D brand identity repository

[James Fisher]

On Tue, Jul 5, 2011 at 5:54 AM, Russel Winder <russel at russel.org.uk> wrote:

> On Mon, 2011-07-04 at 11:56 -0600, David Gileadi wrote:
> [ . . . ]
> > One concern I have is that the D site has a lot of pages, and the
> > navigation can be a bit hairy.  I'd like to see a mockup of a sub-page,
> > a Phobos or Language Spec page for instance, that shows what
> > sub-navigation would look like with your design.
>
> Although my familiarity with the experimental studies is now 12+ years
> old, and so arguably a little out of date, the headline from then was
> that there is a very complex interaction between "immediate visual
> impact", "navigability", and "need to use".  If the "immediate visual
> impact" of a page is poor then there has to be a very high "need to use"
> for "navigability" to be a factor.  Similarly if the "navigability" is
> poor then "need to use" has to be high for good "immediate visual
> impact" to offset the problems.  In the middle ground there is a lot of
> individual preference.
>
> Of course where "immediate visual impact" and "navigability" are good
> "need to use" falls away as a factor, and indeed the web site enters the
> realm of being a positive draw.
>
> So what is my point?  Much of the debate recently has been about
> "immediate visual impact" and from what I can tell, none has been about
> "navigability".  Without there being an easily inferable navigation
> model, there are always going to be problems, and often they manifest as
> grumbles about "immediate visual impact" whereas in fact the problem is
> a lack of "navigability".
>
> Basically, I think there needs to be a discussion of the navigation
> model and navigation structures as much and probably before discussing
> the look.


Hi Russel, you're right: most of the discussion has been about visual
impact, yet navigation is absolutely crucial.  By designing a homepage I've
given the impression that I just want to design a "showpiece" site.

This is wrong and I've been giving thought to navigation, but haven't had
the confidence to properly tackle it yet.

There are a few things I'm reasonably sure of:

   - Documentation (language and library reference) is 95% of the challenge.
    Navigation of the rest of the site, which is either just single top-level
   pages or lists of pages (e.g. Howtos), pales in comparison.
   - Documentation should not be squished into the rest of the navigation.
    I much prefer the approach taken by languages that host docs in a sub-site.
    This works because I visit their documentation all the time, but the rest
   of the site only rarely.  Pop quiz: how many of you visit
   http://www.d-programming-language.org/ every day to read the quote from
   Andrei?  Not many I'd bet -- you go there as a waypoint in getting to the
   docs.
   - Navigation design should be based heavily on experience.  I'd like
   everyone's input on what online documentation exists that really works, and
   what aspects of it work.  (For instance, I like it when all exported symbols
   are listed at the top of the page, like this <http://golang.org/pkg/io/>
   .)
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