[Pdweb] [PD] Editing CSS style, make pd.info better? [WAS: puredata.info site design provocation]

András Murányi muranyia at gmail.com
Mon Mar 12 00:51:48 CET 2012


...moving to pdweb

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 00:02, Scott R. Looney <scottrlooney at gmail.com>wrote:

> yes i have to admit i'm starting to judge the relevancy of a website at
> least in part with design modernity. was just looking at various open
> source 3D gaming engines and i could instantly tell the 2003-2007 era from
> the 2008-2012 era. i still investigated what each site had to offer, but
> graphic presentation added to the friendliness/accessibility factor. sites
> like the current Processing site and Openframeworks.cc seem cleaner and
> easier to both attract users and navigate.
>
> my thoughts on the design:
>
> overall an excellent beginning to a new look! it started me thinking about
> possible further improvements. so consider this a design brainstorm thingy
> with NO obligation that anyone has to do what i'm suggesting (especially
> Marco who started the ball rolling). i don't have any time to do it at the
> moment (i'm avoiding grading right now) but it certainly gives me ideas, so
> here we go:
>
> Navigation
>
> i'm not pushing this but it seems like side based navigation is sort of
> less common on modern websites? the look is pretty modern and clean
> however. Processing (2 columns) and Ofx (2 or 3 - not sure) both use top
> navigation which i think draws the eye better. i resisted top nav for a
> while but i think it relates better to subject matter. bigger more graphic
> pictures on the front page of various projects i think will attract more
> attention to the artistic aspects. a better top banner is a MUST.
>

I think the current header of sub pages is perfectly light now and only the
main page needs a banner-like thing (carousel or...)


>
> Exhibition page
>
> should definitely be overhauled with a much more graphic look whenever
> possible. Marco's Xth-Sense, Billy's Helmholtz ship animation any other
> graphic demonstrations of PD in action in realtime either audio wise or
> using video manipulation ala Gem or whatever should be there in plain view,
> not just a link to someone's website. No idea if Plone can do graphic grid
> placement of thumbnails for videos but that's what comes to mind. i'm not
> against a carousel video thing, but i think it's a consideration for future
> design.
>
> if it's just a patch processing audio, i don't know, maybe some audio
> examples of the patch via a jquery-type player onscreen?
>

I'd suggest a screenshot of the patch itself... it's healthy and
interesting if some of the pictures are not resulting visuals but actual
patches.


> the idea is to get folks interested equally in what PD can do as well as
> finding out more information about the artist if they are so inclined.
>
> Downloads and Distributions - separate categories
>
> at the moment if i wanted to find out what PD-vanilla or PD-extended was,
> i'd have to go to the Downloads page. i'm not sure if that's intuitive
> enough. if i wanted to find out what a distribution was about versus
> downloading it, i'm not sure if i'd go to Downloads.
>
> so maybe something labeled Distributions? then put PD-vanilla,
> PD-extended, and something like l2ork there? i see a huge amount of talk on
> the list from Ivo about his version and some of it's benefits. i think it
> should be listed there. there should be Download links of course as well.
>
> Such a page might also be called 'About PD', give a brief
> history/description of how PD itself works and then the other variants
> listed below with download links?
>

I couldn't judge if this needs to be done, but if yes, then it's one more
reason to have an "About Pd" or "What is Pd" page.


> [...]
>


András
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