RFC: Home page design

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

I agree with your basic thrust, that some of the buttons can be
improved, but I think there are even better ways to express it.

Ian Clatworthy writes:

 > OTOH, it sounds awkward to me that "Extend" is the next action someone
 > would take after "Download". It suggests that the core product isn't
 > powerful and/or that the packaging is poor.

<rant>
Obviously you've been smoking too much Windows.  Repeat after me:
"Extensibility is power.  Power is extensibility.  There is no other
Way to power.  Extensibility is ...".<wink>  Now that The Truth is
out, we return you to your regularly scheduled Committee of
Marketroidery ....
</rant>

 > I'd like to see "Extend" replaced with "Get Productive". The text could
 > say something like ...

Both are too generic and marketroid, I think.  Look, you have a different
problem here than the ones faced by Microsoft and HP.  You're creating
a portal for a product, not for an industrial hegemony.  (World
Domination Now?  No, that's Linus....)  Seriously, if this button is
about

 > "Bazaar has plenty of documentation, project hosting options and plugins
 > to help make you productive. With a rich Python API, it's easy to
 > integrate into existing environments."

how about "Integrate" as its label?  (N.B.  "Productive" is a fine
word to use in context, as above.  You might want "to improve your
productivity", your phrasing could be taken to imply the reader isn't
productive yet.  But my phrasing doesn't cut it somehow ... "make you
*even more* productive," maybe?)  Oh, and I'd s/With/Based on/.  Maybe
s/it's easy to integrate into/it integrates well with/.  I think
somehow you want to imply (or say outright) that "integration" means
"bzr saves your source without gitting[sic -- a felicitous typo, I
think I'll leave it :] in the way of your work(flow)," too.  Yes, it's
already there, but that's a point deserves emphasis.  (Even if
somewhat untrue at present, see next point.)

 > I'd also replace 'Extend your toolkit' with 'Learn Bazaar' and link to
 > the official documentation site.

That's got the same problem you identify with "Extend".  It implies
that Bazaar itself *needs* learning, in other words, that it's
everything we all love about git.  (This is currently basically true,
I think, but that's supposed to be fixed for 3.0 ;) and anyway it's
not good marketing.)  So what is it that needs "learning" about the
Bazaar of our dreams?  Well, it's stuff like "what are the best
commands to accomplish our workflow?"

How about "Adapt" (Bazaar to our way of doing things) or maybe better
"Optimize"?  I like "Optimize" here because there are really two
aspects.  The first is "Optimize your use of Bazaar in the context of
your workflow."  The second is "Bazaar is flexible, so it will
*continue* to adapt *smoothly* as you optimize your workflow."