The design is horrible.

[jonwaller]

Are we seriously going with http://174.142.20.146/en/ ?

There's too much information, there is some crazy matrix-style numbers down the sides, buttons are in the wrong place, and it's confusing to navigate.

Are most people agreed on this new design? Please let's not forget our audience.

[saivann]

matrix-style : That creates some kind of fancy perspective effect. I liked the idea because it's like seeing some network hashes exchanging in the background. Just like if we are immersed in the bitcoin universe. I've had a few feedbacks, on this. I've already reduced the speed of the letters so that it stays in the background. If we remove it, then site will be a bit more clean, and perhaps less creative. Maybe I can reduce the animation a bit more.

buttons : any idea what to do with them? I thought these three categories were very important and need a special visibility.

confusing to navigate : perhaps is it related to the titles not being 100% identical with the name of the page in the menu?

too much informations : reduce the number of things in the menu, use dropdown menus? Merge some things together? Feel free to share your thoughts.

[gmaxwell]

FWIW, I did I neutral non-technical user panel of two users on the new site. One person actually laughed at the matrix thing and mocked it. Both though it did not look very 'trustworthy'. Both preferred the old site. :(

[saivann]

Thanks! My bet is that there is still too much bright colored things. Some people just find this nice and refreshing while others think it's not professionnal. The current Bitcoin logo and font doesn't help much because it's cute, plain and bright-colored. I tried to respect its existing form and create something around it. And I tried to make things "less cute", but up to some point, the colors don't fit the logo if they are too grey. The little "heart" icon also always annoyed me a bit, but I didn't find a proper replacement yet..

As I said, don't hesitate to be more specific. I can improve things if I have enough clues. I will experiment things and maybe provide a new test design if I get something good.

[saivann]

Ok, just a matter of test, take a look at this (cleaned and sober) version :
http://174.142.20.146/testClean01.png
http://174.142.20.146/testClean02.png /Edit another one/
http://174.142.20.146/testClean03.png /Edit another one/
http://174.142.20.146/testClean04.png /Edit another one/

And tell me, do you think the result is better, or worse, in your opinion.

This is not serious work , I've made this only for orientation purposes. Things are not aligned or polished. Names in the menu are demonstrative.

I didn't change the icons there, but I might target the organizations and enthusiasts icon.

[jonwaller]

2 is lovely.

[saivann]

I've just added number 4, I'm curious to have your opinion on it

[jonwaller]

The top and bottom look like they're from different sites. I feel the "How it works" line links are also too small.

But I would be very fine with 1 2 or 4, my main beef was with the matrix effects.

[saivann]

At least that makes a few things more clear. Thanks for answering. The real challenge will be the buttons (which are not on the screenshots) If you can provide any idea to integrate them in a nice way, please give me examples. They can also go in the menu, but "you need to know" and "choose your wallet" are a bit too long for the menu IMO..

Concerning the matrix effect, it's really not hard to remove that. And I think that will be the good decision as per the recent feedback.

[tcatm]

I think the design looks cramped at the top. If you really must have distinct sections for different user groups (Individuals, Organizations, ..) move them to the frontpage as the main content. Also, what's the difference between "Enthusiasts" and the others? What would a user expect to find behind "How it works" and "About"?

When designing the current bitcoin.org I deliberately decided to have a larger "header" on the front page and smaller ones on the others.

Also, bitcoin.org should, in my opinion, not advertise bitcoin and instead contain information about the system that won't change and are easy to understand. Don't mention fancy terms like "Terahashes".

[saivann]

tcatm : did you look at this, do you still think the menu is cramped on this version?
http://174.142.20.146/testClean02.png

I noticed the larger heather on the first page. Is there some good sides if we do this?

Enthusiast contains all ideology and politics. There is a wide category of Bitcoin users that want Bitcoin not because it is useful for their everyday life like a normal user, but because it is ground-breaking. The enthusiast section cover what matters for that audience. And that allows us to put anything that is ideological out of all other pages. In fact, no matter what we do, it's impossible to summarize Bitcoin for all category of users in a single line.

I do not see the new site as advertizing. I think there is a need for a website that explain both what is nice about Bitcoin, and what a user should know about it, both positively and negatively. The "for-*" sections look like advertizing because they indeed target what matters to users, making it easier to understand Bitcoin for them. But they also goes far beyond and explain or link to limitations of the system and how to play with them. And the proeminent "You need to know" page clearly does counter-advertizing. In the end, this is a way to handle "What is Bitcoin", not from the head of a developer, but in the eyes of the users. If bitcoin.org doesn't do this, I think that it will be difficult for Bitcoin to be less a "geek-technical-complicate-thing" and more people are going to learn about Bitcoin the wrong way and make false assumption about it.

For "Terahashes", it seems relevant to me to say the network has a great calculation power. I wonder what is wrong with terahashes, as it's only a unit to give a measure of the power of the network.

Concerning "How it works" and "About", I see How it works like an introduction to the functionning of the system. And later, more extensive content about the protocol. While the About page is for history, status and statistics about the system. I am not against moving technical content out of the "About" page when we will improve "How it works" and have a FAQ. But at least at the moment, I thought these texts were useful.

[saivann]

If you think the menu is still cramped, I am not against making a drop-down menu named "What is Bitcoin" and put all "For *" menus inside it. But I think it's relevant to have them accessible from any page. I am not sure about keeping them only in the front page because it will make these pages difficult to reach and explore in all other pages.

[saivann]

Here is an example with no "For - *" menu at the top and a "What is Bitcoin" dropdown menu instead. Very sober. I think that I like this one. And we could remove "Vocabulary" from there when will we get the FAQ. The flashy buttons are still too flashy, this is only a work in progress.
http://174.142.20.146/testClean05.png

[tcatm]

Still too many top level links IMHO. Btw, it would be nice if the site was responsive and worked well on mobile devices.

[jonwaller]

@saivann Where is your code? I'd like to fork it to suggest / demonstrate changes.

[saivann]

@jonwaller I coded this and pushed here : https://github.com/saivann/bitcoinorg-clean

[saivann]

@tcatm But is it improving in your opinion? Yes, I agree about mobile support. I also wanted to make the design scalable and more optimized for mobiles. This new test design makes this easier.

[jonwaller]

Well done on the release. Looks good.

[saivann]

Thanks for your input! Closing the issue