Subject: PostgreSQL website redesign

From: Thom Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2011 00:10:42 +0000

Hi all,

As you will no doubt be aware, the PostgreSQL website is overdue for a
fresh lick of paint, so we are planning to give it a new look in the
near future.  The plan is to use some existing community funds to
employ the services of a professional designer who will be able to
produce the new design.  Some of the community already have experience
working with the designer in question as they designed the Postgres
Open website (http://postgresopen.org/), and I think you will agree,
they did an excellent job.

With that in mind, we want to establish some design goals.  These will include :
- what is the website's target audience?
- how do we wish to be perceived? (e.g. traditional, modern, friendly,
professional etc.)
- what do we hope to achieve with the website design?
- what new opportunities does this present us with?
- what usability problems do we currently have that the redesign could address?

You may have heard it said "there is no spoon".  Similarly, there is
no bike shed, so there's no colour to paint it.  In other words, the
gritty details (such as layout, colour, font-size, borders etc.)
aren't up for discussion at this stage.  Instead, a design committee
(which has already been selected) shall agree on the final design
goals, liaise with the designer to discuss the finer details, and to
ensure our goals are met.

The final design will be licenced under our very own PostgreSQL Licence.

So with that, I'd like to open this topic for discussion.

Thanks

Thom

---

From: Thom Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 14:24:38 +0000

> So with that, I'd like to open this topic for discussion.

Okay, to get the ball rolling here's my initial input:

What I'd like to see is something which suggests "open", "modern" and
"clear", nothing elaborate or fancy.  The design must aid people
finding what they want rather than getting in the way of it.  There's
no point in people thinking "Wow, what a great looking site!  Now
where the hell is the documentation?"  A website I believe follows
this general direction is Drupal (http://drupal.org/).  I'd want to
avoid anything too cutesy or too corporate as neither of those really
represents our users, and the user base diversity is quite broad.

It would be interesting to see where visitors go upon visiting the
site.  One thing I tend not to notice on the main page is the
"Shortcuts" section.  This is one of the few places the wiki is
referred to, and it's a shame it's not more clearly sign-posted since
it contains plenty of helpful info.

One page which I find fairly inaccessible is the "About" page:
http://www.postgresql.org/about/

It just doesn't scan well as it's too dense, and not very attractive
for a page for potential users who wish to be introduced to PostgreSQL
itself.

One thing to bear in mind is people using lower screen resolutions.  A
typical screen resolution on a netbook is 1024×600 (according to
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_netbooks), so it's probably
safe to set that as our base.  We won't want the first thing for
people to see on every page to be a big banner with no actual visible
content.

So, does anyone know if we have analytics for visitors hitting the
home page?  It would be nice to be able to distinguish those who
habitually click on the link they always click on immediately upon the
page loading, and those contemplating where they want to go, who spend
time looking at the whole page before clicking through to whatever
they were looking for.

Thom

---

From: damien clochard <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 15:29:55 +0100

Le 17/11/2011 01:10, Thom Brown a écrit :
> fresh lick of paint, 

First of all, thanks to the people who handle this. This website needs
love that's for sure :)

Here's a few ideas :

 * I think target audience is new users. The website should focus on
providing simple answers to basic questions :

   - What is PostgreSQL ?
   - Where can I get help ?
   - Where's the download link ?
   - Who uses PostgreSQL ?
   - How can I contribute ?

 * Regular and advanced users don't need to go on the pg.org website
everyday. For them the website should only be a gateway to the various
community websites : the wiki, the planet, the pugs, pgxn, the mailing
lists, etc.

 * Be more international, connect with local communities. If the main
website is not translated, at least it should make it clear **on every
page** that there are local websites in other languages (pg.fr, pg.jp,
etc. ). New users that are not comfortable with English should have a
chance to read content in their own language (when possible of course).

 * If think the message should be that PostgreSQL is free, innovative
and used by very big companies. A slideshow on the front page could
illustrate these 3 points : talk about a new feature in 9.1 , display a
use case, advertize an event such as pgcon, etc.

 *  I don't think the website should be optimized for tablets and mobile
phones...

