[OSM-talk] Front page design and SEO

[D Tucny]

2009/3/3 Ian Dees <ian.dees at gmail.com>

> On Mon, Mar 2, 2009 at 9:51 PM, SteveC <steve at asklater.com> wrote:
>
>>
>> I asked the CM designers for some quick hacks on what different front
>> pages could look like which you can see on the wiki page below. There
>> are some very quick ideas there but it's not a full picture by a long
>> way.
>>
>
>  To get some conversation going:
>
> I really like the Fp4.jpg[1] example on the URL you gave, Steve. It's
> important to make the map (and thus its data) the largest GUI element on the
> page. The buttons along the top draw my eye up there to see what's
> available. I also like the "Shop" link idea.
>
> After looking at all of the examples, Fp4.jpg seems to be the one that is
> the simplest and most eye-catching.
>
> [1] http://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Image:Fp4.jpg
>
>
I must say, I like that one too... but... So many sites and applications
these days seem to be going with all the options at the top/bottom and a
full width content section, while at the same time most 4:3 screens are
being replaced with 16:10 screens... Though at least most sites allow the
content to be scrolled moving their menu bars out of view, this however,
proboably isn't something that would be preferable with the OSM page... The
end result being that with a layout like that on a widescreen display,
you'll have browser title bar, menu bar, link bar, tab bar, random other
tool bars, osm tab bar, small, but, wide, sliver of map, osm key bar,
browser status bar and finally task bar...
Obviously if you have a big screen with a decent vertical resolution, the
sliver of map is somewhat larger and more useful, but, on smaller screens at
least, and I'm thinking of screens with a resolution like 1280x800 here that
are pretty common in laptops these days, that sliver isn't going to be that
big... As such... I think the fp6/7 images would be probably better
generally, and especially for smaller widescreen displays...

That said, I guess there's no reason, beyond maintainability, why both
layouts couldn't be made available, even if only selectable by logged in
users... though a default that's good for everyone would still be needed
:)...

I think all the samples shown are an improvement on the existing layout in
term of usability and from an aesthetics point of view, making things
clearer and prettier at the same time :)

d
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