[Pydotorg-redesign] Beginners thoughts

[Steve Holden]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: pydotorg-redesign-bounces+sholden=holdenweb.com at python.org
> [mailto:pydotorg-redesign-bounces+sholden=holdenweb.com at python.org]On
> Behalf Of Matt Goodall
> Sent: Monday, July 21, 2003 7:46 AM
> To: pydotorg-redesign at python.org
> Subject: [Pydotorg-redesign] Beginners thoughts
>
>
> 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.
>
Matt:

This is good information on usability (or possibly the lack of it), and
I'm sure it will help. The log is quite readable, and your summary seems
fair. Some random thoughts of my own as a result:

To my mind the most important point is that we should definitely be
targetting newcomers to the language, given that people who are already
familiar with the site don't need so much handholding, and that existing
Python users could be expected to have a higher level of motivation to
find what they want! Lots of pointers to good stuff that would be
immediately useful would be helpful.

"Welcoming" would be a good adjective to target for the home page, and
after that the most significant change would be stylistic and
navigational consistency.

I've experimented in the past with expanding/tree-like navigation
features, and I'm now much more in favor of a fixed set of top-level
navigations elements, with variable second-level links in a separate
(though hopefully related) position on the page.

Also, shouldn't we have links somewhere to the many significant
applications written in Python? The Vaults of Parnassus are definitely
geek-level, so while they're useful to a net-head they are no use to a
beginner. One possible qualification for being listed in this link-set
would be the presence of an installer, so people could run them without
even having loaded Python.

It might be a good idea to collect a few more impressions like your
sister's...

regards
--
Steve Holden                                 http://www.holdenweb.com/
Python Web Programming                http://pydish.holdenweb.com/pwp/


>