[Pydotorg-redesign] What are the goals?

[Fred L. Drake, Jr.]

Laura Creighton writes:
 > I have no idea who it is that has approval of this -- PWC, PSF -- who
 > the people are.  

The PWC decides what happens with the site, in the end.

 > I suggest that somebody who knows posts the list of people here.

I don't have the list handy (sorry), but I'm on it.

 > Then, we give them each by the end of the week to look at the current
 > design, and say, 'I like the current design and think further work
 > would not be wasted' -- or if they cannot stand by that statement,
 > say something else.

If by current design, you mean what's on www.python.org now:

    The current design doesn't sicken me, but it could stand a *lot*
    of improvement.

The stuff I've seen from Tim Parkin looks quite promising, and I
regret that I've not been able to be more responsive to his
inquiries.  I definately intend to take some time to look further into
it, and I appreciate the efforts everyone has made to work this out.

Now, on the related issue of site goals, I'm more ambivalent:

    The site should be easier to use for newbies (and old-timers), but
    making this a "marketing" or "advocacy" site sounds scary.

It's not at all clear to me what the win is in trying to convert the
unconverted; they'll convert on their own if they determine it's right
for them.

As far as the information architecture goes:

    What's on the site now is pretty messy, and doesn't effectively
    serve either the goal of making it easy for programmers to find
    information or for the audiences of marketing hype to get the hype
    that's fit for them.

So it realy needs work.  I applaud the efforts Andrew Kuchling has led
to make the site easier to navigate (structurally).

How's that?  ;-)


  -Fred

-- 
Fred L. Drake, Jr.  <fdrake at acm.org>
PythonLabs at Zope Corporation