The maxim "You never get a second chance to make a first impression" (attributed to W. Triesthof), has been applied to the art of selling, to good posture, to well being, and, of course, to web design. Still, on the web, this adage is flat wrong. When trying to impress millions of individuals, two eyeballs at a time, there are millions of chances to make a first impression.
Which is why, several month into this blog, I am fixing my home page. It may be too late for the readers of this blog, but I probably still have a chance with the rest of humanity.
My original design had two pages - Home page, and About page. The Home page listed links to the main sections of the site. The About page added a little technical, personal and contact information, and a pitch for contributions.
This design has two problems. First, the home page is scrawny, making the page look empty and uninviting. Second, the contributions pitch, on the About page, is likely to be much less viewed, compared to the Home page. Considering the relative potential importance of contributions to the future development of the site, the pitch should be more visible.
So I tried a second design, combining the two original pages. This time, I only needed one column in the table, the page size is more appealing (IMHO), and there is more room for the contribution pitch (so I can explain the purpose, instead of just asking). I also moved that part higher up in the page. I like this design much better.
However, I ran into yet another web site, and adapted it for my needs as well. This one uses two columns in a table to direct the viewer to accomplish various desired action. It's a bit sparse, but gets all the information across in an organized fashion. This last design looked even better!
So, I decided to try and duplicate the last design with the markup tools of PmWiki, with a little bit of color thrown in as well. And here it is. When I figure out how to set the font family and font size, I will improve the page even more.
Finally, I copied the page into an existing group, with its headers and footers, here - which resulted in a repetitive visual, since the footer and side bar already include the 'Donate' button.
Sadly, I have to say that the PmWiki page looks a lot better than any of my 'adopt, extend and modify' ones. It may be an indication that professional tools are superior to hand coding, or a testament to my web design prowess. Either way, I will probably stick with it in one way or another. The only problem is that PmWiki's PHP processing takes a few miliseconds more, making the site a bit more sluggish.
You are invited to check out the different designs, opine on their relative merits or lack thereof, or offer better ones. Bear in mind, though, that the focus should be on the design, not necessarily the text.
Here are the links again:
Home and About
Combined
Table view
Table by PmWiki
PmWiki Table with header and footer
