
Come for the burgers, stay for the service
Wow someone actually agrees with me for once on drupal.org
The new tagline sounds like an ad for a restaurant as well
Hmm
Its sort of "restaurantized" indeed and seems like a copy.
http://redesign.drupal.org/community says that the first line of support is "commercial" where it should be the "Forum"s instead.
The wordpress tagline is "WordPress is web software you can use to create a beautiful website or blog. We like to say that WordPress is both free and priceless at the same time."
There should be something better and more beautiful at the tagline and the subtagline text in Druapl.org.
The Slogan Has Been Chosen By The Community
@kaakuu
Please see discussions here, here, and here (from oldest to newest) regarding our site slogan. There was also a discussion about it at Drupalcon CPH. This has been a a decision that has been both public and open for months now. Please feel free to participate in the decision making process in one of those appropriate venues.
Secondly, if you have a content issue related to the redesign, please post it as an issue for review in the drupal.org redesign content queue or similarly appropriate venue for a discussion about rearranging and moving content. Also, since you seem vocal about participating in content strategy, I encourage you to pick up any of the issues within the queue and assist the redesign team.
---
Thanks a lot chrisstrahl for the links.
Much of the redesign works started outside drupal.org scattered over various places in the net. Initially the redesign site was also locked out from public access and redesign stories did not hit frontpage top story of drupal org like it does now till many things were already fixed.
There were many things that the community did not agree like
the giant search box
font size etc
and the tagline claimed to be chosen by community is either 'wont fix' issue or very few participants' issue.
Despite requests long long ago to start something like http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ or http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/ it was always ignored because it could actually upset the already taken decisions or decisions by few of the "community" at the hands of a better, well-displayed and quantatively measurable statistically better input.
It is true that Drupal is drupal and Worpress is wordpress but in many posts from the head men there has been comparison of WP usability or popularity with that of Drupal. Why cannot that be applied to the site design itself!
I know there are issue lists and I know in some matters these can be very lame. This is a forum to discuss which is what I did. If any people find something +V in it they can fill up the issues and if anyone with the power think its never too late to correct they can correct.
How about a test like usability test that asks virgin volunteers to assess which looks more appealing :
the current drupal.org, the Acquia site, the drupal.com site, the drupal gardens site OR the redesign site? Honestly what appeals to you more if you see without bias and don't point fingers to the community that they chose it? I will appreciate your answer.
All these are drupal sites and not wp or joomla. I am not finding any appropriate issue list to file this so I am putting it here just in the form and spirit of forum discussion.
PS : Back in the days when scattered redesign efforts were carried we people were told nothing is written in stone and things will change but the released redesign site shows nothing has changed visually. There was no consensus of opinion of the community in the multitude of iterations that took place outside the issues of drupal.org, Please note that we all appreciate the structural/back-bone improvements like better search, personalization etc - the rant is about the visual appeal, lame tagwords, unusually small size of fonts, certain cramming of elements,too long scroll for the home page and few missing elements like the sidebar we were all used to. Thanks for your patience.
Edited : I submitted an issue here :http://drupal.org/node/910780
A-MEN. Thank you. I
A-MEN. Thank you. I absolutely agree with Daniel here. What was the person thinking when he did the re-design, and why is the whole team thats involved so blind that they don't see the new design sucks bigtime and doesn't represents drupal like it should? Probably because you're all a bunch of code monsters and it's generally known that coders can't design, and designers can't code.
+1000000000. VERY well said!
What was the person thinking
Why don't you take a few minute and read up on why "the person" did what they did?
Great works! Very nice
Great works! Very nice report.
Thanks to spend energy and time to this redesign.
Front page visual distractions
Issues with the front page
Sites We Made with Drupal
Whats the point of a carousel showcasing sites built with Drupal with image screenshots so small you can't see the actual websites being promoted
You have a carousel constantly scrolling from left to right in the middle of the screen, then you have the Drupalcon map pop up constantly popping up in the bottom of your browser window obscuring the content above it
Its makes it impossible to actually focus on the little content there is on the page without being distracted
So the main point of focus on the page is a carousel with images so small you cant see anything with a large amount of white space under it, and column heights that dont match
The text that explains what Drupal actual does is crammed into a tiny column on the left of the page
You have to squint really hard to read it, its just a huge blob of text
Wheres the grid, the visual alignment of the various elements on the page
It just looks like a bunch of different modules have been added to the front page in an effort to make it look whizzy
Heres a simple test
Which of these 2 sites looks most professional, presents its content cleanly and is easy to scan over and get in a few seconds
http://wordpress.org/
http://redesign.drupal.org/
The new drupal.org front page looks very amateurish in comparison to Wordpress
Surely the whole point is to showcase Drupal as a cms, how it can organise and display your content
How does it look when you cant even display your own content on the front page so people can actually read it
Hardly a good advert for a cms is it
Even Joomla has a better front page than the new Drupal design
http://www.joomla.org/
Your Feedback
Daniel,
Thanks for taking the time to put your feedback into writing. It's obvious that you feel strongly about the redesign and our efforts.
However, you're a bit late to the party. We've been working on this project for quite some time, and Amazon has been reporting regularly on our results throughout the project. Now, we're on the cusp of completing the redesign, and the team of more than 20 people has spent hundreds of hours working toward this goal. This is a time for us to celebrate our accomplishments so far and to be excited about how far we've come. We can't make a wild directional change at this point in the project. The community, you included, has been given dozens of chances to give feedback, participate, and help us make our new home what it is. The team is really excited to prepare for the launch, and I think we've accomplished some amazing things. Our community's contribution to this over the past months was key to getting the project to this point, as was the help from the Drupal Association.
Of course, I encourage you to post your feedback in the groups page for the redesign, or open some UX and design related issues for future consideration. Heck, if you feel like it you can probably get started on some great ideas for the next redesign iteration. Regardless, listing them out as a comment in a post about a redesign sprint, even with the best of intentions, is probably not the best way to get your ideas implemented.
