Loomio
Wed 24 Sep 2014 6:27AM

Home Page Redesign

DU simonv3 Public Seen by 31

With the kickstarter campaign over I want to start kicking about ideas concerning the Home Page.

I think it could use a bit more information, and this needs to be properly designed, rather than just tacked on one by one (like we're doing right now with the blog, mailing list, etc).

Any thoughts welcome. I'll start putting together a proposal for this once the guide flow has been finished.

RA

Rory Aronson Wed 1 Oct 2014 12:48PM

@simonv3 good point. Perhaps it could look like:

Learn to Grow ____ [Search]
- or -
Create a Guide for ______ [Go]

R

Ryan Fri 10 Oct 2014 6:16PM

Oops, I missed this discussion! I think video is fine for bandwidth as long as it loads after the placeholder image (as Airbnb does) and if there's really a concern it can at least be disabled on mobile. Keeping the video calm and behind an overlay of color makes it clear that it shouldn't be vying for your attention.

Simon makes a good point, good copy is a big part of design here and careful succinct wording that helps paint of a picture of how the site works. Additionally I think a quick little three step sketch below the search could be immensely helpful; something as simple as "1) explore to find crops you want to plant —> 2) find a community written guide that compatible with your garden be it a small farm or windowsill —> 3) get email updates, and share what and how you grow with the community!" with some cute images for each step. I think it's great to also provide some popular guides for people to click if they come to the site not exactly knowing what to search.

R

Ryan Fri 10 Oct 2014 6:50PM

Another great examples I'd love to copy is Khan Academy. They have great simple graphics and also use some subtle video background. It'd be awesome if we didn't even need the video primarily and could teach through really simple background video (ie. "Find a guide that makes sense for you" (then a subheader with more detail) while the background shows someone navigating through OpenFarm results/filters…), etc.

Geocaching also has a cute 1, 2, 3 but my eye is everyone on their page and it's not that actionable.