New homepage under testing

[Marius Orcsik]

Also the screenshots need to be of far better quality (I imagine png 
should do it).

Best regards,
-Marius

On Friday 12 December 2008 14:09:57 Kevin Stange wrote:
> Casey Ho wrote:
> > Just a heads up for everyone- I just pushed a new version of the
> > homepage to www.pidgin.im.
> >
> > It's currently being displayed as part of a Google Website 
Optimizer
> > test, so you may OR may not see this page.  More importantly, 
please
> > refrain from making any edits to index.php or home.php for the 
next
> > several days (in order to keep the test data accurate).  Of 
course,
> > comments/suggestions are welcome.
>
> The main problem with the screenshot on the front page is 
emphasizes a
> non-default configuration with protocol icons and the "small list" 
view,
> both of which are not our recommendations.  Several of the 
screenshots
> are taken with non-default settings, which is misleading since the
> screenshots do not specifically promote the alternative settings 
used
> within them.  This includes the appearance Facebook plugin which 
Pidgin
> actively recommends against using due to stability issues and 
which does
> not ship with Pidgin.
>
> I also find the new home page reads like marketing material, 
provides
> less information in the initial view than the original text we had
> there, requires more vertical space, and now requires javascript to 
view
> additional information.  If you have Javascript off (or attempt to
> middle click for a new tab) the "View Screenshots" link does 
something
> unintuitive.
>
> "No ads
> "100% free and actively supported by the open source community"
>
> This makes it sound like Pidgin is something that just came into 
being
> and then a mysterious "open source community" found it and 
decided to
> promote its use.  "Maintained as free software by an active open 
source
> community" is more accurate, but I question the need for "NO 
ADS!!!"
> marketing text on the front page of our web site.  Our old text on 
the
> matter explained that the program was free to both use and 
modify and
> indicated what open source was, which I thought preferable.
>
> I do not like the way the download link box looks compared to the
> softness of the old download box and the upper part of the box 
does not
> connect to the middle and lower sections in my browser, Firefox 2.x
> under Linux.
>
> Several of the captions for screenshots are somewhat misleading:
>
> - "Set your status across all IM networks with a single click"
>
> You need to click twice or click and drag at minimum to change 
your
> status.  I'd rather just say "quickly change your status across all IM
> networks directly from the buddy list."
>
> - "Hundreds of plugins are available to help tweak every aspect of 
Pidgin"
>
> I am not sure we have evidence to indicate there are hundreds of 
plugins
> available.  We certainly don't list hundreds on our wiki.  While
> promoting Pidgin's extensibility with plugins is arguably a good 
thing,
> this screenshot lists many plugins we do not ship with Pidgin, which
> could lead to confusion.  The caption does not make this clear and 
some
> of those plugins may even be among those we recommend users 
not use for
> various reasons.
>
> - "Pidgin supports these IM networks. Additional protocols are 
available
> through plugins."
>
> This screenshot lists two networks which we may implicitly support, 
but
> we do not show in our UI which will only serve to confuse new users, 
and
> it doesn't list facebook, accurately which may confuse those who 
see its
> logo listed elsewhere in the screenshots.  IRC is conspicuously 
missing.
>
> Basically, there is nothing I like about the new home page that 
wasn't
> an element of the old home page.  Honestly, I find most of these 
changes
> fairly disturbing and I am resisting the urge to disapprove them and 
go
> back to what we had.  I see haven't seen a compelling reason for 
making
> these changes other than to mislead potential users into thinking 
Pidgin
> is something slightly other than what it actually is and simply get 
as
> many users to use Pidgin as possible.  I don't think any developer 
of
> Pidgin has ever expressed concern that we don't have enough 
users or
> that having a small number of happy users would really do us any 
harm.
> I tend to think we sort of dread the prospect of a large influx if 
users
> with improper expectations of Pidgin.
>
> So... I vote nay... in general.
>
> Kevin

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