Finally, making rather spurious claims about the value of our homepage versus another CMS site's is pretty silly :-). We're not Wordpress; we're not Joomla; we're Drupal. The redesign site was created by the Drupal community, vetted by it, and worked on by it. It may not be perfect, but it's ours - designed, built, and soon implemented by our community.
Done is Beautiful!
Very well said! :) I'm totally stoked to see this go live after so much hard work. And both this post and the previous redesign update outlining all of the amazing improvements to our search infrastructure, our project management tools, our project metrics, our underlying server infrastructure, new personalization features... it's so exciting to see this all come together, and will give us a really awesome base from which to build further improvements.
Go Redesign Team Go! :D
... and again after 1
... and again after 1 sentence, you decide to ramble about the underlying structure and code, rather than the design.
Making an ugly site even uglier, thats some accomplishment
Not being able to read the text on the front page that tells you what Drupal does isn't an issue
Really are you sure
That is a serious and fundamental flaw, and the fact you cant even see that is simply incredible
You have completely missed the point about comparing Drupal design with its other CMS
You have to look at the competition, and see what your up against
Im saying the standard of your work doesnt hold up to either Wordpress or Joomla and looks amateurish by comparison
First impression count
The new front page is a visual dogs breakfast, and not something i would show to clients and expect them to be impressed by
Its like you people have never built a website before, you seem to lack even a basic grasp of web design and how to layout content
The About page looks like a rip of a Joomla admin page and its icons from several years ago
There isnt even a Download drupal button on the front page, its labelled Get Started with Drupal
I despair
_
Continually throwing rocks at other people's hard work is not going to get your anywhere, seriously. You've been a member for over 4 years-- well before the redesign effort began. If you really wanted to have a positive effect you should have participated in the effort. As chrisstrahl said, it's been well publicized and reported on for the duration of the project. Repeatedly hurling 11th hour insults at those that chose to contribute their time and effort in a forum thread is nothing but a waste of everyone's time. If you actually want to try and improve the project you have such a strong opinion about, chris listed some valuable suggestions.
We get it-- you don't like the redesign. Its time to either do something about it or move on.
Your one to talk
Pointing out that the redesign is fundamental flawed, in terms of design, and the presentation of content is not throwing rocks as you put it
I am doing something about, im giving you feedback as to where you are going wrong
I have raised perfectly valid points, in terms of design, ui, and how content is presented
So pointing out that you cant read the text on the front page that describes what Drupal does because its been crammed into a 300px by 170px box in one huge blob is wasting peoples time is it
Your general response in forums is the same every time
For example
When asked about about the instructions for installing the PECL library your response is to post a search term on Google
Then your next response is
"drupal has nothing to do with pecl packages or apc-- those are server configuration items to which drupal has no access. What else can be done except inform the user that this option is available?"
whatdoesitwant responds
"What else can be done is obviously to provide up to date installation instructions on d.o. for at least OSX and the current flavours of Ubuntu and CentOS."
Your response
"There's nothing stopping that documentation from being written and contributed. EVERY registered user on drupal.org has the permissions to edit and add documentation. Unfortunately, it would seem people prefer to spend their time complaining in the forums rather than contributing documentation to the handbooks. This thread is a perfect example."
So when someone says there is information lacking on drupal on how to do something you suggest they right their own documentation, how does that work
Thats a really helpful attitude and speaks volumes for the supposed community spirt here on drupal.org
So im not about to take lectures from you on being helpful
See this comment thread
http://drupal.org/node/456686
Getting things done...
"So when someone says there is information lacking on drupal on how to do something you suggest they right their own documentation, how does that work "
It works exactly like this: http://www.lullabot.com/articles/drupal-best-practice-document-your-way-.... It is, in fact, pretty much the only way that documentation actually gets written, because those who already know how it works, or aren't affected by a particular issue, can't do it themselves.
There seems to be a fundamental disconnect here. People who are being told "Please go here, here, and here if you want to help," seem to feel as though they are being given the brush off. That's not the case, and actually couldn't be further from the truth. This is quite simply just how things get done in the Drupal community, and we're trying to give you the tools to use your passion to see things improve most effectively.
You cant write the documentation if you don't know the answer
You have missed my point entirely
If you are asking a question in the forum chances are you have googled around, searched drupal and come up blank
So you are asking someone to help you fix your problem
If you are stuck and dont know how to fix something you cannot document the solution until you know it yourself
Otherwise the forums would be full of half finished instructions
So being told to write the your own documentation for a solution you dont yet know doesnt help anyone
If they knew the answer why would they be asking the question in the first place
Occasionally you find someone answering their own question on the forum, i was trying to do this and found a useful blog post here that shows you what to do, hope that helps someone.
What normally happens is people resolve their problem and then get on with building their site.
Getting people to contributing back documentation to the community is another issue
What i was pointing out as an example is that there is very little documentation for setting up the pecl progressbar
Drupal ships with the ability to use PECL and give you an error message if its not installed
Someone quite reasonable said in a forum post shouldnt you have instructions for the major operating systems at least
And the response they get is to work it out themselves and then document it, how does that help them install it
Drupal.org's blog has never had a strong tradition of articles, not in the same way as a list apart, nettus or ajaxian
Maybe ive missed all the great articles over the years, and they have been hidden behind the sea of blue and bullet points thats the current theme
I notice that no one actually wants to address any of the issue i pointed out with the theme and instead trots out the same old tired drupal responses.
Also, about timing (and tone)...
The push-back you're seeing from various folks is not about the content of your suggestions, but on the timing of those suggestions. Abandoning course 90% of the way through to implementation simply makes absolutely no sense. Nor does changing the specification when we're a few weeks out before launching a multi-year initiative.
Imagine, if you will, that you were on a major, multi-year web project for a client. Let's call them Boopal. Your team had met with several hundred of the major stakeholders in the project, and worked with them through planning, architecture, design, multiple iterations on that design, recruiting, infrastructure build-out, feature building, theming, content generation, and so on. Then, during the final sprint, as you were putting finishing touches on the features and heading into QA, a person from your client's organization who'd been uninvolved during the entire rest of the project waltzed in and said, "Wow, this completely sucks. Back to the drawing board!"
