A redesign idea
Pablo Cúbico
Public
Seen by 31
Hi! I've gave this some thought, as I would really like to see Diaspora moving to a next step in the near future. I already proposed some minor tweaks on Diaspora's UI and started contributing to the Bootstrap porting (will continue this long weekend! woohoo!).
In the meantime, I took a deeper look into the foundation website, and I would really love to see something like this happening, an up-to-date bold redesign, that could help engaging more people, users and potential developers.
I have visual communication experience from working with agencies for years, so I can help with about anything regarding that. I believe that good branding is crucial to make Diaspora more engaging for users and devs.
Take a look at the EmberJS site for an example, is just a JS framework, pure code, but their site is heavily designed and branded. Even if you don't know Ember, entering their site gives you some idea that something is going on well there.
I think free software needs a lot from us designers, and sadly, not many designers engage with that.
So, here is a first take I took on the Diaspora Foundation site. I've put some serious thought into it. It may be shocking, but please be imaginative, and trust me on this, an updated look like this could be a hit. Try to envision the impact of a relaunch campaign.
This is an interactive prototype with two screens: home, and philosophy. You can click on "Philosophy" or "find out why", just click anywhere and you will find the hotspots. You can also leave comments there, pressing C o hitting the comment button at the bottom.
Feel free to love it, hate it, criticize, implement it... IMHO, it's a good starting point to checkout some looks and go further with the rest of the pages. Not a big site, this would be really easy to implement.
Font is Open Sans (free)
Background image is a free photo from sxc.hu.
goob Sat 19 Apr 2014 10:06PM
I’m thinking on some “not-so-flat” alternatives
Let's call them 'fat' design!
We've been talking elsewhere about making an 'official' pod finder from the fantastic resource of podupti.me and the new stats collector produced by @jasonrobinson - so, while we'd like to include a pod finder resource on the official site, it won't be taken directly from the current podupti.me.
In an ideal world, I think we could present people with a choice of 'how do you want to choose a pod' - from, say, location (any local pods serving the community you live in), special interest (e.g. 'pet-board'), size, security features, and so on, and present a selection of pods based on those criteria. That's all up for discussion, but I expect the eventual feature will be something different from what's currently available, so don't do too much work on it until we've been able to thrash out what will be included in it.
(I can't find where the discussion on what to include in an 'official' pod selector, but perhaps someone else can provide a link.)
Jason Robinson Tue 22 Apr 2014 7:26PM
Haven't had time to check this before. Very nice mockup @hola - like it. Also I don't think the project site needs to look like the d* UI itself - though the wiki and other project resource pages should follow some kind of common theme.
The project site should definitely be responsive and mobile first - that is a must imho. With a gorgeous modern responsive project site I think we could totally get more people interested.
The pod choosing is probably the most important thing that would need refining. As @goob said, not so much a list but an interactive experience. Big buttons, not so much text or lists - and most importantly an easy way to just click one button to go to a signup page.
Pablo Cúbico Wed 23 Apr 2014 4:50AM
I've summarized all the feedback I had in the proposal:
https://www.loomio.org/d/KZJhVLgM/diaspora-ui-enhancements-with-minimum-coding-effort
Vote!
Pablo Cúbico · Sat 19 Apr 2014 9:18PM
You can click Join and the first two pods on the join view.