CampusReps:Guide Meetings 052009

Campus Reps Meeting to review design from Nobox, and discuss next steps for the project.

Changes to Nobox's original design

• Remove horizontal navigation bar from header
• Create new vertical navigation block in right sidebar
• Move Campus Reps logo to new block in right sidebar (above the new menu)
• Remove the blue background
• Create the "Marketing" page to be a more general page within SFX (not Campus Reps specific)
  • Change "materials" to "resources" to be consistent with SFX redesign

Solo site vs. On SFx

• Based on our discussions and weighing the pros and cons, we're sticking to implementing the guide in SFX
• On SFx
  • Pros
    • better identity, SFx is meant to be the home of such projects, that's what it's there for
    • better resource sharing, having lots of resources in one spot makes SFx better, and makes discovery easier for the end-user
    • less change, campus reps already has a place and identity on SFx. End users know where it lives.
  • Cons
    • Tools suck, but campus reps could be a good drive to get the tools upgraded
    • Design will have to change. Aspects of the new design just don't fit on SFx

• Solo site
  • Pros
    • more room to work with the new design
  • Cons
    • worse identity,
    • big change for end users.
    • The home of campus reps changes.
    • The dynamic content tools would all change
      • lots more work to figure out new dynamic tools (comments, news posts, discussions, events, etc)
    • linking from SFx to solo site drives content away from SFx

Major design flaws

• looks like a site within a site
• horizontal navigation
• Drupal sidebar navigation
  • designs show the view of a logged out user, when logged in, Drupal's per-project nav is going to make this really confusing
• "Mozilla Community Marketing" could be used by all SFx members, shouldn't be specific to Campus Reps

Nits

• resources vs. materials
  • during sfx v3, we changed materials -> resources
• Projects vs Sfx Projects
  • this has a major impact on projects page header in the new design
• lots of images
  • could make implementation a pain, but I'd have to ask neilio/rdoherty what they think
  • makes site slower
• whole thing seems geared toward new campus reps
• Marketing page
  • "ideas", "ways to educate", "stay connected" are the real meat of the page and should get more emphasis
  • Each point should lead to more information, lots of info, to make it easy for campus reps to get rolling
• design is very rigid, which makes l10n impossible
  • we don't l10n now, so we'll have to jump this hurdle in the future when we do

Ideas

• per-project branding
• per-project secondary nav
  • Example 1
  • part of this could be that the navigation can have a custom color, to match the logo
• Ask the community what they think about the new design
• minimized sfx header

Questions

• What kind of tools do you need?
• Can these tools be 3rd party?
• What is dynamic content, what is static?
  • How will this dynamic content change?
• Google maps
  • Where do the locations for the markers come from?
  • [This is future implementation, but for now I will create a Google map of locations from the cities of my campus reps; I have this data in a spreadsheet]
• As a solo site, how would you link to SFx? How would you link from SFx-> solo site?
• Do campus reps have to register?
• Let's say a user is an experienced campus rep, do they have a part of this design? i
• what does a returning user need from a campus reps website?
• What happens to the "river of news" that exists on the campus reps page currently?

My Humble Opinions (buchanae)

• blue background color should go
• There is an over load of campus reps branding in the header
• The navigation is hidden among all the other large images in the header