

The Great Python.org Redesign - LeafStorm
http://jessenoller.com/2012/11/28/the-great-python-org-redesign/

======
jnoller
Ugh. My host is giving me nothing but heartburn. Great.

Link to the original RFP: <http://pythonorg-
redesign.readthedocs.org/en/latest/>

PSF Blog post: [http://pyfound.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/pythonorg-is-
getting-m...](http://pyfound.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/pythonorg-is-getting-
makeover.html)

Link to the winning bids:

[http://redesign.python.org/assets/Python-proposal-
Sept2012-c...](http://redesign.python.org/assets/Python-proposal-
Sept2012-cleaned.pdf)

[http://redesign.python.org/assets/divio_python_presentation....](http://redesign.python.org/assets/divio_python_presentation.pdf)

I'm working on the hosting issue now.

~~~
goblin89
Excellent presentation from divio, would highly recommend to check it out,
especially for designers or those who work with designers. The
wireframes_design.pdf, referenced from the presentation, apparently is also
available: <http://redesign.python.org/assets/wireframes_design.pdf>

~~~
emp_
I wonder if it good UX that the site is designed around first-time-to-python
users (and sponsors maybe?) and recurring reasons to come back such as events
and the blog (the actual python users) are way down in the footer?

~~~
goblin89
Events and blog entries featured on new landing page proposal, I believe, are
also intended for new users, convincing them that the language is actively
maintained and has an active community around.

Experienced developers probably don't come to Python.org for development news
and new events anyway—there are other channels, including fellow programmers.

Those new to the subject (potential developers or sponsors), though, have
nowhere else to go and are 100% likely to end up on Python.org. They also can
easily leave forever if not interested.

So, from this standpoint the UX should work well for new users first and
foremost. If it does, it's probably good UX.

------
braveheart1723
The top navigation with the colored lines is great, similar to the bbc website
<http://www.bbc.co.uk/> where each of the topmost items have a different
colored underline.

Now for the negatives:

those gradients in your main navigation ( ABOUT, DOWNLOADS, etc... ) is
horrible. I see this a lot in bad Wordpress themes. It's dated, looks bad now,
and will look worse in 6months.

The blue SEARCH font color on the blue background is a poor contrast choice.

Those Python 2.x, 3.x buttons look terrible too. It's the gradients, remove
those inner grey gradients, it doesn't add anything to the buttons, doesn't
even make them stand out.

Your code formatting screen looks great.

The responsive layout also needs work. The double navigation bar on ipad
doesnt look nice. The search bar on the iphone is WAY too small. that should
either be stacked / above / below the nav, not side by side on a 320px screen.

\---

web design is going flat, with big font types, and big images, everything is
square, clean.

<http://www.hulu.com/> <http://www.uniqlo.com/us/> <http://www.ebay.com/new>
[http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/05/the-walking-dead-
kill...](http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/05/the-walking-dead-killer-
within-review)

Personally i would keep it simple like backbone documentation

<http://backbonejs.org/>

\---

Good job though :)

~~~
flyosity
There's some odd execution-level details I noticed also: all the big grey
buttons for downloads look pre-pressed because they use a dark-to-light
gradient which makes them look beveled in. In case the designers have never
actually seen a physical button in real life before, buttons pop out and need
a light-to-dark gradient indicating that light is hitting the top of the
button.

I wrote a blog entry on this topic awhile back:
[http://flyosity.com/design/making-rounded-rectangles-look-
gr...](http://flyosity.com/design/making-rounded-rectangles-look-great.php)

~~~
jnoller
thank you

------
nemesisj
Man, I really thought that the OP was using a bit of hyperbole on the Divio
proposal, but holy shit - that is the single best presented and thought out
proposal I have ever seen. I'm sure they went a bit above and beyond due to
the high profile of the site involved, but I'm seriously impressed. What a
fantastic reference point for what a design and website proposal should be.

~~~
frankwiles
Agreed, their proposal was out of this world. Never seen a company pour that
much time and effort into a presentation before.

~~~
nemesisj
What a smart marketing tactic (that paid off in a sales win too) to just throw
everything into the proposal and kill it. Very smart, and it speaks volumes
about the organisation.

------
sergiotapia
The overuse of gradients really makes the website look cheap and like a
malware website.

The highlighted gray navigation link on hover doesn't contrast at all with the
blues.

On the other hand, disregarding the color scheme and gaudy gradients, the
layout is solid. Clear separation of hierarchies and relationships will make
for an easy to navigate website.

~~~
leetrout
I came to say the same thing.

