Freitag, 1. Juli 2011

Improved Download Page Proposal

Hi everyone,

the last time I blogged about the parental leave ... still enjoying that time. But, sometimes I'd like to continue supporting LibreOffice and among different stuff in the last weeks (e.g. in the issues, or the libreoffice-ux-advice mailing list), I had a look at the Download section of our main website.

The Issue
It has been reported several times that end-users are unaware concerning the release scheme of LibreOffice and may experience problems with X.X.0 releases. Converning the latter, this is also a problem of users who download the software on external pages unrelated to TDF - the corresponding warning/information might be missing.

Furthermore, there have been complaints that the TDF LibreOffice Download page is too complex for normal users. Consequently, the LibreOffice Download Experience has to be improved.

Here is the download page how it looks today:


Although everything works, it seems a bit crowded, very complex and sometimes even misleading (as reported by users).

The Proposed Solution
Since everybody likes pictures, here is are just two mockups.

First, a mockup that demonstrates how the initial website will look like for a Microsoft Windows user.


Second, a mockup that demonstrates the website for a user who decided to go for the "Latest Features" version using a Linux based operating system. Moreover, the user already expanded the Download Options area.




You know, mockups miss a lot of information ... so don't forget to read the Download Page Whiteboard page telling you all the details ... please read that page before raising any concern ;-)


Thanks!

A "thank you" to all who helped to shape these proposals ... the earlier discussions on different mailing lists helped a lot (especially Nik who provided great thoughts). Furthermore, I'd like to thank Christian who helped to collect some of the requirements for a revised page design.


Personally, I hope you like the propsal. I'll announce it at the website mailing list, so join the discussion - or much better: help with the implementation.

Cheers,
Christoph