 * There's way too much information on the front page. People don't want
to spend 3 minutes reading everything. Instead the front should drive
users based on the 3 major needs : download / help / contribute
For instance the Google Think website has very effective design for that
 : http://www.thinkwithgoogle.com/

That being said i have a few questions :

a/ In 2009, a web design contest was launched... what happened to this
initiative ?

b/ Who's in the design committee ? and who choosed them ?

c/ Sorry but I'm not a huge fan of the Postgres Open website :-/ It's
full of HTML and CSS errors everywhere. The meta tags are pretty poor.
Basic files like sitemap.xml or robots.txt are missing. There's no
favicon either....  On what basis is this an "excellent job" ?

d/ Seems you have already choosed the web designer, right ? Can somebody
else propose his services or is this too late ?

-- 
damien clochard
dalibo.com | dalibo.org

---

From: Simon Riggs <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 17:12:12 +0000

On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Thom Brown <[email-masked]> wrote:

> near future.

It's not clear to me that redesigning the website will give us
anything at all, but it will definitely drain time and focus away from
things like writing patches or working out clear and workable designs
for new features.

The existing design works just fine in every way, so "we" are not
unhappy. In fact the existing site is fairly well tuned with many
people's feedback and pixel level arguments now done and dusted.

We do need some marketing, but redesigning websites without purpose is
not marketing.

Please state the reasons you think a redesign is worth the effort. And
how that is a priority over spending the same time and money on actual
marketing, i.e. external contacts, whitepapers, press and such like. I
grant that is likely more fun to redesign a website but that doesn't
make it worthwhile.

-- 
 Simon Riggs                   http://www.2ndQuadrant.com/
 PostgreSQL Development, 24x7 Support, Training & Services

---

From: Josh Kupershmidt <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 18:47:55 -0500

> So with that, I'd like to open this topic for discussion.

First, thanks for taking an interest in this. Here's my $0.02.

The website is in sore need of attention, but a large-scale redesign
of the look-and-feel (which is what your description sounds like
you're angling for -- correct me if I'm mistaken) isn't what's most
needed.

IMHO, basic maintenance issues are more pressing. For example, why do
we keep out-of-date information about defunct alpha/beta releases
  http://www.postgresql.org/developer/alpha

hanging around? Or much worse, the recently-discussed problem with
subscribing to the mailing lists, which from a post a few days ago on
-hackers sounds like it's still broken. That's got to be a *huge*
turnoff to a potential new member of the community, when just signing
up for the list hangs and appears broken.

A few adjustments to the docs pages could go a long way. (I read the
Postgres docs online extensively, so I have admittedly strong feelings
about this area). The layout (i.e. CSS) of the pages themselves is
decent enough. I'd like to see cross-links between the /static/ and
/interactive/ pages. I'd also like to see cross-links between the docs
pages to the other versions (e.g. the 9.0 version of the UPDATE page
should also link to 9.1 and perhaps 8.4, 8.3, and 9.2). The Django
docs handle this nicely. This would likely also help the
Google-ability of doc pages for newly-released versions.

And comments posted to the doc pages from version X.Y should be
visible on the corresponding doc page for version A.B. I like the PHP
docs in this regard, though they don't break out their docs by
version. (Assuming posting comments on the web docs still works at
all.. I have a dim memory of posted comments disappearing).

Josh

---

From: "Joshua D. Drake" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 19 Nov 2011 20:05:00 -0800

On 11/19/2011 09:12 AM, Simon Riggs wrote:
> On Thu, Nov 17, 2011 at 12:10 AM, Thom Brown<[email-masked]>  wrote:
>

It will drain time only from those who chose to contribute in a manner 
they feel useful.

> people's feedback and pixel level arguments now done and dusted.

Well actually the existing design does not work just fine in every way. 
It is not user friendly, nor is it simple, nor is it a comprehensive 
resource for information (the wiki having become that destination).

> We do need some marketing, but redesigning websites without purpose is

No, that is the job of 2ndQuadrant, CMD, PgExperts, EnterpriseDB, VMware 
etc...

Sincerely,

Joshua D. Drake

---

From: Thom Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:05:17 +0000

> chance to read content in their own language (when possible of course).