I'm quite sure this wouldn't be met very well by your team. In fact, there might even be some choice four-letter words involved. Yet, this is exactly what you and kaakuu are doing. It kind of blows my mind that you don't understand why this isn't being met with the utmost appreciation.
Also, in terms of tone. You obviously have the right to say whatever you want, whenever you want to say it, and even however you want to say it. No one is threatening anyone with banning here. But realize that when you express yourself like this you are being incredibly damaging to the community. This is what actively drives people away from helping on large, ambitious initiatives that help propel the Drupal project forward. Just as you and your team would never work for Boopal again.
Does this mean you shouldn't make suggestions on how to further improve things? Of course not! But use the proper channels, and the proper tone. And realize that until the redesign gets launched, we're not going to change the spec. This isn't some kind of nefarious, dark plot to stifle community opinions in favour of commercial interests or whatever outlandish thing was suggested above. This is simply just sound project management; a project with a shifting spec never completes, and only demoralizes the team implementing it.
I hope that you do get involved and help make further improvements once we can all celebrate our new home's new arrival. There's lots of documentation on how to get started at http://groups.drupal.org/drupalorg-redesign-implementers. And I also hope that you grow compassion and empathy for your fellow site builders, and remember that we're all human behind our blue nick-names. If those two things happen with everyone who wants to see Drupal.org improved, I think our community will be unstoppable. :)
Timings not my fault
The Timing:
You guys made the big announcement about how the redesign is almost complete
So i dont quite see how you can blame me for the timing
I have only seen 2 blog posts on drupal.org about the redesign and i did raise a few points the last time
Apart from that i havent heard anything about the redesign
When i point out some serious fatal flaws in the redesign you all put your fingers in your ears and go "la la la im not listening".
The Tone:
Im going to tell it how it is, and call a spade a spade
You still havent actually addressed any off the issues i have raised with the redesign
The Emperor's New Clothes
"We are two very good tailors and after many years of research we have invented an extraordinary method to weave a cloth so light and fine that it looks invisible. As a matter of fact it is invisible to anyone who is too stupid and incompetent to appreciate its quality."
Everyone said, loud enough for the others to hear: "Look at the Emperor's new clothes. They're beautiful!"
A child, however, who had no important job and could only see things as his eyes showed them to him, went up to the carriage.
"The Emperor is naked," he said.
Not sure what else to say...
I'm kind of at a loss on what else we can do here.
* We've provided background on the redesign process, and shown where you can read up on major decisions that were reached by the community and why.
* We've given you concrete steps on how you can make your legitimate feedback constructive and actionable and directly participate in the process.
* We've given you sound advice for how the Drupal community gets things done, and how you can interact with the community in an effective way.
* We've tried to explain why the method in which you're going about providing your feedback is not only ineffective, since it's not being captured in actionable issues, but also harmful to the community.
You see us going "lalalala" instead of acting on your feedback. We see you going "lalalala" when we give you the very tools and advice that you need in order to get your feedback acted upon. Stalemate. :\
I guess I can only hope that others will heed this advice, and will join up with the team to put their criticisms into actions in an effective, mutually respectul way. And that maybe one day you'll come around to join us, too. I hold out hope! :)
@Daniel J Wilcox Please read
@Daniel J Wilcox Please read http://drupal.org/node/908744#comment-3448058 to join the proper issue.
When i point out some serious
and
Thanks. If you would, please put your points and issues in the place where they are most helpful: http://drupal.org/project/issues/search?text=&projects=&assigned=&submit...
Feedback were given in proper time
"This isn't some kind of nefarious, dark plot to stifle community opinions in favour of commercial interests or whatever outlandish thing was suggested above."
I agree to what is said. This is not a dark plot.
But issue at http://drupal.org/node/910780 says "The redesign process has been lead by Mark Boulton". Thus the redesign process did not start in and by the community as suggested somewhere above. To the best of my knowledge Mr. Boulton had not been part of the drupal community, neither his portfolio showed at that time any experience of dealing with any project even half as huge and as complex as Drupal. The channels where it started was outside drupal.org, scattered, not chosen by or very well known to all. Those were supposed to be "proper" at that time and feedbacks were indeed given there at that time.
The main "redesign" that the "community" has actually wanted, as apparent from numerous feedbacks in drupal.org, is a better search (already implemented), a way to bookmark and un-bookmark posts, a better subscription to posts, and better documentation. Bookmarking is a programmatic thing, outside Boulton's domain. And documentation : could there have been hiring here? I do not know.
If I would want damage to the community I would not be helping out in the forum or pointing out bugs. To the allegations why things were not pointed out in proper time and proper channels I say for the last time:
Throughout the 11 iterations and almost from the first or second iterations things like giant search box, font size etc have been pointed out. To measure that input, at least quantitatively and keep a clean, at-a-glance record, things like http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ or http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/ were suggested. These suggestions or feedback was done in proper time and long ago but *never* implemented.
People were also told during the iterations that nothing is written in stone and so far as looks are concerned they can be changed. It *never* got changed actually and the frontpage stories about redesign hit too late.
It was also suggested that "Commercial support" should not be the first line in the list of support stuffs - this suggestion was given during the initial iterations, Not implemented when I last saw the page yesterday.And do you think with these huge number of posts, Forum support/Docs is not the first line of support in Drupal? As a sidenote and somewhat OT (but still a footer design element) it is interesting and inspiring to note that the WordPress trademark now belongs to the non-profit WordPress Foundation which contrasts with the Drupal. Mind you, I am not complaining here just stating a fact.
Look, heated arguments in one or two threads does not damage a community. Friction always suggest that something good is happening. Few people will hardly read through this post but they will look at the front page for time to come. Whether it is years of work or work by community if some logo is detected as a copy or copy-ish any time the project or community will have to abandon it. This is what was suggested at about the tagline which sounds copyish. Recently facebook sued teacherbook just for the word book appended at the end of 'teacher', who wins will be seen at the court but that has been a hassle.
