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<p>Hi Eyal, thanks for your insights and sorry for the delay in
answer. Busy week :)<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 2019-03-13 2:38 a.m., Eyal Rozenberg
wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:716168ce-6323-407d-9016-a3708f32541b@technion.ac.il">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">On 12/03/2019 23:58, alex wrote:
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Hello wonderful people,
Let's start moving forward with the refresh of the Thunderbird website!
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
TBH, I would be more interested in a refresh of/update of/additions to
the site's contents rather than the site as such.
</pre>
</blockquote>
Yes, that's what we're doing and focusing on right now. That's why
the low-fi wireframes. Throughout my years of doing this, I noticed
that is easier for everyone to define and write content if it's
already inside a website-like structure. It helps to give boundaries
and giving a sense of space, and it translates better once the
content is applied on a webpage rather than writing everything
inside a word doc.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:716168ce-6323-407d-9016-a3708f32541b@technion.ac.il">
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">I think we can all agree that the website looks outdated, not appealing,
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
Doesn't look outdated to me. Or - perhaps I'm an outdated person?
As for appeal... well, I don't know. Doesn't seem that bad; but I guess
it depends on who you want to appeal to, and how.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>I should have elaborated more the message. It's outdated in terms
of design choices like the grainy background and white drop
shadows of the text. Those styles were the "new hot thing" around
2007 and it was actually Apple to launch that trend. Design style
evolved drastically in recent years and having an interface that
resembles something that was almost globally used by all the
websites a decade ago, does communicate a sense of "old" and
"outdated", which it's not what we want for a product like
Thunderbird.</p>
<p>Also, from a user-flow prospective, it's a bit all over the place
with wrong alignments, wrong kerning and leading, and a poor use
of white space to give a good and readable pace. <br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:716168ce-6323-407d-9016-a3708f32541b@technion.ac.il">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">and it doesn't properly communicate the massive work all the awesome
developers are doing to revamp Thunderbird, and the overall team growth.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
This is true!
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">So, let's start this process!
First and foremost, we need to properly define 3 things:
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
I would say the first thing to define is:
* Which kinds of visitors does the site cater too?
* What does the site aim to offer/provide visitors of each kind?
* Which kind of visitors are "prioritized" over others?
For example, right now it looks like the main kind of visitor the site
caters to is the newbie user who is not very knowledgeable, with a short
promotional pitch and a large download link. Everybody else is relegated
to searching through the non-prominent top menu. I'm not saying this is
necessarily a bad choice, but it is _a_ choice.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>What you're talking about is defining a Persona, which in my
opinion, would be wrong to follow that approach.</p>
<p>Thunderbird is an email client for many different users, they can
be newbies, teachers, developers, my mom, etc. Defining a Persona
for such broad user base wouldn't be advisable as we would end up
having too many variables to cover, or risking to alienate a
specific group of people.</p>
<p>In case of these type of products, it's always advisable to
approach the content creation from our own prospective, and trying
to answer these questions: What do we want to showcase? Where do
we want to direct the user? Which areas are important to us?</p>
<p>Based on many constructive feedback I got on the wireframes, I
noticed that we're probably focused on these funnels:</p>
<ul>
<li>Easy download of the main product and the Beta version</li>
<li>Prominent donation CTAs<br>
</li>
<li>Easy access to support</li>
<li>Easy access to collaboration</li>
<li>Highlight important features</li>
<li>Highlight the Calendar</li>
</ul>
<p>With these points, we can define the proper content and sections
for our home page.<br>
</p>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:716168ce-6323-407d-9016-a3708f32541b@technion.ac.il">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap=""> * A solid and well thought sitemap
* The amount of written content we want in each page
* The "type and style of communication" we want to use (Are we
friendly? Are we quirky? Are we business -jargon oriented?)
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
Also -please don't be overly friendly, like those cringy messages on
Slack which tell me they like me...
</pre>
</blockquote>
You can help use by leaving comments in the wireframes and write
some message example to define the tone and be sure we don't slip
into the cringy area :)<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:716168ce-6323-407d-9016-a3708f32541b@technion.ac.il">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Without having a solid understanding of the content, the message,
</pre>
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<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
You seem to be assuming a single message.
</pre>
</blockquote>
"the message" = "the tone". I'm assuming we want to have a
consistent tone and overall similar type of message, right? We don't
want to be super businessy on a page and super firendly on another.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:716168ce-6323-407d-9016-a3708f32541b@technion.ac.il">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">and
the overall structure of the Thunderbird web presence, it wouldn't be
productive to start mocking UI screens, icons, colors, etc. That's why
we should all try to get rid of any visual bias and work on a bland
wireframe to keep the focus on what matters.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
Structure should follow from function...
</pre>
</blockquote>
That's why the wireframes are bland and unstyled. That structure is
just a placeholder to help visualize content in a web contest. The
actual UI will be defined around the content and the desired user
flows.<br>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:716168ce-6323-407d-9016-a3708f32541b@technion.ac.il">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">Linked at the end of this message you will find a public Presentator
board. There, you will see a really simple, and quite standard, home
page layout for a product presentation.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
It seems you are making strong assumptions regarding the fundamental
questions we're facing, already in basing this on a product presentation
to customers/clients.
</pre>
</blockquote>
<p>What assumptions I'm making? I literally created a blank canvas
and ask everyone to contribute with content, text, and
suggestions. I don't understand this comment as I didn't write
"this is the new website and we do as I said".<br>
</p>
<p>The only thing I did was giving some guidelines to help
contributing to the page based on my 15 years of experience in
this field. Was I wrong to do that?</p>
<p>Cheers,<br>
</p>
<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
Alessandro Castellani
Lead UX Architect</pre>
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