Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to openacs.org designs... opinion please

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Posted by Tilmann Singer on
I highly appreciate the generous donation of precious graphic designers work that infiniteinfo has put into this so far, as well as everybody else's effort. I think the current proposals are already much slicker than what comparable projects are using in their web presentations, but the existance of some high quality proposals should not stop us from having a thourough debate over the matter.

The question how the website looks like is critical for the project and does not lend itself to a "let's move forward as quick as possible" approach, IMHO. Especially since it is clear that it is not necessary to come up with a new design before the new 4.x site can launch.

I am a bit concerned about the way in that Carl's contribution was ignored previously by proclaiming that there was already an agreement on #3, which in my opinion is not the fact just because a few people on IRC who happen to be there on the same time agree on it and because it gets repeated on the bboard by the same persons over and over.

On the topic of targeted visitors: although the site may get visited less often by regulars of this community, that does not mean that the site design should not reflect their personal taste, since the site is  there to _represent_ the community to visitors. Just as it's said a picture says more than a thousand words, the graphic design of a website can communicate or lie about the organization that is behind it. The design of openacs.org should thus somehow correlate to the views of the members of the community, and not *only* be targeted at attracting new members. I am not saying that the #3 proposal is not a balance of several interests, just trying to emphasize that the design should also please those of the community who don't actually visit the site often.

Side note: has there been talk on doing a commercially targeted site at openacs.com (I see that Ben Adida owns the domain, so it should be possible)?