[Nottingham] Website Revamp - Ideas and first attempt

[Martin]

Folks,

Comments and examples are invited for the NLUG web site revamp.

What would you like to see and how?
Any mock-up or completed(!) examples that you would like to share?

The discussion so far is shown below. All are invited to add your bit.


If we get more than one entry/example, then we could test out some 
online voting for a 'beauty contest' ;)

Discussions continue at the nosh tonight and beyond!

Ideas welcomed.

Cheers all,
Martin


(See: http://www.star.le.ac.uk/~djf/nlug-design.png for Michael's 
example. Any others please?)

Michael Erskine wrote:
> On Wednesday 07 September 2005 12:10, you wrote:
> 
>>eeeewwwwwwwww.  Far to much green, it hurts my eyes.  Could you make the
>>border green one of the darker shades from the mottled background ?
> 
> 
> The colours are configurable and the user will be able to choose alternative 
> style sheets (inc. RSS feed for news and events)
> 
> 
>>Otherwise lots of fab work.
> 
> 
> Ta! By the way, whilst I've made the images, the CSS is basically the Green 
> Community template from OpenSourceWebDesign (http://www.oswd.org/).
> 
> 
>>Couple of points....
>>
>>I think the text of the page should be more definite eg.
>> "Nottingham GNU/Linux Users Group is a focal point for ..."
> 
> 
>>I half agree with Martin about the ordering of the text.  IMHO I think
>>it should go something like:
>>
>> Nice, short warm welcoming message
>>  "Nottingham GNU/Linux Users Group is a focal point for ... we're a
>>really friendly bunch of geeks, honest"
>> --
>> Upcoming Events
>>  (Next 2 events)
>> --
>>
>>Make 'About Us' a separate page linked off the side menus.  We can put
>>the press pack, links to the constitution etc there.
> 
> 
> Yes, there is plenty of discussion to be had about re-vamp of content -- I'm 
> concentrating more on layout and content management.
> 
> 
>>I'm not sure about the division and naming of the side menus.
>>Is 'Site' meant to give access to other pages in the website ?
>>Is 'Board' links to things about the committee ?
> 
> 
> The side menus are currently meaningless and only provide an example of the 
> stylesheet's layout. We need to decide how we want to use such features.
> 
> 
>>There is a box to join the mailing list.  A link to the proper mailing
>>list page and archive and how to configure your mailman account would be
>>good.
> 
> 
> Again, content will need a lot of discussion; I think it's great that the user 
> gets the opportunity to subscribe to the list straight off the first screen 
> since this gets people involved straight away. I think the typical first-time 
> visitor might take the following path: -
> 
> * google for "Nottingham Linux" or similar
> * follow the top hit (or "I'm feeling lucky", yup - it works!) to our site
> * be suitable impressed that we have a penguin dressed as Robin Hood
> * read the first intro paragraph - looks good!
> * immediately see there's a mailing list and subscribe
> 
> 
>>Link to Nottingham perl mongers ?
>>
>>Probably needs some tooing and froing about what links/buttons are
>>needed/nice to have/funny
> 
> 
> Agreed - there's lots of links we can have: planetnottslug, huggies wiki, 
> members' sites, etc.
> 
> Regards,
> Michael Erskine.


-- 
----------------
Martin Lomas
martin at ml1.co.uk
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