FreeBSD website redesign...

JohnK said:
a description. I noticed that FreeBSD doesn't have a short description about it. The closest we have is: [ https://www.freebsd.org/features/ ]
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Certainly, the section you point out has info that can be placed on the homepage to improve it. I guess the description you are talking about is—in the eyes of the designer—that basic "A Powerful, Open Source Operating System," which, IMO, is insufficient. I provided my alternative above (just for fun, although it's obvious that I would donate it to the FreeBSD project if anyone found it of interest, which is highly doubtful because we are just a handful of folks chatting here to pass the time):
A

Post in thread 'FreeBSD website redesign...'

MG said:
"Powerful" is so meaningless.
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I think it's okay, but I've been thinking about a slogan I'd like, just for fun, and I've come up with "FreeBSD. The High-performance Operating System for New and Old Computers. Free and Open Source."
In any case, I concur that a longer general description on the homepage would be nice.
 
Here is what I have so far (but my thoughts are still very generic at the moment). If you/anyone is thinking the same thing as me, here is what I have so far. If it helps, great.

FreeBSD is an engineered operating system that can be used as desktop
system, as a server, on an appliance or even on an embedded device.
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This is almost exactly what NetBSD says. o.0
FreeBSD's logo derives from a "daemon" which is a background process that
runs continuously in the background and handles requests or performs
tasks without user interaction.

FreeBSD includes everything you need to create or install a large
number of third-party tools. Use the system as it comes or configure
per your needs.
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As I typed this, someone posed. ... AlfredoLlaquet I think I see where you're going. I want to noodle with your version a bit (nice!).
 
mer said:
For an "artist", creativity and "look pretty/edgy" comes first
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That attitude has killed people already... From an engineering standpoint : "form follows function".
And whoever complains, wait till they are done. They seem to be ironing out some things. If it stays in a fisher price mode, you may continue to complain. Or make it better.
 
Maturin said:
+ -> "Supported Releases" leads to the table which to me is one of the most important contents.

However, I don't really care anyway anymore.
It's all great and very nice.
Proceed!
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But to me that top menu is only exposed when you click on the hamburger at the right side. What gets exposed is what used to be across the top on the old website.
For me, part of the problem is I never look at the 3 lines as a clickable item that exposes a menu. That came in with smartphones and is still one of the most annoying UI/UX features (in my opinion and yes I understand people with disagree with me on that)

The documentation and community blurbs/tiles, why not make them clickable and pop up a menu like they have at the bottom?

For the record, I personally hate trying to design UI/UX stuff. Not my forte. I can code the backend to give you what happens when you click here, but making it pretty? Nope, I can't even color within the lines
 
Crivens said:
That attitude has killed people already... From an engineering standpoint : "form follows function".
And whoever complains, wait till they are done. They seem to be ironing out some things. If it stays in a fisher price mode, you may continue to complain. Or make it better.
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I completely agree, I've just worked with too many creative types that we wound up with completely unusable interfaces on.
I'm not complaining (or at least not trying not to) it was just a big change, kind of like when you always put your keys and wallet in the same place but your wife moves them "to be less messy" and then you can't find them.
 
bakul said:
Anyone doing product or website design might want to think about such things as the "Design hierarchy of needs" -- sort of like Maslow's Hierarchy of needs, where the lowers needs must be satisfied first (physical: food etc.) before the higher ones, ending with the highest: self actualization. For design, the order of needs goes from functionality, reliability, usability, proficiency, to the last, creativity.
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Or just look at how quality websites from like 30 years ago were done and leave it at that. The vast majority of "innovations" in design since then have been pretty inept and have done more harm than good. That being said, I do agree with that pyramid. The issue tends to be that it's easier said than done and design of this sort shouldn't be reinventing the wheel a bunch, people doing the designs so often miss that we know what good designs are like and a website in particular shouldn't really deviate that far from that in most cases.

I personally get kind of cranky because a significant portion of the time new designs are clearly worse than the old designs, but for some reason we're all stuck pretending like MS Ribbon isn't an abomination unto our lord and that infinite scroll pages aren't the net equivalent of Sisyphus' boulder being radio controlled by a sadist.
 
In general it looks nice enough. Closer now to the handbook style, creating some consistency.

Professor_Fate said:
I like that the redesign doesn't mention the word "desktop". No more giving distro hoppers the wrong idea.
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It also looks too polished like a product. It will give distro hoppers the wrong idea because they will still need to open a text editor and actually manually edit i.e rc.conf.

bakul said:
Design is where art meets engineering!
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Agreed. Too many design amateurs (myself included) can have opinions and preferences but an actual designer requires unique and trained skills.
 
It's ok, just a bit grim and corporate and lacking in the fun element. I was a bit sad to see Beastie relegated to a small spot at the bottom of the page. As for 'powerful'... everything's 'powerful', I would have preferred 'high quality', as in "freebsd, a high quality operating system".
 
I like the new design because it looks modern and is responsive. I can check it on my mobile phone now. The old design looked very
old fashioned ... the background color of the boxes is the only thing that I don't like ... it looks similar to the OmniOS homepage ... but
I like the colors and fonts of the OmniOS homepage better ...
 
I've not seen such an emotional response to a UI change since Microsoft's office 2007.

EDIT: Not to mention technical critiques. It's just these types of UI changes seem to stir the pot, or maybe the saying is hornets nest. Not honestly sure.

EDIT 2: I personally wouldn't mind if they project page were text only with hyperlinks. The information remains the same and accessible.
 
fraxamo said:
Any thoughts on the FreeBSD website redesign?
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Its not bad - but few things could have been done better:

- add 'The Power to Serve!' as its main motto
- use nice Beastie Daemon image
- move 'dark/light' switch to top with rest of the settings

My version below:

freebsd.new.page.vermaden.png
 
vermaden you caught a screenshot that shows what I mentioned earlier. The top bar is similar to the old website, but the current version has the hamburger menu at the top.
My personal preference is what you show, I detest the hamburger menu thing. If they changed that, the site becomes more usable to me. But I understand the hamburger menu is better for mobiles.
fbsd.png
 
Again, what is the intended audience for the website? Is it for a) FreeBSD users, b) attract new users to want to try out FreeBSD, c) corporate weenies to use FreeBSD in their products or d) something else? If for a), the middle part is meaningless and first part is not very meaningful. If not for a), why not?

Here are some ideas off the top of my head (& I am sure most other folks have useful ideas & suggestions):

For new and seasoned users FreeBSD.org should be so good & genuinely useful that it becomes their first stop. Other than downloading, things like what are upcoming attractions, supported archs, a list of awsome ports, how to report bugs, communities (forums, mailing lists, irc, discord, ...), FAQ (how do I .....), notable blogs, tutorials for common tasks and ones that frequently trip up users, a link to commercial support services etc.

Someone should look at which current webpages are visited the most and figure out how to make it easy to get to them. Similarly figure out which pages are never or rarely visited and push them further down in favor of more popular pages.

Can the search box be replaced or supplanted by a way to ask questions (and answered using AI)?

Lates advisories from UPDATING files should show up here.

The "press" section can be made more useful (and not called "press"!).

And do all this without cluttering up the webpage and keeping it usable from mobile devices!
 
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