General Improvement Thoughts

• Make better use of categories going forward?
  • Categories get a thumbnail, homepage displays post title and thumbnail
• Clearer basic introduction on CC & mission
  • Enticing, inviting design/art?
• Featured articles (Management?)
• Related posts and content from around the web?
• Make /weblog/ more useful and rich, than just an easily ignored archive...
  • See RedHat - http://www.press.redhat.com/
• Homepage-only special layout to highlight sections, features, content
• Make Search box use search.creativecommons.org, relegate site-search to the Weblog archive page...?
  • I don't like this idea, because it's not what I believe most people would probably be expecting from a search box like that. And which provider would it search, or would the search control have to get bulky to accommodate the functionality the real search site? nkinkade 23:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)
  • I don't like that the search results returned are blog entries and you have to check the "search the entire website" in order to search all content. It should be inverted, so results are returned based on a search of the full site, not just the blog. DMP
• We should consider including text on the home page about Science and Learn and Culture as three areas where we're focused. We only talk about the licenses and are missing the opportunity to help people understand the context in which our licenses are successful. Those projects/divisions should be featured, not just linked to on the side. DMP

• Remove most, if not all, of the vertical white space on the sides, *especially* if we end up keeping the blog and Jurisdiction News the way it is. In this regard I like the Gnome site. I know it makes the layout a little less deterministic, but if I have a big monitor then it makes me sad to see two massive columns of white space (read: wasted space). If I've got a small monitor, then it doesn't really matter anyway. Another great example of a layout I like that uses the full screen is Wikipedia. The space is there, make use of it creatively! Big empty spaces on a page are depressing and a waste, in my view. nkinkade 23:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• Reduce the size and perhaps placement of the changing header stuff (currently "Help Build the Commons"). My screen is relatively large (1280x1024), and the current feature takes up at a minimum half of the usable vertical space. As an example, Wikipedia has a pretty big donation banner which is quite prominent, yet it is much less intrusive and there is less wasted space for actual content. nkinkade 23:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• It is mentioned below in my old comments from the old suggestion page, but I'll reiterate that I think the blog so go away from the front page and be replaced with a slender "Latest News" column. A possible layout that would use the entire page (no vertical whitespace) would be to have a left column with an abbreviated listing of the CC blog, content in the middle, and then on the right would be the current Jurisdiction News column. A 3-column layout! Go go CSS! ;-) nkinkade 23:36, 16 December 2008 (UTC)

• The news/blog content on the homepage should be focused on telling the CC story and should tie to our strategic messaging rather than being posted seemingly in isolation from what our mission is. Everything should tie into one of our projects and our higher level strategic mission. Mike C had some good thoughts about this - we can ask him to expand if it's useful. DMP

• Should definitely move the blog off the home page to a News page, much as Science does on its website. At most, the blog headlines should go in a latest news column as NK suggests. We should also consider stop calling those posts "blog posts" and instead de-personalize them (no by lines) and have them more CC-official content that ties into our strategic mission (per my note above). We could still have a blog but it shouldn't be featured off the home page, at most on the news/press page. DMP

Current Homepage

Things of note regarding the current homepage. Possible problems, issues, beefs, concerns, downright terrible errors. Also things you like, and think we should keep.

• Lots of links
• Lots of blog
• Have to scroll down for mission statement
• Pretty picture up front
• Nothing jumps out and shouts LOOK AT ME
• Info architecture could be worse
• Seriously problematic that you can't get to the legal code of our licenses without going through 1-2 pages of text. Our licenses should be accessible via a single click from our home page, or more prominently accessible after a single click. DMP
• Capturing misspelling - are we going with Licences rather than Licenses? We should be consistent. See the top of our new About page. DMP

Sites of notable homepages

Other non-profit/open source/commercial sites with various homepage approaches that may be closer to what cc.org ought to achieve.

• http://www.redhat.com/
  • Doesn't say what they do, assumed
  • Up front with latest projects and pretty shiny pictures
  • Double level nav
  • Blog posts just titles (RH Blog is its own, clearly defined section)
  • Links to getting started, info, services/products
• http://www.ubuntu.com/
  • Lots of info on what an Ubuntu is
  • Links to press releases, no blog
  • Shiny highlighted links to support/getting involved/developing
• http://www.gnome.org/
  • Minimal
  • Latest project up front
  • Snippets of latest news, events, project info
• http://mediatemple.net/
  • Minimal
  • Direct links to products
  • Info blurb
• http://kiva.org/
• http://www.eff.org/
  • Title only blog post list
  • Very short info line, but direct link to more
  • Link to Donate section separate from main nav
  • Direct links to "issues" (Categories)
    • "Issues" are their content categories, featuring cases, blog posts, related press, related "issues", press releases
• http://www.worldchanging.com/
  • Nice info organisation
  • Colour coordinated categorisation
  • Magazine style website
• http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/
• http://www.mozilla.com/
  • Pretty, enticing
  • Direct link to more information
  • Direct link to latest version
  • "Sort of" latest news - Randomly updated links, not clear on link priorities

Notes from Creativecommons.org_Development

• Remove the blog from the front page of the site and replace it with a concise summary of CC and a handful of highly relevant links to other parts of the site. I seriously doubt whether many people go to CC.org simply to read the blog, and those that do will have no problem clicking on a new tab that says "Weblog." Most people interested in the CC blog are probably somewhat technical and will most likely be using a feed aggregator of some sort. Rename "Jurisdiction News" to something like "Latest News" and incorporate items from the CC blog into the list, then move the list into the right column where there is presently nothing but whitespace, thereby leaving more room for relevant content in the main content area. (Nathan Kinkade)
• I agree with Kinkade for the most part, but I think that the blog serves a secondary purpose of showing people who come to the site that there is always interesting news happening in our world and that there are always cool projects that we are working on. So, while I agree that the blog should not be the focus of the page (I mean, right now, the site looks like little more than a blog when you land on the front page), I think the fact that the blog is newsy and provides dynamic content is a major plus, and that it should remain in some form on the front page. I kind of like how the EFF handles updates on their site (http://www.eff.org/), although I'm not crazy about their overall design. (ES)
• I think the landing main page should have minimal content, but to explain in a concise compelling way why CC is important, what we offer, etc.. (MR)
• I agree that the blog should not be the landing page (MR)
• If all goes well, then I think we should highlight the stories we start to gather during the campaign. I think this has the potential to be very valuable in terms of communicating our mission. (MR)
• I'd be really interested in seeing a design that provided more modular flexibility. Right now, the front page has two giant blocks of info right at the top (I'm not even really sure the case studies one is of much value to the general public, but that's a different conversation) - and it doesn't seem like either really takes advantage of the space. It would be good for there to be the ability to put blocks of info/images of various sizes around the front page, so that we can highlight more than just our topline description and a single project below it. (ES)
• Utilize categories/tags beyond sorting posts
  • Come up with structure/protocol
  • Easily find posts within a category or topic (i.e. music, education, etc.)
  • Tags could also enable more specialized RSS feeds.
• Refresh design
  • A featured article at the top of page, followed by recently updated posts.
    • More information presented in less space without feeling cluttered.
    • Visually divide posts into columns based on tag/categories (i.e. music, education, etc.)
    • See worldchanging.org
• Expand scope to include not only stories that directly reference CC, but also ones on related topics.
  • "Zoom out" on issues on to put news pieces into context.