[Catalyst] Re: New design

[Aristotle Pagaltzis]

* Mark Keating <m.keating at shadowcat.co.uk> [2013-07-23 10:50]:
> The nice chaps at Evozon have recently been making design mocks for
> a bunch of Perl sites and they have come up with a fresh look for
> Catalyst. Take a look and let me know what you guys think.
>
> http://www.mdk.me.uk/community/mocks/Catalyst.jpg

Well it looks cool. But the entire first page is nothing but a starry
sky with 2 sentences worth of information on it. In general, information
density in this design is really low, and most of it gives me a headache
if I try to read rather than just take in the prettiness.

Test that yourself: try to really read a few paragraphs of the prose on
that mockup. Then switch to the http://catalystframework.org/ and do the
same there. Which one hurts your eyes and which one soothes them?

Then what is this design trying to accomplish?

The goal that Tobias’ design was created to meet was to sell people on
Catalyst at a glance, by providing answers to the questions a) what is
Catalyst, b) why would anyone want it, and c) how to get started, all in
as little space and as few words as possible. Was there any similar goal
formulated for this new design? Was it met?

Furthermore – is this is supposed to be developed into a site-wide
design implemented beyond the front page? Or is this just swapping out
another look for the landing page shared with absolutely no other part
of the site that is even just one click away, like all the previous
“redesigns”? Changing the looks on the landing page is the easy part,
making something that works for the entire site and is implemented on
the entire site is what’s necessary and what has yet to happen, I think
ever since Catalyst has existed.

Design isn’t just putting a coat of paint on it…

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>