We can certainly bear that in mind.  However, that's more of a website
content issue rather than design.  This is an issue that needs
addressing though.  While the project's default language is English,
we have large German, French, Japanese and Portugese-speaking
communities, so sign-posting users to sources of information in their
own language would be useful. But the designer won't want to hit a
moving target, so we will be freezing structural changes to the main
website at least until the design has been implemented.  They can,
however, provide their idea of how that would be presented though.

> use case, advertize an event such as pgcon, etc.

I like that idea.

>  *  I don't think the website should be optimized for tablets and mobile

Agreed.  The site isn't for casual browsing, so no extra effort should
go into catering for touch-friendly interfaces.

> a/ In 2009, a web design contest was launched... what happened to this

It failed to produce any useable candidate unfortunately.

> b/ Who's in the design committee ? and who choosed them ?

The design committee was selected and approved by the core steering
team and consists of Gavin M Roy (being the CTO of a very successful
website company), Josh Berkus (advocacy guy and -core), Dave Page (web
guy and -core), Magnus Hagander (another web guy), and Selena
Deckelmann (very user focussed).

> favicon either....  On what basis is this an "excellent job" ?

Problematic meta tags, dodgy HTML and CSS and sitemap.xml and
robots.txt aren't a designer's job.  Here we're talking about visual
design, although I expect some structural changes may potentially
happen, but nothing major.  In my opinion Postgres Open's site is
entirely appropriate for a conference site, giving bold, simple and
direct information, and "branding" the conference with a certain look.
 The designer will, however, be producing the necessary CSS
amendments.  The site is already XHTML-compliant, the CSS is generally
fine, and we'll make sure it stays that way.

> else propose his services or is this too late ?

Well, I haven't selected anything myself.  A professional designer was
selected and approved by the core steering committee.

Thom

---

From: Thom Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:08:15 +0000

> things like writing patches or working out clear and workable designs

Well we can't abandon one area of the project just because there's
another area that's considered more important than everything else.
The community is constantly involved in arranging conferences and PUG
meetups, infrastructure changes and assisting others with general
PostgreSQL problems.  And likewise, this is another are of the project
that not everyone will necessarily be interested in.

> people's feedback and pixel level arguments now done and dusted.

Well it's 7 years old now.  It could be argued that people will see
the same PostgreSQL that they saw 7 years ago.  As such, we haven't
progressed, innovated or become modern in any way.  The current design
could be seen as PostgreSQL stagnating and been neglected.  Design
communicates as well as words.  Ours may be saying "nothing new to see
here".  Of course, changing too often would have an equally negative
effect, suggesting that we're inconsistent, unstable and can't make up
our minds.

> grant that is likely more fun to redesign a website but that doesn't

This is probably something -core would like to give a more complete
answer on since it was their decision.  But my views are as above.

Regards

Thom

---

From: Thom Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 11:10:54 +0000

> you're angling for -- correct me if I'm mistaken) isn't what's most

Large-scale redesign is probably overstating the changes.  Our site
isn't huge, and there's probably only a handful of types of page.

>  http://www.postgresql.org/developer/alpha

Already addressed.  The new code for the site just hasn't been launched yet.

> up for the list hangs and appears broken.

Never heard of that problem, but that's a matter for the web team.

> Google-ability of doc pages for newly-released versions.

Like I've said previously, this is more a content issue.  The design
can be made with such functionality in mind, but the designer wouldn't
implement such changes.

> all.. I have a dim memory of posted comments disappearing).

Again, another issue/feature request for the web team.

Thom

---

From: damien clochard <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 14:50:02 +0100

> however, provide their idea of how that would be presented though.

Pointing to non-english communities on every pages is not a big
structural changes :) It just requires some links in header or footer.
Any international corporate website has either langage-switching buttons
or links to the local offices.

However i understand the fact that the structure should be freeze before
the designer starts. It's common sense. But in the same time, if we
don't change the content itself, the new design will have a limited effect.

This was the biggest problem with the 2009 webdesign contest : people
were not allowed to modify the existing structure and content (except
for the front page). This was a mistake. It made the work very hard for
contestants and eventually the contest failed.