This is a forum, so we have open discussions and side-talks. This is not issue list or anything else. So I asked one honest opinion. For this you do not have to change any schedule or schema. What appeals to you or others here, visually : the Acquia site, the drupal.com site, the drupal gardens site OR the redesign site? Giving or avoiding the answer is up to you but those who unbiasedly wants to answer this can answer here easily or join here http://drupal.org/node/910780
[ This link is an "actionable issue" but this has been marked won't fix so far ]
What's the harm in having an answer :) Please do not think of me as an enemy. I have also said above that I much appreciate the structural/back-bone improvements like better search etc. Thanks again for your patience in reading these.
Edited : "Commercial support" seems to be on the way to be finally demoted after 1-2 years of feedback - http://drupal.org/node/912946
I like to thanks very much
I like to thanks very much for time, effort and anything spending by redesign team . God bless redesign team!
Daniel compare the design of redesign.drupal.og in Visual/Art portion while the redesign team focus on functionality/Access of the web (if you look at "we have completed over 50 issues" statement then you will know).
Daniel should not compare the Visual design to Wordpress even Joomlart (http://www.joomlart.com/drupal/themes) because they are too professional, we all know that redesign.drupal.org is not professional look but it is better than drupal.org design.
Maybe hire Joomlart team will solve our problem. This mean current redesign team is good but sometime we need more professional team to solve particular design. One of my favorit Drupal design collections: http://www.templatemonster.com/category/drupal-templates/
NOTE: please visit http://www.joomlart.com/drupal/themes before you add another comments to this issue, hope this will give you a picture between "Visual" and "Functionallity" on a web design.
Again, thanks to current Drupal redesign team for their hardwork! Just my humble opinion ...
You must be joking!
"Even Joomla has a better front page than the new Drupal design"
You must be joking!
No im serious
You can actually read the text on the Joomla site
On the Drupal front page redesign the text that tells you what Drupal does is crammed into a box 300px wide and 170px high
So the most important piece of text on the front page is impossible to read and not in a prominent position
There is no thought given to typography or readability
What about accessibility, is that not important anymore
Daniel, you have been member
Daniel, you have been member on drupal.org for 4 years. You had your chance to influence the redesign of drupal.org. Now we all know that it's too late for any new suggestions. New design might not be flawless, but it's great improvement from what we have. And this is not the end.
I think, Mark Boulton and team has done a great job on D7 and drupal.org redesign. (http://www.markboultondesign.com/).
Thank you everyone involved in the redesign! Great Work. Waiting for the new design and D7.
Not in my name
There was 1 previous blog post on Drupal.org and made my feeling know then.
Apart from that i havent heard anything about it, then its suddenly announced the redesign is almost complete.
I thought this was the effort of the community, like the themes on drupal.org which have always been a bit clunky
I didnt realise that a web design agency had been hired to work with the drupal community to produce the redesign, that makes the result even worse. It doesnt say much about the standard of work produce by the agency either
I really dont see anything amazing in Mark Boultons portfolio, what am i supposed to be impressed by
Very bog standard sites, almost template like.
My mate who does all the designs for my Drupal site has been building sites since the early 90's, he used to work at Saatchi and now work for another of the largest Ad agencys in the world.
Having worked with him on commercial drupal projects and non drupal sites i know the standard of work commercial clients expect
The redesign for drupal.org will not attract or impress commercial clients
It is not of a high enough standard
Maybe you need an eye exam
I can read every word on every page of the redesigned site.
As for accessibility, have you looked at it with style sheets disabled? Any screen reader will breeze through that stuff. Don't use a screen reader, just need text bigger.. I can zoom in 5 times in firefox on my 1920x1080 21" monitor, without producing a horizontal scroll bar, and that effectively makes all of the body text about 30px.
It's plenty readable, and the typography is clean...
So... what, really, is your problem? Is it the blue? It must be the blue.
Follow me on twitter.
Your havent read the points i have raised
I said the problem with the readability and accessibility was on the front page with Why Choose Drupal? text
The text that explains what Drupal does ( Why Choose Drupal? ) is crammed into a 300px by 170px box in one huge blob
The most important bit of text on the front page isnt easy to scan and you have to squint to read it.
Zoom in once and the text in the header goes behind the tabs, and the radio buttons under search break out into the section below
"So... what, really, is your problem? Is it the blue? It must be the blue."
Why dont you actually take the time to read the points i have raised before you comment
Otherwise you are wasting your time responding to things you havent read
I feel with you and others who supported you
Hi Daniel. I confess I did not read all the comments-and-feedback-reactions from your first post and I will not never try to resume or try to give clear explanations and suggestions, but I can declare that I found some of your point very interesting. I'm also around 4 years member of this community and still try from time to time to understand the Dynamical Politic of this community.
Drupal.org is an open source community. There is still a prominent Leader that is also CEO of Development of this community, he is also permanent member of the Drupal Association and co-founder of Acquia. So in a way he is somehow the Head of 3 distinguished political and development and commercial area. the only place were open source supporter individuals have a chance to contribute is in the Forum.
I mean to have power of changing and influencing something constructively on Drupal.org is when you become an active Drupal developer. In this case one day if you are good you will become one of the prominent members on Drupal.org and be commended to take over, for free, a sector of responsibility. That sector may be Documentation or Security or User-Admin. As far I have understand, please excuse my ignorance, for starting to grow in this community an individual should learn to use first Drupal, no matter if the site has a good or actual of effective design and functioning features.
In regard of the redesign the Drupal Community leader together with other prominent people decided to invest time and money taking the help of a complete outsider design company. This happen and the Hungarian Drupalcon. Please excuse me if do not provide date or links or because I am avoiding to name involved individuals in my really stupid approach to speak out why I do really agree with you in some points.
So this new redesign Idea started almost 2 years ago and I still ask myself why this project started moving outside Drupal.org ? I just remember that some of the redesign team member of the outsider Design Company started a site and this site was the first approach to ask the Drupal Community to collaborate, and know what? The site was running on Wordpress!!!.
Yes I know there where some people from the community (Drupal) and maybe some from outside that discussed a bit over this but it was archived and other new site projects about usability and what ever where started a bit on group.drupal.org and other again somewhere outside using Wordpress.
