[Pydotorg-redesign] Beginners thoughts

[Matt Goodall]

I asked my sister to have a quick look at the current site. Liz is 
actually a linguist but has some interest in techie things and computers 
so I thought she would make a good guineapig. She had heard that Python 
was a programming language but that's about all; she doesn't know any 
other programming languages.

I'm afraid the transcript is an IM log and I don't have time to clean it 
up any more to make it easier to read. Consider yourself lucky I didn't 
leave the general chat in there ;-).

    http://www.pollenation.net/assets/public/pydotorg-redesign/conv.html

The obvious points to come out of it were:

    * Content pretty good in general, just not well organised.
    * More guidance (literally) for beginners.
    * Home page too clutterd (Liz couldn't even be bothered to read down
      to the mention of the tutorial!)
    * Navigation needs to be more obvious. I would add that it needs to
      be consistent across the whole site too.
    * Push the background of a "learning language" for beginners.
    * Brief, side by side code comparison useful even for beginners.
      They might not have a clue what any of the code means so Python's
      clean design, layout and simplicity could make it the obvious choice.

I don't think there's anything too surprising in there but I hope it was 
useful anyway.

By the way, the only reasons I asked specifically about the Pollenation 
design was because I knew the URL and it has a rearranged menu to look at.

Hope this is of interest.

Cheers, Matt

-- 
Matt Goodall, Pollenation Internet Ltd
w: http://www.pollenationinternet.com
e: matt at pollenation.net