I really think that the website needs much more than just CSS magic. I
mean you can change the paint and add shiny stuff, the website will
still look archaic if the content remains untouched.

The goods news is that the structure and content just need some
simplification. It's not a lot of work. There's no content to add...
We just no removed and transfer pages elsewhere because the website is
too deep. There's way to much information. Like Joshua said many pages
should be transfered to the wiki : The "proganda" page, the history,
almost all the developer section, etc. All of this belongs in the wiki.

Reduce the complexity of the website will have many advantages : that's
less work the webmaster team, the designer will have more possibilities
and less content means there's lower risk of outdated content, etc.

So don't make the same mistake again. This is not just a CSS problem. In
fact, i'd rather keep the current CSS than leaving the structure
unchanged...

>> use case, advertize an event such as pgcon, etc.

Yep at the same time : almost everyone does that kind of slideshow right
now, it's almost a web design standard... which means it may seems
"old-fashioned" in a few years ;-)

But a front page slideshow has lots of advantages... It keeps the
visitors a little longer on the front page and gives the feeling that
the website is dynamic (provided the information in the slideshow are
not out-dated of course... )

> go into catering for touch-friendly interfaces.

I also suggest we stop supporting IE6 and it'll save the designer a lot
of time...

> robots.txt aren't a designer's job. 

Seriously ? Are you saying that the web designer will not deliver
HTML/CSS code ? that he won't be responsible for the new website SEO  ?

-- 
damien clochard
dalibo.com | dalibo.org

---

From: "Jonathan S. Katz" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 20 Nov 2011 12:11:50 -0500

> - what is the website's target audience?

I think this is broken down into groups:

1.  Potentials Users - people evaluating using Postgres for professional / academic / personal purposes.  They need to feel there is a concise way to understand what Postgres is used for and why to use it, and be able to easily find all the details to answer their questions

2.  Ongoing Users - people who are already using Postgres and need to find resources to solve their problems (i.e. docs), but also can find a reason to be more active in the community

3.  Community - those active in the project, making sure they have easy access to all community resources available

> - how do we wish to be perceived? (e.g. traditional, modern, friendly,

Clean, professional, resourceful.  More professional adoption of Postgres => more support for the community => more contributions to the project

> - what new opportunities does this present us with?

Even though I agree that the PG website layout is good and really it just needs "some paint," with a redesign there will most likely be layout changes because of minor tweaks.  Hopefully they can be limited, but if there would be any layout change I would suggest it would be the homepage, specifically with readability.

The easiest part to address is the font size, but that would push a lot of what we have already out on it of the viewing pane. But this presents us with an opportunity: the first paragraph should be a brief description about what Postgres is and why you should use it.  If you go to any of the NoSQL database sites, the first thing you read on them is what their database is, what it's features / differentiators are, and where to download it.  To find that info on the Postgres site, you have to go one-click in, and even then, the most concise description is on the "About" page, which in a lot of sites today, is used more for a historical perspective.

A clear message on the homepage on why Postgres is and why you should use it, coupled with the download links, info on news / events / blogs, would be good, and perhaps have a link to testimonials on a different page.  This also assumes we make the page a bit more readable, i.e. with a larger font all-around.

> - what usability problems do we currently have that the redesign could address?

I actually think the site is usable as is :-) But perhaps someone who is a UX expert with less familiarity with the project could give a better opinion on that.

Best,

Jonathan

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:29:04 +0000

> answer on since it was their decision.  But my views are as above.

I think your answers above do pretty well hit the nail on the head. We
want to ensure that the all areas of the project visibly progress and
don't stagnate, and updating our web presence is a part of that. We
are also aware that the current website does not meet the needs of
everyone by any stretch of the imagination. In particular, it's quite
unfriendly to new visitors, and gives them little in the way of
guidance to find the information they're likely to need.

-- 
Dave Page
Blog: http://pgsnake.blogspot.com
Twitter: @pgsnake

EnterpriseDB UK: http://www.enterprisedb.com
The Enterprise PostgreSQL Company

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:32:00 +0000

> contestants and eventually the contest failed.