Why I am speaking all of this weird information, that's very simple: for me Drupal.org does not really represent a community, even I have to say that I am still impressed and gratefully by Drupal and all the thousand contributers that help developing it and the other hundreds that from time to time help out in the Forum (like me).
Drupal.org is a place where you can find people that use Drupal and some that contribute to the development of the code and some about theming. But the power in any case lies by the developers.
The majority of users, the folk, the people of any democratic state in the world (may and surely some other institutional types too) that use Drupal and liked to register on Drupal.org have very weak influence about how a Drupal.org redesign would best look. They never used a Poll on Drupal.org to get an overview asking those about how the majority would have like that Drupal.org design could have look. And as far as I know POLL.module exist from the early Drupal versions or am I wrong?
Another aspect is that if the Leader and all the prominent Association Member have decided to boost end review the Drupal.org redesig and see that without taking and commission this task to an outside company this was not makable is ther right and my personal opinion because there where never initiative to build volunteer designer group out of all members of Drupal.org in the past, I guess.
As I said the power lies by the developers group of prominent Drupal.org members and it's leader so why you wonder? We will all enjoy the time the new Redesign will come online and for the sake of peace, please be gratefully that it will come and with the support of developers and some well paid design company and the support of membership of those member registered with the Drupal Association and all the great people that visit and joins Drupalconvs.
I excuse me with all ones that know my weird and long way to express and my modest critical and funny position and representative of the newbies category in and out the Drupal Community.
Regards
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Interesting additions.
Interesting additions.
"I confess I did not read all the comments-and-feedback-reactions"
It will be great if you read.
"and some well paid design company "
I think people will be interested in "well" design company, irrespective of the pay. Well paid companies can produce ill designs. A "well" company to be actually "well" needs also to have some experience in something as big and complex as drupal. Two wheeler engineer cannot design aeroplane, for example. And is this design by a company or the community? There seems to be much confusion :)
"They never used a Poll on Drupal.org"
Actually Yes!. They did use. See http://drupal.org/node?page=141
You need not essentially call it poll these days if it sounds allergic or cheap but better names/structures are there - see links just below. With all that you say about ""is ther right"" I will like to modestly point out that similar efforts like Drupal with similar heirarchy/leadership patterns do have stuffs like http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/ or http://wordpress.org/extend/ideas/
Thanks for "coming" to this post. Have you looked at the issues created? What is your feedback on those issues on re-design? http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/redesign?issue_tags=drupal.org%2... and http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/bluecheese?issue_tags=drupal.org...
Hi @KaaKuu, as I said, I add
Hi @KaaKuu,
as I said, I add my comment well knowing that my way of express my self opinion in English could lead to misunderstanding. I'm not a Web-Designer, not a trained Drupal code Developer, just a long time Drupal user and with the time I learn step by step, item by item about PHP and CSS and JS etc. I clearly state that I'm not interested to list the huge amount of links that I collected for my own like to understand and forging in the fantastic Open Source Community phenomena.
I just desire to focus that even with the time some members and group of people on Drupal.org get closer, join efforts and task to develop Drupal further and manage all public resources, like Drupal.org, Drupalconvs and DrupalCamps, in my Eyes the site Drupal.org is not a Community but a place where you find a huge amount of Drupal users, Drupal app documentation and information.
Maybe I was weird but I admire and respect very much the great efforts and achievements that Dries Buytaert and all the prominent Drupal developer and Drupal Designer come too for Drupal and indirectly for all Drupal users. But I see no sense that someone spend to much passions and feelings trying to discuss about Task that so far already have been decided.
Drupal.org AFAIK post on the Front-Page almost Showcase and mostly about Drupalcon, which is OK but if you count together the number of Drupal.org members and all together the number of all Drupalconv and DrupalCamp vistitors you will see a big difference. User of Drupal that come to Drupal.org want clear information, easy way to find well organized documentation. Just to make an very simple example, "You cannot filter your own post" or you cannot "Bookmark" any post you are interested to follow and solve and ask for support. Those are just two of a dozen other small requests that I could document but will not do for the sake of respecting the actual Drupal.org Management politic and also because I know and as far I was able to grab info and test-projects, the new Redesign will sure come.
I used the word "well paid" but did mean fairly paid in the sense the job has to be paid and a great part of that money comes from Dries Buytaert, Drupal Association and so meaning also from those member who support Drupal also with their active supporting membership. I my self did it once one year, and I was really enthusiastic to contribute but my English and my arguments so as my Drupal Training status is still one of a "Drupal User" so I had to step down because is obvious but I do continue to help Drupal.org User to find the right documentation and help them in some technical matter if it embrace my knowledge.
So again, I speak in the meaning of all first Drupal Users and see and can be assured that is the majority of individuals that use Drupal.org. But you see the most activity in the last time for developing Drupal.org to a better usable site is in the direction of more experts users.
The first really great enhancement in the direction of using Drupal related content (Like Drupal.org Site) from the point of view of a Internet and Browser user is Drupal Commons.
So who of the prominent Drupal developers and Drupal.org volunteer Webmaster can oppose to my opinion that if 4 Years ago would have start an efforts for building something similar to facilitate to Drupal Users to consult and work and contribute on Drupal.org, there will be a really strong and great group of members who would be delighted to take the responsibility of taking care about the site usability, support and design?
Anyway thanks for your link suggestions but small peaces of documentation about that are meant to prove I'm wrong with some info I gave it's useless for me and I think other that think just a bit like a Drupal.org base (only authenticate) users will understand me.
Regards
P.S. Waiting to see Redesign Online on Drupal.org
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You guys are rocking it!
I'm so excited about the progress that's been happening the last several months on this, and can't wait for the launch.
Massive thanks to Chris, Lisa, Neil, Kieran, and everyone else who's been working so hard! You guys have been taking a lot of crap for this, but I hope everyone realizes how much you're giving to the community by persevering and getting it done.
There are many aspects that I
There are many aspects that I like about this design, and is a huge improvement on the current website, but it had a huge improvement to make in the first place.
But to summarize the design over all it does look like it has been designed by a developer.