I see that Jesse acknowledged some critiques above and said he would pass on
the feedback so hopefully it doesn't fall on deaf ears.

~~~
jnoller
Yup. Already passed on to the team.

------
manaskarekar
A (perhaps redundant) request: Please please do not sacrifice usability for
beauty/design. I love current Python docs and I think they're one of the best
out there.

Thanks for the hard work! It looks great. :)

~~~
jnoller
The docs are not part of the redesign except perhaps for updated style sheets.
See <http://pythonorg-redesign.readthedocs.org/en/latest/>

~~~
goblin89
I believe this is the relevant quote from the linked page:

> The proposal may feature a retheming of <http://docs.python.org> but need
> not do so.

IMO Python documentation actually looks _very_ nice now (not sure if anything
was written about that redesign). I hope very much that readability and clear
looks won't be compromised. =) Docs may deserve some improvement from
navigation standpoint, but this would require more than pure stylesheet
update.

------
pestaa
Looks really modern. A really impressive improvement over what python.org
currently has. I'm no usability expert, but links look like links and buttons
look like they can actually be pressed, a small detail that gets overlooked
these days.

~~~
jnoller
We are definitely keeping an eye on usability we have several experts on the
team reviewing each design bit by bit

------
vickytnz
Looks good. I think I should point out that the current version of python.org
is actually pretty decent in the scheme of programming language/codebase sites
(there are some real eyesores out there!)

~~~
jnoller
Just to add - a comparison to the lowest common denominator is not what we're
after :)

~~~
yen223
But he's right, the current Python website looks a lot better than some other
websites _coughPHPcoughGocough_

My 2 cents, I really like Nodejs's website. Closer to Python, I'm really
digging the websites for the Pocoo packages (Flask, Jinja2 etc).

~~~
jnoller
No need to go site/language bashing :) We're going to make it look good,
usable and a showcase for Python. Other language sites while good for
"competitive analysis" aren't needed to make ours shine.

Let's just stay civil

------
mladenkovacevic
I love love love the final wireframes in the Divio presentation... They almost
don't need to go any higher-res than that. But then the few linked screenshots
at the bottom seem to suggest a very rendered look done in gradients and 3D
buttons which I don't love as much.

------
inglesp
There's also a version up on the PSF blog:
[http://pyfound.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/pythonorg-is-
getting-m...](http://pyfound.blogspot.co.uk/2012/11/pythonorg-is-getting-
makeover.html)

~~~
jnoller
And a cached copy: <http://jnoller.github.com/redesign_cache/>

------
so898
Most open source projects need people like OP to rebuild their website!

~~~
takluyver
Most open source projects would love to have $70K to spend on professional
designers to rebuild their website. ;-)

~~~
jnoller
And most would love to have people working on it for years to scrimp and save
the money, evaluate proposals, fight the stop energy and "good enough" crowd.

Money was the least of the problems. That, at least you can make through hard
work and sweat.

------
jnoller
I have put up a gh-pages quick and dirty cached version here:
<http://jnoller.github.com/redesign_cache/> I sincerely apologize for the
total hosting fail.

------
lnanek2
Wow, 70k for a glitzy closed source web site? I'm much more impressed with
things like npm-www which are clean, effective, and great examples of using
the language in their own right.

~~~
jnoller
Uh. No. The website, all source and everything will be open source, based on
django and other open source python work/etc.

You missed a great deal of facts.

~~~
fuzzyman
Hey, at least he thinks it's glitzy. That's a plus.

------
Pwnguinz
I'm pleasantly surprised that PyPi will be prominently featured on the
official python.org redesign!

------
davvid
Tiny nit: the code examples seem to be using a variable named `l`, which is
one of the "names to avoid" per PEP-8.

<http://www.python.org/dev/peps/pep-0008/#names-to-avoid>

------
sontek
Will the development / design be done in an open source manner so that we can
contribute? Or will only the 2 contractors be able to work on it?

~~~
jnoller
Until we hit close to the final major milestone for delivery and payment, it's
up to the team. After that it's all open source and community.

------
dimmuborgir
OT: Does anyone know what happened to official Ruby site redesign proposal?

------
wrboyce
l is a bad variable name, in that font it is worse.

------
CaioAlonso
Any cached version available?

~~~
cocoflunchy
If you're running Chrome, just add cache: in front of the URL and boom! Google
cached version.

~~~
louischatriot
TIL how to use Chrome. Thank you.

~~~
sdqali
I got tired of having to look this up and decided to write a Chrome plugin to
load the cached version of pages. You can download the extension from here -
<http://blog.sdqali.in/downloads/GetCache.crx>

You might find it useful.

EDIT: Fixed minor typo.

