The design and structure of http://en.opensuse.org could be much better.
The navigation is confusing. There is a navigation bar at the top (with
four items only), but there are further navigation boxes on the left,
and the main text is also a kind of navigation. Take the first box,
called ‘Navigation’. First item: ‘Project’. The reader cannot know what
this refers to. Likewise the second, ‘Distribution’. OpenSUSE is a
project as well as a distribution, therefore both items are
non-informative. ‘Support’ is informative, but why is there this link
here and a ‘Support’ link at the top too? And why do they link to
different pages? Where should the reader who is looking for support go?
There is still more confusion because the box below has the title
‘Help’. What is the difference between ‘Support’ and ‘Help’? If there is
a difference, how should the reader guess? And why is there under Help
‘Create a Page’ and ‘Change a Page’? Doesn’t ‘Help’ mean that the reader
receives help? The reader creating a page is no case of him receiving help.
So opensuse.org really lacks logic. I wonder why such a wonderful and
big project as OpenSUSE has such weak webpage. For example, http://www.ubuntu.com is much better. If the reader looks for Ubuntu for
his desktop, he is guided to http://www.ubuntu.com/desktop/ . There he
is presented with just one navigation bar. I could imagine more helpful
items there (http://www.ubuntu.com/support/ should be there too), but
there is clear guidance and logic.
Daniel Wachter wrote:
> Good evening,
>
> The design and structure of http://en.opensuse.org could be much better.
> The navigation is confusing. There is a navigation bar at the top (with
> four items only), but there are further navigation boxes on the left,
> and the main text is also a kind of navigation.
Thanks, that is correct, typing ‘opensuse.org’ leads to http://www.opensuse.org/en/. But when you then click on ‘Discover it’,
you come to the page that I referred to.
Daniel
Am 06.01.2014 01:58, schrieb vazhavandan:
> Daniel Wachter wrote:
>> Good evening,
>>
>> The design and structure of http://en.opensuse.org could be much better.
>> The navigation is confusing. There is a navigation bar at the top (with
>> four items only), but there are further navigation boxes on the left,
>> and the main text is also a kind of navigation.
>
> I think main page is this
> http://www.opensuse.org/en/
> and downloads are offered in that page
I still don’t see the point. Four menus on top, each with a clear goal, below the introductory text links to the various Portals. An index page to everything re, Discovering openSUSE. To me the logic is there, but being a webdevelopper I might not be wearing the right glasses to put judgements here.
Am 06.01.2014 17:36, schrieb Knurpht:>
> I still don’t see the point. Four menus on top, each with a clear goal,
> below the introductory text links to the various Portals. An index page
> to everything re, Discovering openSUSE. To me the logic is there, but
> being a webdevelopper I might not be wearing the right glasses to put
> judgements here.
I am referring to http://en.opensuse.org/. If there were only the four
menus on top and the three headings, that would be good, but there is a
lot besides this which makes less sense:
Below the menus on the top, there is ‘Wiki > Main Page’. Is this
useful for targetted reader?
On the left there are the boxes ‘Navigation’, ‘Help’, and ‘Toolbox’ –
with the problems that I mentioned in my first post.
Then there are the Wiki links ‘Page’, ‘Discussion’, ‘View source’,
‘History’. I know what this is, but is it useful for targetted reader?
‘Main Page’. Who would have thought otherwise? Well, actually, it is
not the main page, the main page is http://www.opensuse.org/en/
The text under ‘Project’: Is that really the first thing that you want
to tell the targetted reader? And if it is put first here, the reader
wants to know what the project’s three essential elements are. What
exactly is there besides the work for the distribution? Looking at http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Project for 30 seconds I cannot identify
them either.
The real main page is http://www.opensuse.org/en/. If I then want to
find out more and find documentation, I go to http://www.opensuse.org/en/. There I should read right at the top that
there are three sources of information: 1. Documentation, 2. Support
database, 3. Wiki.
Perhaps I am dumb, but having worked with OpenSUSE for several years and
having looked at Opensuse.org not seldomly, I still have not discovered
how to obtain information from the Wiki. I open http://en.opensuse.org/Portal:Wiki and see no clue where I now would
find, for example, an article about partitioning. And if I look follow
the lead to the Wiki in the Support menu I am led to http://en.opensuse.org/, which is where I am already! Opensuse.org
really is a mess. Perhaps this is because it is all organised as a Wiki.
The reader needs to be presented a clear logical structure that leads
him to the answers to his questions and to the content of the website.
On 2014-01-07 10:28, Daniel Wachter wrote:
> * Then there are the Wiki links ‘Page’, ‘Discussion’, ‘View source’,
> ‘History’. I know what this is, but is it useful for targetted reader?
Well, it IS a wiki. A Wiki page MUST have those.
–
Cheers / Saludos,
Carlos E. R.
(from 12.3 x86_64 “Dartmouth” at Telcontar)
On Tue, 07 Jan 2014 09:28:47 +0000, Daniel Wachter wrote:
> I still have not discovered
> how to obtain information from the Wiki.
In the upper right-hand corner, there’s a search box. That’s what I
use.
At the bottom of the main page, there’s also a series of categories. You
could navigate through those, but searching for “Partitioning” using the
search box brings up useful information without having to dig.
