I'm not a fan of putting a big picture on top that takes up most of the page so people have to scroll down to see any other content. A picture that wasn't as tall would at least be better.
Also, given the stated intent, but the front page doesn't really say what and who the IETF is - it plunges into talking what types of documents we have without saying anything about what those documents are for. One still has to click on About - Who we are to find the expansion of the name and a one sentence description of what we do:
"The Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) is a large open international community of network designers, operators, vendors, and researchers concerned with the evolution of the Internet architecture and the smooth operation of the Internet."If the purpose is to make it easy for:
> People who don't know what an IETF is sometimes have occasion to need
> to know, and what they will do is put "IETF" into their favourite way
> of searching and end up at the front website page.
> to know, and what they will do is put "IETF" into their favourite way
> of searching and end up at the front website page.
that sentence should probably be on the front page.
I think another important audience is people who are starting to get involved in working in the IETF and we need to make it easy for them, not just for casual visitors and for old hands who know an alternate page to start at. That means not hiding the page with helpful links under a Tools heading that you have to click on and that doesn't even show up at all on some browsers (such as smart phones).
How about putting in a label like "Helpful Links" in the Tools menu and fixing the Tools menu so that it isn't an afterthought that doesn't appear on the mobile page?
On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 1:37 PM, Bernie Volz (volz) <volz@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
The new pages seem fine to me. Good job to the team.
Sure, it will take some getting used to the new look and where to click, but in a few weeks or months we'll all be used to the new layout.
- Bernie
-----Original Message-----
From: ietf [mailto:ietf-bounces@xxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Andrew Sullivan
Sent: Thursday, January 11, 2018 4:04 PM
To: ietf@xxxxxxxx
Subject: Why the change? (was Re: Today's transition for www.ietf.org)
Dear colleagues,
Full disclosure: I was a member of the IAOC when some of this work was
approved, so to some extent I bear some responsibility.
On Thu, Jan 11, 2018 at 09:28:15PM +0100, Stephane Bortzmeyer wrote:
> The Number 1 thing to remember when revamping a Web site: nobody cares
> about the revamping of your Web site.
It seems to me that this discussion was one we had during the last
round, and I think that many IETF participants seem not to have
absorbed the other part of what was going on with the website
alterations. The reason for this was not to make work, but to solve a
problem.
> People want the Web site to work for whatever task they have to do,
> and preferably, they want it to work the same way as before. (This is
> probably why many IETFers did not test the new site: they didn't want
> to have a new site.)
It is certanly true that people want the site to work for their task,
and when they have a workflow they don't want that interrupted. But
the previous discussion of this pointed out that there was a
significant constituency of potential users of the website to whom it
was not addressed at all; that was a problem.
People who don't know what an IETF is sometimes have occasion to need
to know, and what they will do is put "IETF" into their favourite way
of searching and end up at the front website page. If that front page
is overwhelmingly arranged to meet the needs of those who already know
what an IETF is, then the new curious people will effectively be
turned away. This has been a problem for the IETF in its relationship
with others: it makes it harder to persuade others that the IETF
really is offering useful, contemporary standards for how the Internet
does and should work.
Therefore, IETF participants are being asked to endure the
inconvenience of moving their most-used stuff to a different place, so
that the other audience can be addressed.
I think it reasonable to take issue with broken links (which I believe
are being rectified -- i.e. I think this must be a bug, since the
plans were always not to break any links). I think it would be nice
if some of the participants in the discussion would take care to state
such issues without suggesting that people involved are clueless.
But I do not think it reasonable to claim that there was no reason to
undertake this effort: the reasoning was well documented and was put
before the community repeatedly. I, at least, never heard an argument
that we should not explain ourselves to others in the world who might
be interested, and in terms they might have a hope of understanding.
So I think it was appropriate to redesign the front page, even though
that causes inconvenience for each of us (including me).
Best regards,
A
--
Andrew Sullivan
ajs@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx