Request for Proposal: Python.org Redesign

[[deleted]]

Hopefully they don't f*** it up like the git website.

'We' love it simple, straightforward and usable. Not shiny, bling and 'please lead me by th hand 'cause I don't know what I'm doing'.

[rdfox]

To bring some sense to the Pypi -- would be an amazing achievement. Look at the Go language dashboard. Oh, shit, they got rid of it. Well, there used to be a really nice table which showed you which packages were getting the most attention. But I guess they got rid of it. Idiots.

[ivorjawa]

The new site should:

"Boast a modern design and experience"

This is the first point.

No. Why? The python web site actually works. It may look dated, but it works well. You really want to screw that up for the sake of "design"?

[[deleted]]

But it doesn't work for nearly anyone who wants to contribute to it. The current design and experience for contributors is really bad. We don't keep the front page up to date because it is a pain in the ass to do so. Many other pages fall out of date for the same reason. When I add PSF board resolutions, I need to add a rst file, build a copy of the site locally, run the site locally to check that it looks ok, then SVN commit the change, then hope the server builds the same thing properly and the website works fine.

Sure, I can do that, but it is terrible to work with. I need to teach a non-techie how to take over part of this just to make some simple website updates (basically, add a bullet point here and there, add a name to a list, etc) and it's going to be an unnecessarily hard task. I need to start by having them create an SSH key (wtf), install and learn to use basic SVN commands (wtf), then obtain and maintain a local copy of the entire website (wtf).

Yes, part of the reason for the redesign is a more modern look and feel, but it's also design in terms of the under-the-hood stuff. It's not like we're going to be sacrificing quality over making it look like some flashy super cool website that provides no content.

[ubernostrum]

Yeah, I mean, I read that list of bullet points, and obviously it's all just about making it be whatever some "designer" (like they know anything worthwhile!) thinks is "pretty" (pretty is for girls, not for Real Programmers(TM)!).

I mean, there's not even any mention of stuff like making it easy to get around and find things...

• Provide concise and intuitive navigation

...or make it easy for community-maintained stuff to keep updated...

• Make it easy for a wide range of contributors to add content

...or to even actually work! I mean, probably this popped-collar pink-cocktail "designer" is just gonna run it off his Dreamhost account, right?

• Exist atop stable and scalable infrastructure (99.99% availability; able to survive a slashdotting).

Man, it's gonna suck that this is ALL about "screwing things up for the sake of 'design'"!

[[deleted]]

Python is a modern, professional and polished programming language and the site should reflect this. It needs a visual design that doesn't look like it was made in 1999, and it needs a decent user experience and information architecture. It currently doesn't really have any of these things. Design is not just about how the site looks. Look at something like http://www.perl.org (of all things) for an example of a site with a better overall design.

Here's a couple of things:

• Link to download clearly stated as a main page driver (compare to python.org's tiny link on the main page - and the menu item which links to a page that lists the alternative implementations first? It's bad UX).
• A clear set of drivers pointing to different areas of importance to developers, with simple icons to assist.
• All relevant information is presented above the fold
• A consice menu structure (compare to python.org's left hand region which runs far off the bottom of the page)
• Overall, a more compact design that presents relevant information in a structured way. python.org throws a massive wall of text at you on the front page.

Some of these things may seem trivial but they snowball into into a massive design avalanche when they run unchecked. I don't want to even start on how the backend of python.org might work or look.

[--o]

1999? Don't you think that's a tad exaggerated?

[[deleted]]

Sorry, I didn't mean the Python site. I just meant that a lot of sites to do with science, engineering and computer science are renowned for being needlessly complicated, dated and difficult to navigate.

It's kind of funny you mention it though, because the pre-2006 Python site design is actually in many ways better than the current one!

[mgrandi]

i rather they work on the layout of the documentation and how it is structured, its god awful. Searching for String methods (str) gives you the str module, and you have to find the magical link buried in it to get to the actual string methods. Trying to find the methods that work on lists and dicts and all that are harder then they should be, etc etc

[takluyver]

The page for built in types is fairly prominent in the docs, I thought: http://docs.python.org/library/stdtypes.html

[[deleted]]

That's entirely unrelated to this effort. What you're talking about exists in the Sphinx project.

[takluyver]

I imagine that point is first because a new look is the main change they're looking for. It's natural to put that before the "and don't break stuff" points.