Re: website draft 4, help wanted

[Jan Nieuwenhuizen]

On di, 2009-07-07 at 23:26 -0700, Graham Percival wrote:

Hi Graham,

> I disagree; I think we've spent *too much* time on the look/feel

Yes, I understand that's how you feel. It's exactly why I sent my mail,
and why I reacted so strongly on this.

> Modifying the CSS files can be done at any time,

Well, yes, but it's a matter of priority.  We have different
priorities, and I need you to see that my priority list actually
makes more sense, from a certain pov.

> Other than
> the lack of translations, the new website already beats the pants
> off the old website.

...yes, in many ways it does...

> New users can find easier faster, and avoid
> getting confused, irritated, and sending silly questions to the
> bug list.  Also, there's a few **very** nice pages (bug reports,
> tiny examples) that question-answerers on this list can easily
> link to.

...yes, I very much agree and am very pleased with this.

> (i.e. "please create a tiny example:
> http://lilypnod.org/tiny_examples.mhrtl";)

Hmm, this link does not work for me?

> Yes, I know that you want stuff that's attractive.

Indeed.  And I hope you also want it, but currently you don't think it's
all *that* important.  Right.  Now.

Although it could [partly--you agree valentin's site is slick] be a
matter of taste I think this mainly depends all on what or whom one
thinks the website is for.

What is the main public you have in mind when you set your priorities
for the website?

I think there are a couple of distinct groups that we [c|sh]ould target

   1. potentially a new user
   1a. potentially new promotor (i found this site about printing music,
       I don't do any music but it looks to be just the thing for you!)
   2. a fresh novice user, still not sure if she will keep using it
   3. an lilypond addict

Looking at our future user base, I feel that 1 is *by far* the largest
and most interesting group [oops, should I post this to lilypond-user?
ouch]

I mean, if we somehow manage to scare off all people in category 1,
our community will stop growing?

In an slightly indirect way, the best thing we can do for our current
users, be it a category 2 or 3 user, is to grow our community?

In our current culture, things seem to be speeding up, esp. the
internet experience often enjoys very short attention moments.
When you are looking for something, the internet can be very big,
you do not have the time to explore everything in depth.  Sometimes,
you only take a few seconds to decide: this thing is crap, this
this may be it.

I feel we really need to attract as much attention to what we
have to offer (free, superior quality music typestting with
excellent support -- something like that) as we can -- and
we at least need to have people of category 1 have some
positive doubt about this--even if they only view the front
page.

If we cannot attract potential new users (people who have
not heard of lilypond in a way that is so positive they
already want to spend at least half an hour on it), we
lose them.  Think aida:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIDA_(marketing)

So, what I would like, is to A) have a front page where at
first glance, as many category 1 persons as possible will
hold in their tracks long enough to find I) just the right
next page to read, and D) get more interested.  Be it
the essay, the crash course, tiny or complex examples.

Then, we must think of ways to satify 2 and 3, while keeping
1.  This is where interesting, renewing (NEWS) content
comes in.  Esp. for category 2, structure is very important,
for category 3, content is probably the most important thing.

Do I make any sense?  I do not want to force anything on
you, I really like what you already did, it is very important
and it is probably impossible to make something that looks
good without sensible content.  However, please reread this 
rant until you can freely decide to take over my priority list? :-)

Possibly we can get Valentin to step over his 'there
are cool things I cannot do with css, I cannot do anything'
and hack a CSS + header + margins that are as crisp as
http://news.lilynet.net in just a day or two.  And I mean,
do we have big mentioning, pictures/screeshots from his opera?
How professional can we look?

Valentin's site attracts my initial attention and gives a professional
feel.  Much more than both the lilypond.org sites.  Possibly he/we
could/should  merge this site even with lilypond.org.  I don't know.

Greetings, thanks,
Jan.


-- 
Jan Nieuwenhuizen <address@hidden> | GNU LilyPond - The music typesetter
Avatar®: http://AvatarAcademy.nl    | http://lilypond.org