[EuroPython] website constructive feedback

[Martijn Faassen]

Hi there,

This mail is intended to be constructive feedback on the website, 
triggered by a question from Michael on the IRC #europython channel. If 
any of these suggestions are considered not to be constructive, please 
ignore them. :)

* sidebar to the right: upcoming events as it stands now keeps striking 
me as news items. Perhaps this problem will decrease once there are more 
actual news items, pushing 'upcoming events' to the bottom.

* sidebar to the right: lose the calendar. It waste space and if it does 
something beyond show today's date I don't know what it is. :) I can 
already look up today's date in various other ways, and even if we want 
to present today's date on the site, we can do this in text format.

* the screen is rather squished together due to the two sidebars. If 
there were more horizontal space, we'd be able to see more text, and 
have to scroll less.

* the side in inside out. When I go to the site, I want to see the 
latest news, events related to the conference, and I want to see 
information about europython 2004. There needs to be information on the 
homepage about:

   * registering (even if this is not possible yet, it needs to state 
that it will be soon in that case)

   * submitting a talk

   * submitting a refereed paper

If then I'm interested in the general EuroPython origanization I should 
follow a link lower in.

This is currently hidden away until I click either in navigation or in 
the tabs.

* the tabs are a really weird way of navigation. They don't seem to be 
context dependent, and 'More info' brings me to the same page every 
time. I don't see how this tab add any value. 'Talks' currently seems to 
be broken. In general the tab navigation seems pretty odd. I am 
expecting multiple views on a particular object or subsite, but instead 
they seem to be links to particular places in the site.

* the navigation pane is odd. I jump around strangely in it when I click 
on tabs, and if I click the top one I end up somewhere in the middle. In 
addition if I click down from top to bottom I go through:

   * a page about attending. This is fine, except there should be 
concrete information about how to register (or if not possible yet, that 
this is so)

   * an 'events' folder. This folder isn't done yet, and basically 
replicates the events I can access through the sidebar. It's confusing 
this is the second navigation option. I'm interested about:

     * how to register

     * what talks there are

     * the location

     * how I submit a talk

   * a 'news' folder. The same story here. It's unfinished, it claims 
there are no news items, and I can already get to this using the sidebar 
and using the tab at the top.

   * press releases. As far down to the bottom as possible. Normal 
people don't read press release archives first. :)

   * sessions -- this should move up. Apparently sessions and its sub 
entry 'talks' show almost but not quite the same thing. The outer one 
adds a mysterious 'browse' tab that I can click and that gives me 
mysterious information.

   * sponsors: further down to the bottom; most people won't be sponsors 
and don't want to know about sponsors before they hear about sprints.

   * sprints -- move this up to near the sessions, as it's a 'conference 
event'.

In general, make it very clear that the 'call for papers' is *different* 
from the 'call for talks'. The refereed paper track is actually 
interesting to *less* people than the 'call for talks'. This needs to 
very clear. People who want to submit a talk to a track don't need to 
distracted by stuff about call for papers, lest they confuse the two.

Regards,

Martijn