The contest was done in a way that was intended to avoid exactly that
problem - and in fact, not one of the entrants cited that limitation
as a factor affecting their ability to design.

The reason the contest eventually failed was actually because none of
the designs were actually liked by those judging them.

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 21 Nov 2011 10:44:52 +0000

> time looking at the whole page before clicking through to whatever

We do - you should now have access: www.google.com/analytics

---

From: Greg Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 10:28:31 -0500

> favicon either....  On what basis is this an "excellent job" ?

The Postgres Open site is built on top of some Django code from another 
conference, and it turned out to be a nightmare to work with.  The 
primary basis you should judge the designer of that site on is whether 
the visual look is nice.  As far as I know every error you mentioned 
resulted from a framework issue that they had no control over.  All time 
that had been intended for fixing those sort of things (and far more) 
was gobbled up just getting the schedule to display, which had nothing 
to do with the job they were working on.

-- 
Greg Smith   2ndQuadrant US    [email-masked]   Baltimore, MD
PostgreSQL Training, Services, and 24x7 Support  www.2ndQuadrant.us

---

From: Alvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 12:37:07 -0300

Excerpts from Greg Smith's message of mié nov 23 12:28:31 -0300 2011:
> conference, and it turned out to be a nightmare to work with.

Uh, the new Postgres site is also Django ... is this a bad sign?

-- 
Álvaro Herrera <[email-masked]>
The PostgreSQL Company - Command Prompt, Inc.
PostgreSQL Replication, Consulting, Custom Development, 24x7 support

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:38:16 +0100

> Uh, the new Postgres site is also Django ... is this a bad sign?

No, it has nothing to do with django, and everything to do with how
the templates are set up.

-- 
 Magnus Hagander
 Me: http://www.hagander.net/
 Work: http://www.redpill-linpro.com/

---

From: Dave Page <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 15:38:37 +0000

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 3:28 PM, Greg Smith <[email-masked]> wrote:
> conference, and it turned out to be a nightmare to work with.  The primary
> basis you should judge the designer of that site on is whether the visual
> look is nice.  As far as I know every error you mentioned resulted from a
> framework issue that they had no control over.  All time that had been
> intended for fixing those sort of things (and far more) was gobbled up just
> getting the schedule to display, which had nothing to do with the job they
> were working on.

We have our own new framework, which should be going live in the next
2 or 3 weeks. Any new design will be based on that.

---

From: Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 16:39:01 +0100

On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 16:38, Magnus Hagander <[email-masked]>
wrote:> On Wed, Nov 23, 2011 at 16:37, Alvaro Herrera
> the templates are set up.

Pressed send to early.

FWIW,the django based version of the postgres site is *more* standards
compliant and cleaner than the old one. At least according to Thom,
and he tends to notice such things.

---

From: Robert Treat <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 17:43:03 -0500

> the designs were actually liked by those judging them.

You know, one might argue that this is not proof that you need a
different designer, so much as different judges ;-)

Robert Treat
play: xzilla.net
work: omniti.com

---

From: Greg Smith <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 23 Nov 2011 23:11:43 -0500

> Uh, the new Postgres site is also Django ... is this a bad sign?

Django is a pretty low-level framework, and the Postgres Open issues 
were around the application looking more suitable for the conference 
than it really was.  There won't be any overlap between those issues and 
whatever problems might pop up in the new PostgreSQL site.

I've only been tinkering with Django stuff for about four months now.  
So far it sure seems the case that there are typically an order of 
magnitude more bugs in a typical Django plug-in or application than in 
the core code.

---

From: Thom Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 24 Feb 2012 14:17:55 +0000

> So with that, I'd like to open this topic for discussion.

I had intended to resurrect this topic towards the end of January (so
the majority of people would have returned from any seasonal
holidays), but February it is.

I'll start collating the feedback in the near future, so one last call
for feedback, and an opportunity for those who didn't catch the topic
the first time around.

-- 
Thom

---

From: Thom Brown <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 27 Apr 2012 20:49:58 +0100

As there clearly appears to be no further input, I am now closing this
thread.  Thanks to everyone for your feedback, which I've now collated
and it shall be used to influence the design.

--
Thom