[EuroPython] IRC meeting log 2004-12-20

[Jean-Marc Orliaguet]

Chris Withers wrote:

> Jean-Marc Orliaguet wrote:
>
>> Yes indeed, the picture may well be replaced with text or news 
>> articles with vignettes ... to make the whole thing more dynamic - 
>> there should be something graphical at least to make the front page 
>> attractive. 
>
>
> As far as I know, we're not organising an art conference ;-)
> I'd prefer functional, clean and efficient over "pretty", every time.
>

Yes, sure. But it doesn't have to look geeky either.

most professional conferences have attractive front page that make you 
feel that things are happening:

See for instance:
- http://www.gdconf.com/
- http://www.macworldexpo.com/live/20/
- http://conferences.oreillynet.com/os2004/

using the right images help draw attention to events. If you have the 
conference dinner coming up, just showing a picture of food or a 
restaurant will help you find the page faster because you are in a set 
of mind where you don't care about yesterday's tracks.

> Just to be clear, I'd like to see the 3 very important columns that 
> are currently at the bottom on the page moved up to the top.
>
OK can you have a look here:
http://europython-develop.zope.nl/?page=front2

the problem is that the title of the menu item enter in visual conflict 
with the titles of the boxes
http://www.medic.chalmers.se/~jmo/ep2005/layout2.png

and unconciously you associate:
NEWS with WHAT
TRACKS with WHO
EVENTS with WHY

I reckon there should be a graphical separation between them, not 
necessarily the current huge picture though :-)

>> I'd like to get a newspaper-like front page layout with title + image 
>> + intro text + link in small blocks...
>
>
> Yes, but be careful this doesn't just end up feeling cluttered, 
> especially if it's cluttered with old or obscure content...
>
> cheers,
>
> Chris
>
The idea is that it has to be dynamic with an effective date and an 
expiration date.
This is for keynote speeches, conference dinner, conference highlights, ...

as they did on this conference:
http://www.medic.chalmers.se/~jmo/ep2005/newspaper-layout.png

news items with vignettes.

cheers /JM