William: I created this page as a discussion sub-page for our community's To-Do list, but specifically on the sub-topic of how to improve the site's effectiveness.I intend to give feedback (and ideas) from the point of view of an absolutely new user: new to Tiki, and new to ClearOS.
So, please don't get angry if I totally miss the point. Remember, if a retired senior programmer misses the point, then how many other site visitors will also miss that point.
Our goal is to promote WikiSuite as the clear choice for people who want the most powerful collaborative software with the least administrative effort. To do this we must project a web image which never confounds a site visitor with jargon or concepts they don't understand. Every single jargon word must be a link to a simple and clear definition and promotional statements.
Preliminary Personal Notes
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- Question: Do WikiSuite members have personal pages? This might be a good idea to bring a sense of professionalism by having a standard page structure for board members and senior personnel. And maybe allow members to describe their backgrounds and why they like WikiSuite.
- I am willing to implement the following recommendations but, being as new as I am, I thought it might be better to discuss generalities first.
Comments On Our Landing Page (WikiSuite.org)
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This assessment is going to be rather harsh. Sorry!
- Who is WikiSuite targeting? Is it not:
- Business professionals who are learning about possible collaborative tools they might use?
- Super-Users whose bosses have asked them to do the same.
- Regular people who are also trying to learn about these tools, and found this site.
- Experienced IT professionals.
In my opinion, our landing page is suffering from geek speak, and we are therefore likely to be losing customers from groups 1-3, and many from 4.
Problems and possible fixes
When people visit a web page, there is a satisfaction threshold which must be met for them to remain on that page. They must immediately see clues that they are going in the right direction for their quest, or at least feel they may have discovered an interesting new quest.
There is no generally understandable explanation of what WikiSuite is or does
- Probably only 5% of the general public knows what "wiki" means. Possibly as few as 10% of experienced business professionals, and even IT people, really know what a wiki can do. It is admittedly difficult to design a landing page which appeals to everyone, but I think we can do better.
- The page needs text which explains that wiki software allows groups of people to easily and colllaboratively create attractive documentation pages, and these pages can be either private to an organization or open to the public.
- Very few people know what Open Software is much less FLOSS or "Free / Libre / Open Source software". To them, this is just meaningless jargon.
- The next textual group fails to remedy the problem when it simply says, "WikiSuite™ is especially suited to knowledge-centric organizations". A person really needs to know what an object is before being told what it is useful for.
The primary image feels broken
The main image is of the WikiSuite logo surrounded by eight objects that look like they should be hot-links, but they aren't. I bet 9 out of every 10 people who visit this page will move their pointers over those logos, and then be amazed that they don't do anything.
IMO, we really should activate these logos with both textual popups and links.