Redesign of dlang.org

[Aleksandar Ruzicic via Digitalmars-d]

> To be honest, it looks no "better" than the current website. Basically
> it's more windows-8-ish. But I don't think it's a significant improvement.

I agree that it's not a significant improvement. As I've said I'm not a designer,
this was just a try to get something more appealing than the current design.
But I work every day with excellent designers and I was thinking of contacting some
of them to iron out design, if I get approval from the community for such endeavor.

BTW there is a reason why modern operating systems (Windows 8, iOS 7) are going for flat
design. It's much easier to see content when there are no distractions like radial gradients
in background, inner/outer shadows and other things that help create 3D effect for various page components.

That being said, I do not think that current dlang.org design is not easy to read. It is, but I would still
like to see typography improvements to make it even better.


> BTW, I don't think you properly remember early 2000's web sites...

Ok, maybe not early-early 2000's but I've begun fiddling with frontend (HTML/CSS/JS)
in 2005 and the then-modern website look meant gradients, drop shadows and big glossy logos.
I've built few such websites so I think I know a thing or two about that era. :)


> I don't share your opinion that the web site need to be "modern" to avoid
> warding off potential adopters. If they are turned off of using a system
> programming language by a bland (debatable) site look and feel, then I
> think there was really something else bothering them.

Understood. But I believe that better design could improve presentation of D features.

Design should be a means to make content stand out and easy to grasp, and not to stand
in a way ("content is the king" as some would say).

And I think that current design stands in a way, especially on the Phobos pages.
Even with the recent improvements by Andrei and others it still is hard to read and navigate.
I think that we can do it better, but only if we would start with a complete redesign, not just
by tweaking the look of documentation pages.


> That being said, changing look and feel has a "this site is being
> maintained" air to it. I just don't think it's critical enough at this
> point to diverge talent away from working on the language.
>
> -Steve
>

The reason I've started this thread is because I'm willing to start working on this.
I would definitely need some guidance from the community but I don't think that it will
result in divergence of talent.



-- Aleksandar