I would be pretty disappointed if this (even though its not complete), was how it was going to be released. I don't really understand how a design like this could be worked on by 20 people over 2 years, and approved by hundreds. I guess there are usability features that I am not understanding, I do like the minimalistic approach (and big believer in minimalism, which is what mark boulten seems to sepcialise in), but I thought drupal was trying to attract more design orientated users into the camp... Not really sure how to respond.
Reminds me of new iTunes Logo, generic, flat, and not well thought through...
Huge Thanks!
Huge thanks to everyone involved in the redesign for their sustained hard work. The new Drupal.org is going to be better than ever :D !
Ezra Barnett Gildesgame
There in lies the problem,
There in lies the problem, the community chose the slogan. Well, the community are not marketing professionals. They should under no circumstances choose a slogan. Just like an engineer should not do ui design ....
The biggest problem with
The biggest problem with Drupal.org is that you treat design as code, and not as an emotional issue. Please figure out yourself what I mean by that.
I like the current site
When going back and forth between redesign. and www. one thing is clear to me.. I like the current site better. The colours stand out more, the fonts are nicer, everything just works.
I'm sure there's a million things I don't understand about why this came about, but from my perspective it's not an upgrade.
Would you rather stare at the new issue queue, or the current one? To me the current one looks better.
Also the grey text on blue background is hard to read in the header.
I'm sure I'd get used to this new design, but it doesn't feel like a step forwards, and a lot of the featured sites that are posted look much better.
Finally the "Sites we made with drupal" or whatever made me think you're a company that sells website design services.. What's wrong with "Sites mades with drupal" or something more suitable? People aren't going to get the subtle cuteness.
...
parasox, regarding "Sites we made with drupal" see
#895612: Rename "Things We Made With Drupal" to "Websites We Made With Drupal"
#895634: The word "Website" doesn't appear on the home page
~silverwing
I am in agreement with
I am in agreement with Daniel. This design is not up to scratch and is a bad reflection on the drupal community. It looked bad enough when I looked at it on a 1366x768 res laptop but after viewing it on a 1600x1200 monitor I think it is atrocious from a design perspective.
I also agree with him that it wasn't so easy to contribute help on the redesign because I didn't even know it was happening apart from one post here in the forums just over a month ago - http://drupal.org/node/880420.
Something like this, the redesign of the drupal.org site, should have had a permanent link on the drupal frontpage to ensure maximum contributions from members here instead of no-one knowing about it. I basically knew nothing about what was actually happening with the graphical redesign effort of drupal.org until I saw this thread a week or two ago. And as I am a big drupal fan I feel obliged to point out the problems I see with it, no-matter how late in the game it is. I appreciate that people put alot of work into this redesign but I am still going to call a spade a spade as Daniel and some others have already done.
I am only going to deal with the frontpage as that is by far the most important page when it comes to design. The homepage looks exactly like how you would expect a web page designed by developers to look. Functional but lacking any flair or style. It looks completely amateurish and will not inspire confidence in new users or commercial clients. Here's my problems with it -
Look at the modx or wordpress homepages to see how professional looking home pages should look in 2010. They are clear, stylish, easy to follow, memorable and very nicely laid out. Unfortunately none of these terms could be used to describe the look of the redesigned drupal home page.
It will be years before drupal.org gets updated again. The current redesign is already badly outdated and very amateur looking, I think it should be scrapped and restarted this time giving the community a proper chance to contribute input - by having a prominent link on drupal.org's homepage. Here's a suggestion -
As many people have already said, they didn't even know the redesign was in progress until recently, myself included. It is better to take longer and actually get it right than to throw up a badly implemented redesign that will hurt drupal's credibility.
Seriously, going by first impressions, ie. homepages, drupal would be the last choice cms for any new users/clients. It doesn't inspire confidence in the software when the homepage looks so amateur.
I fully agree with you ltwinner
I fully agree with you ltwinner
But unless you put up your voice in the issues nothing really is going to happen in a helpful way.
See these links or submit "issues" at http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/redesign?issue_tags=drupal.org%2... and http://drupal.org/project/issues/search/bluecheese?issue_tags=drupal.org...
Some issues you mention in your post are already there. You may please join:
- http://drupal.org/node/910780
- The text in this section is basically trying to get the same point - http://drupal.org/node/913002
- Get rid of the popup Drupalcon image, it is incredibly irritating.- http://drupal.org/node/913038
- Why is there no Download Drupal link on the homepage - http://drupal.org/node/912966
etc
Yeaa! Issue, Issue, Issue
Yeaa! Issue, Issue, Issue and more issue:
August 30, 2008 - 01:25 ->> 24.693 Posting without an answer - Should we still see that? How much are today?
May 10, 2008 - 00:14 ->> How to filter out "page not Found" from Popular content?
Those are just few that have a bit to with a site content management and organization and design or not?
If all statistics that you can grab on Drupal.org a full of misleading data how do you think you can organize and focus on better features for helping users of Drupal.org to find the right documentation?
Only privileged Drupal Org member with higher access permissions can filter content meaningfully !! and they are really really few.
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Could'nt have put it better myself
I agree completely
"The redesign actually started on a site other than drupal.org which was running Wordpress."
You have to laugh
A small drop in the sea of wishes and Ideas ...
Just collecting interesting feedback points from this post and add a bit of my personal opinion
Drupal.org design qualities front-page?
The relative Authors of some of the points I just re-listed/copied here should excuse me if not going to referee-back to each one's comments, it's to much work form me and at the end my comment will be just a simple demonstration that the power for choose changes on Drupal.org lies in the Hand of developers not users of Drupal.org.
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About constructive dynamical
About constructive dynamical community synergy successfully development:
The constructive dynamic that comes back to Drupal is coming from USERS not from developers.
The volunteer developers of Drupal core and contributed modules and contributed Themes give and present us the tool: DRUPAL
But WE Drupal USERS, registered or not on Drupal.org, give back the Ideas and Suggestions for a better Drupal and this mostly on Drupal.org.
All Developers should understand this sooner or later. Users are the bread for developers and without enough brad developers could not outrage with developing successfully.
