Re: [Discuss-gnuradio] GNU Radio website.

[Trond Danielsen]

2007/3/3, Eric Blossom <address@hidden>:
> On Sat, Mar 03, 2007 at 12:54:31PM +0100, Trond Danielsen wrote:
> > Hi everyone,
> >
> > I've been looking at the GNU Radio websites, and feel that there are
> > some improvements that could be made. The website at gnu.org looks
> > good, but lack up to date information, and the trac website has up to
> > date information, but could use some polishing. I was therefore
> > thinking of starting to clean up some of the pages in the wiki,
> > starting with the front page. I have created a new frontpage that is a
> > lot simpler than the previous one; I did not want to commit it
> > directly, since it is the public face of gnuradio, so let me think
> > what you think.
> >
> > I am aware of that there are some scripts to convert the old wiki
> > pages to trac format, but that is not what I am thinking of now.
> >
> > Cheers,
> > --
> > Trond Danielsen
>
> Hi Trond, thanks for your work on the Wiki and everything else!
>
> If we use this as the front page, how are people going to:
>
>   Figure out how to download the code
>   Figure out how to build GNU Radio

The first link on my suggested page leads to a section describing
this. Maybe it should be renamed to "Get GNU Radio"? I do not think it
is a problem to store it on a separate page, since the users usually
have to go there only once (in an ideal world).

> I agree that the current WikiStart page isn't beautiful, however it
> does handle what I assume are the first 95% of the questions: where's
> the code, how do I build it, and what about the USRP stuff?

As a user who is just getting started I disagree with you on that
point. I have been exploring GNU Radio for half a year, and I think
there are three major questions that has to be anwered on the front
page:

1. How do I get this stuff?
2. How do I use it?
3. How can I get in touch with the people who created this stuff?

My main problem so far, has been digging up documentation. That's my
reason for the proposed modification. It is correct that the current
page anwers many of these question, but I just think that it is too
cluttered, which makes it hard to find what I am looking for.
Remember, web users are in a hurry.

I also think clearing up the page has a certain "marketing effect".
The cluttered front page does not give a professional look. The old
site gives a much better first impression, and I actually think that
matters when trying to reach new users.

> I'm also a bit concerned about pages that provide almost no real
> information, just a set of sublinks, particularly if they're in my
> way of getting to what I want ;)

As I said, I want documentation :), which currently is hidden behind a
small link at the bottom of the page.

> Also, as a general design principle, I like to minimize the number of
> places where information is replicated.  If the info is in more than
> one place, you can pretty much count on at least one of them being out
> of date.  The reentering of the mailing list stuff comes to mind: once
> on www.gnu.org and once on gnuradio.org.  In this case, I should
> probably edit the referring pages on www.gnu.org to point at the wiki
> pages.

I created a mailing list page in the wiki (MailingLists), just in case
you did not notice. I really think that the wiki is the way to go.
Static websites always get out of date; wikis makes sense in 2007 :)

--
Trond Danielsen