TEST! Homepage IA rethinking

[nickdunn]

Here's a summary of the discussions about the site homepage.

What doesn't work

• The top part of the page lacks interaction: "cumbersome", there are no links anywhere!
• The four "features" under the hero area are not hyperlinked into Explore > Features
• It does not highlight community activity well enough
• The Download area feels wasted, lots of links but rarely used. Content on Download page is great, re-use for homepage?
• Bottom half of the page lacks hierarchy, feels undesigned (compare w/ structure of http://gowalla.com/)
• Latest from the Blog is often missed
• Latest from the Community feels relatively irrelevant, or is missing context

What does work

• Omnipresent Symphony screenshot
• The four "features", headings and copy are great
• Client logos as an element of trust and backing

What is the purpose of the page?

The home should do a few things:

1. IMPACT! and then drive you inside.Communicate what Symphony is and why it's awesome
2. Motivate new users to explore
   3/ Add value for existing/returning members

Suggestions

• Showcase images on rotation, different screenshots on page refresh
• Top part should contain hyperlinks to Explore (Showcase/Testimonials) and Download at least
• Perhaps explore moving "Latest from the Blog" into the footer, moving Login/Profile to an overlay from the header
• Tighten the themes of the homepage into three discrete areas: the system, who's using it and howm what's going on in the site

Sketch, draw and dream. Arrange another meeting in say, one week, as a show-and-tell to discuss ideas.

[nickdunn]

Here is my take. The page is more explicitly structured into three sections:

What Symphony is

• tagline (perhaps in the Symphony branded typeface)
• the four "features" clearly linked though to Explore section
• a VIDEO introduction (with UI poster shot) giving a quick explanation about the product
• enticing download panel links to get the product: makes it easy for new users to get a Zip immediately; makes it easy for existing users to see the latest version number and spot new updates

Who's using Symphony

• several showcase sites (same rollover style with extra info)
• client logos and clear links through to Explore (showcase, video testimonials and perhaps a forthcoming Case Studies section)

Community and support

• existing support area
• not sure about which "from the site" features to pull in yet

[nickdunn]

I've revised the sketch into something a bit easier to visualise. Here are three variations with different positions for the Download blocks (small panel top right, full width section, and nested in the "features" area). All three make sense given their position between "Symphony as a product" and "Who's using Symphony" (since downloading is the step to get you from one to the other).

I'm leaning toward #3, with only three "features".

Other things to note:

• client logos remain prominent
• showcase thumbnails are in carousel to show more than three
• blog posts include author (for personality) and unread comment count (like the forum, so it's easy to see what's new)

The blog posts area could include new Extensions, but I'm not convinced the homepage is the right place to broadcast this. The blog feels like the only logical team/community content here. It's news, after all.

The video I see as a product walkthrough (not a fancy creative showreel) which might cover very quick installation (perhaps), building a section and getting content to the frontend. Or it might quickly show a pre-built system (NOT a blog) saying "here's the backend interface, this is a section, these are fields, here's some content I'm adding, here's some XML, here's some XSLT, and here's the website".