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Guys I have posted this as an
Guys I have posted this as an issue in the redesign issue queue....please go here to give your opinions on the redesigned home page - http://drupal.org/node/916292
Hopefully it's not too late to fix this so Drupal doesn't make a holy show of itself by going live with such an amateur looking and flawed homepage. This issue is too important to mess up.
*fingers in ears* la la la
Apparently we were personally attacking the designer(s) and therefore the thread is locked, because all our comments are now labelled as 'trolling'.
You know what: forget about what I said. Put your design online and enjoy it. I can't respond without getting angry, and 'you' can't respond without putting my responses into the ground. If you believe the new design is strong and appealing, go for it!
I'm tempted to just say to
I'm tempted to just say to hell with it too, go ahead and launch with a homepage with numerous fundamental design flaws, that hasn't even got the very basic of web design right, and that looks weak and amateur compared to competing cms...I'm gonna give it one last shot and then I am not going to bother...
Dries or someone else at the top of the drupal hierarchy needs to read this thread and the locked one (http://drupal.org/node/916292). A whole host of people have complained and put forward valid points about the absolute mess that has been made of the homepage. And the people who are against scrapping the redesign have not rebutted any of the complaints - because it is impossible to rebutt something that is just plain wrong. They keep saying it's too late and people should have brought these issues forward earlier....well if anybody had've known about the redesign earlier they would've but as there was no way to find out about unless you were in the loop the vast majority were unaware. And it is not too late yet - it is never too late when it comes to something as important as this.
This is a CRITICAL issue, the design is badly broken. You wouldn't launch the new drupal core if it was badly broken and had some outstanding critical issues - so why are people prepared to launch this home page? It seems some of the developers with the fingers in their ears underestimate the importance of design.....new users/client first encounter with drupal is the homepage, why do some people think it is acceptable that they will go away thinking drupal can't produce a decent homepage that equals the competing cms?
If anybody knows how to contact Dries or some other important drupaller, please show them this thread and the other one.
Thanks Itwinner but ...
Dries will not do anything. Please read this
The only thing you can do is join the existing issues and/or start new ones. For example, you might start each of the facts here raised by you as a separate issue. Instead of being angry or saying "hell with it", if we really care, we need to be persistent and pertinent.
Design Guidelines said that:
redesigned site must be "Visually Appealing – The site must have an attractive look that suits the targeted audience." Relevant issues are
http://drupal.org/node/910780
http://drupal.org/node/914200
http://drupal.org/node/916622
http://drupal.org/node/913038
http://drupal.org/node/917706
http://drupal.org/node/915978
http://drupal.org/node/912966 and/or any other issue that you may create
You might find that it is urgently important to join the following two issues at least, and make forum posts, issues, group posts, tweets and as much voice as possible on two of these
Please make "Redesign Update: Sprint 2 and 3" a front-page sticky
Certain posts are locked or removed ... which cannot be questioned anywhere like an Ombudsman system
Most of the visitors that visit drupal.org are floating visitors - they do not care. Many others here are webmasters, moderators, module or theme authors, supporters in various forms or die-hard fans. It seems we are the real minority who is really wanting a very good shining new site. Its a tough situation where we may just quit or else stay on with all the logic and coolness and gather as much support and voice as possible. If the new design goes online, one thing is now clear: that it must look bad and acquia.com, drupalgardens.com, drupal.com must look better. Why? I keep wondering! Is it just my opinion? But I am now sure I am not the only one.
Thanks Kaakuu
Can see that you have been doing alot of work through all those threads to address all these issues, I find it utterly bizarre that a design can get to this stage, and no one see its poor design elements. IMO, this is not a 'redesign' but more a restructure, and a few more module additions and upgrades. The design is very poor. Very sad day for Drupal when this is released, reading through all your threads Kaakuu, none of the 'designers' seem to even care about the design, it always come back down the some technical aspect that was locked in from a year ago, that cannot be changed.
Drupal.org the new Flat Earth Society
Standard drupal.org response
Ignore the problem, stick your head in the ground and then accuse any dissenters of being trolls.
See what i said in my fist post on the subject
"Of course i expect the standard drupal response which is to shoot the messenger
Your just trolling, why dont you contribute to the forums, why dont you help out then, what do you know, we will ban you, etc"
Dont like to say i told you so, but i saw it coming
There were no personal attacks in the forum posts, people have got to be a able to accept having their work critiqued.
If other members in the community point out the standard of work is very low that should motivate people to improve, take what has been said on abroad and learn from it
Its called peer review
It really doesnt say much for drupal.org when people in a project are too thin skinned to engage in with other members of the community, and simply refuse to address perfectly valid issues people have raised and instead try to stifle and suppress any form of debate
Democracy in action ?
Its seems like the project is being run by card caring members of the Flat Earth Society
You can them show maps, satellite photos and they wont budge they are convinced the the earth is flat and nothing you can say will change their minds
Once you have actually
Once you have actually contributed something to Drupal that is worth mentoning, _then_ you can make comments such as the above without sounding like a complete nitwit. But only then.
You just proved my point for me
So comments arent valid if you havent contributed anything to drupal, but automatically become valid and insightful once you have contributed something.
That explains the dismissive and condescending attitude a lot of us are seeing here
Funny how the people who are doing all the mudslinging and name calling arent the ones critiscing the project
For example telling people help the launch or shut up or calling them a nitwit
You have got to accept that for a variety of reasons not everyone is going to contribute back to drupal.
My work is a of a commercial nature designing drupal themes so im not in a position to contribute the themes back to the community.
A lot of peoples work may be commercial and they cant realise it, they arent very good at coding, they cant write modules, build themes or whatever.
That doesnt automatically exclude them from being able to express their opinion, nor does it make their opinion any less valid than someone who has contributed in some way to drupal.
So people who contribute to drupal are always right then ?
I dont think the average person looking at the standard of work done on the redesign by people who have contributed to drupal would lend a great deal of weight to their opinions regarding webdesign
Rather than actually address any of the issues raised you respond with the same tired old bog standard drupal reply
I notice your not jumping to the defence of any of the design issue that have been raised
Eg
* I really love the drupalcon logo constantly popping up on the screen every 5 seconds and obscuring the content above
* And having a carousel that scrolls from left to right constantly distracting me in the other direction while displaying images that too small to see is really useful
* Having radio buttons under a huge search box is the latest thing, and Google will be implementing it later this year
The fact that you dont respond to any of the issue raised just proves you cant defend them in a debate with other members of the community, and if you did try then maybe you would be the one to come across a nitwit as you put it
IMO yes, you need to have
IMO yes, you need to have contributed to Drupal in order to be heard in the wider Drupal community. This is simply a matter of fact. If you haven't contributed (and I do not mean neccessarily by writing code), people won't know you and are less likely to read whatever you say.
I will sure not jump to defend any design issues, since I am not a designer and generally don't care too much about the design as such. I care about the process beng finally finished.
If you find any issues that will improve the theme or parts of it, do not hesitate to file individual(!) issues for them. But nobody is going to re-work the entire homepage now that it is almost completed.
Incremental improvements can be done after a launch, too.
@Gerhard
This is wrong. Nobody actually worked or re-worked the entire homepage when it was not at all completed, when it was beginning or when it was halfway. Despite assurances it remained the same visually non-appealing.
There is/was no clear workflow who was doing what when , and what was the dead-line that re-work could not be done because it was completed. This is the main problem. Things were born and continued in confusion. The supporting data is in the pages of the 11 iterations, d7ux.org, D7UX Elsewhere, D7UX on Drupal Groups, Design for Drupal Group, Flickr Group, Leisa’s Blog (Disambiguity.com), Mark Boulton Design, Twitter Group, Usability Group at Drupal.org, You Tube Group and numerous IRC chats as well as posts in drupal.org admitting that that they were confused as to what is happening. And the confusion is still continuing like this
Everybody wants the process to be finished. But visual design is such a thing it needs to be catchy with its time, trendy, and fresh (apart from other things). It cannot continue for three years which itself means it needs to be "scrapped" (the visual part, not saying about the structural which is good). The visual part needs to have a much shorter cycle, 3 or 4 designs to choose from, if possible by the community (see for example how Bartik happened), and definite published deadlines with sticky or rotating sticky appearance somewhere in the frontpage like ad blocks or contributor links or any place of prominence. Visual appeal cannot be later built up by "Incremental improvements"
The main conflict is apparently here. It seems we do care about the design itself. And wonder if drupal.com, acquia.com, drupalgardens.com be so eye-candy why our beloved drupal.org cannot be half as good visually. Seriously, we really are in love with drupal.org and have no purpose to rant or troll other than the fact that the visual appeal is just unacceptable. That is why (at least I) have spent so much time (and money in bandwidth) in these posts and definite workable issues - the energy is almost draining out having to keep out uttering the obvious so many times.
Mind that, from the beginning and throughout the process we were told that the final appearance will be really beautiful and appealing. Which is what has not happened. It has remained the same.
+100 to @kaakuu. Your
+100 to @kaakuu.
Your support with your doing on Drupal.org is awesome. I have read the many post, issue and replays you made for helping the Redesign Project. We all care to have a really beautiful and appealing appearance for Drupal.org Homepage. You deserve to have more people that supports your argumentations. The fact is AFAIK because you "as many of the Authors answering to you" declare that you have no commits and no contribution to show up for being taken in consideration on Drupal.org and generally in the Drupal Community, is really a shame. Though that this principle is logical and underlined by the general working and contributing open source community politic, its IMHO a shame.
Thank You very much for your dedication, passion and love to help Drupal.org to have a better, meaningfully and appealing Home Page.
Contact me for drupal projects in English, German, Italian, Drupal Hosting Support.
Look, that it would be
Look, that it would be non-appealing is what you (and a few others) keep saying. However, this is your subjective opinion. There are other people who really like the new design. I am personally not particularly fond of it but it is sure an improvement over the current design.
As to when this was all discussed: there was a keynote(!) on the redesign at Drupalcon Szeged. That was two(!) years ago, ie before you even created your account here. That's possibly the reason why you think this wasn't discussed in public.
Go to see the keynote here:
http://association.drupal.org/blog/kieran/drupal-org-redesign-keynote-pr...
You are actually not very consistent in your arguments. Here you say that you want eye-candy, in the issue queue you want a frontpage with 100-150 kB. This doesn't go together well...
I personally do not want eye-candy. I want a functional homepage for the Drupal project. The redesign may not be the perfect embodiment of such a homepage but it is a huge step into the right direction.
Thanks and ...
Thanks and sorry Gerhard. Subjective opinion can be well confirmed by intelligent poll keeping out the drupal.org sitemaintainers, webmasters, module partners etc in the first round. Structurally there is some improvement in the new design but visually there is "regression" - it has become much less appealing, less readable globally (not using the most suitable screenfont any longer), and much loss of focus (in the homepage). Plus, I (and some others above) have not kept the discussion just only subjective but have supported it by objective and distinct theme-oriented issues apart from other issues.
And I am very consistent in my argument. Wordpress is eye-candy at 60 to 70 kb. I constantly kept up the examples of the main drupal sites in mentioning eyecandy because of the "we are drupal, drupal is like drupal" sort of arguments above. I found that proper image compression (and leaving out a few 'extra' images) can bring acquia drupal and drupalgardens.com page sizes too to somewhere around 150kB or below, while keeping intact and exact their eye-candy looks. That was completely beyond any of these issues so I did not mention.
Reading the old documents on drupal logo design I found that there was much frenzy about its appearance. Why? Could not be that in whatever typography the Drupal word appears in the current header be a functional logo? So why was that - because appearance is equally important. There were several logos designed and chosen from, the same should apply to theme also when it comes to important branding and appealing to all.
Functionality and eye-candy-ness are not at war with each other. In fact they compliment and supplement each other most beautifully and usefully.
I don't like the new look,
I don't like the new look, bring back the old one it was much better and simpler. You guys spend how much on this new design ? I find myself not even visiting drupal as much as I use to simply because I can't stand the new look.