Drupal.com refresh launched
Back in March 2008, I blogged about a much-needed redesign soon to be deployed onto Drupal.com, to replace the oh-so-embarrassing placeholder page I've had there for years. I'm happy to announce that -- thanks in large measure to the great design and development work of the good folks at Development Seed -- the new and much improved Drupal.com has been launched.
The old Drupal.com site had always just been a way to protect our Drupal identity and direct folks to our true home at drupal.org. Over the years, I'd never put much thought into that site. Drupal's adoption has grown, however, and so has the traffic to Drupal.com – mostly from people typing that address directly into their browser. At 30,000 unique visitors a month, too many people see it for it to have remained its old simple self, but I still wanted a way to protect our identity and direct folks to Drupal.org.
The new site design does just that. First, it serves as a spotlight for Drupal and the Drupal community. Second, it continues to drive traffic to Drupal.org, the Drupal Planet, and groups.drupal.org. And, third, it protects our identity in two ways: when published, the Drupal.com trademark page will serve as the official repository of the Drupal trademark policy (and also generate some much-needed revenue from site ads to defray some of the licensing and trademark expenses that I am responsible for personally). Publishing the trademark policy is next on my TODO list (I'm currently incorporating some last feedback from Larry Garfield) and launching the ads will follow thereafter (more details to come).
As always, and as with any fresh launch of a new site, comments and suggestions are always welcome. Feel free to leave them here, attached to this post. I'll continue to add and tweak the the site over time, and I welcome your input.
The old Drupal.com design that we have had for years.
The new Drupal.com design that we plan to launch shortly.
Drupal.com looks awesome, and I think it will serve it purpose just fine. The information is presented clearly and in an attractive fashion, well done!
I do wonder what happened to Druplicon. We see our beloved icon on the "Where's Drupal section" but nowhere on the site. It seems to be replaced with a smaller drop icon.
August 14, 2009 - 11:28On a 1024 x 768 resolution there is nowhere a link to Drupal.org on first or second sight. I think that's bad.
In general the presentation confuses me. Klicking on 'What is Drupal?' does not tell me anything about Drupal. Strange. That is not what I expect.
:-(
August 14, 2009 - 12:27I agree -- the top part fit so perfectly in my MacBook display that it actually took me several minutes to realize that there was more below the fold. Very confusing.
More generally, assuming the d.o redesign looks amazing, I'm not sure that this does anything but add confusion.
I was excited when I saw the preview of this at DrupalCon DC, but am pretty disappointed with the outcome (even though it looks pretty hot). Just not sure what the value add is supposed to be.
August 14, 2009 - 18:56Looks great!
I'm particularly happy to see that money will go toward trademark costs. I know a lot of private money's been spent already, and it's right that it be paid back.
The good news is -- I suspect -- trademark defense costs will go down after the mark's better established. If that's so, I'd like to suggest that extra funds go toward marketing and education.
August 14, 2009 - 12:32Bug: if on the first tab (What is Drupal?) the refresh button is clicked, then the second and third tab become empty.
August 14, 2009 - 13:24The refresh seems to work correctly on other tabs. Tested with: FF 3.5.2.
Confirmed on IE6 also
August 14, 2009 - 19:22Looks very sharp. The images in the slider feel like they should be clickable, maybe styling the link in the text below would help relieve that.
Of course I'd like to see a link to Drupal.org higher up (like JoGnet mentioned).
I like that it invites people to play who are just hearing about Drupal for the first time. They can click around and get a feel of the project then follow the external links if they want to understand more.
August 14, 2009 - 13:49Should the advert place holders really be linking to Google, NYTimes, and Amazon?
August 14, 2009 - 13:57It *looks* nice, but a simple 301 redirect would be of more value to the project. This is going to create confusion in a bad way.
The only way to Drupal.org is an ad-like banner in the bottom right, below the fold. Most people will never see it.
"I went to drupal.com, but the forums were gone, I think it got sold or something."
"There isn't even a documentation or a download section. Hmm ... let's stick with Joomla."
"I checked out that Drupal thing the IT guys suggested, but the only thing there was this weird slideshow."
August 14, 2009 - 14:34I'm afraid I agree. Looking at this like a newbie, I would be very confused.
August 15, 2009 - 18:50I have to agree with John and others here that while it's pretty, it is likely to confuse people and I'm not sure of the benefit it offers to potential Drupal users. There is also something to be said for keeping the identity & branding consistent with what has been done for the Drupal.org redesign.
When the Drupal.org redesign is complete it would make much more sense to just 301 redirect from .com to .org.
August 17, 2009 - 21:20Agreed.
I think this will only serve to confuse, dilute, and detract.
Who is the audience?
My guess: people who are interested in Drupal but don't know better than to go to Drupal.org. Why confuse them and burden the process? Isn't Drupal.org intended, in part, for exactly this same audience?
Maybe this fun community showcase can be integrated into the new Drupal.org.
Sell t-shirts and other schwag to cover the trademark costs by advertising for Drupal instead of for someone else...
August 25, 2009 - 07:21Looks good, but why the pixel-based layout? Not everyone keeps their browser's font size settings at the default.
August 14, 2009 - 14:46The "Want your ad here?" page doesn't tell us how to actually place an ad, and the link in the "See this page for additional details" line leads to a 404 - it seems to be trying to link to a test page.
I agree with JohnForsythe - a redirect to .org would probably have been the best solution…
August 14, 2009 - 15:17In general, I find the design nice, but not kinda appropriate. The colors don't match the drupal.org redesign from Mark Boulton, the illustration don't refers to anything related to drupal, and as mentionned earlier, if the main focus of this page is to redirect to drupal.org, it is not doing the job clearly, and brings a bit of confusion.
As for the advertisement, I don't think that it's a good marketing choice for users who try to reach drupal to have the opportunity to be sidetracked somewhere else. Advertisement on the official site might make a bigger revenue stream imho.
Also, am not sure that I understand the meaning of :
"Drupal is the only publishing platform that glows in the dark"
Nice to see the friendly known faces in the slideshow though :) @bmann @isboris @scales @mortendk @chx
August 14, 2009 - 15:38drupal.com looks great but a refresh of drupal.org is always welcome in my opinion, maybe when d7 will come.
August 14, 2009 - 16:09In Opera (9.64) the blue box linking to drupal.org is lying on top of the groups.drupal.org bit instead of being on the right side.
August 14, 2009 - 16:41This is very nice.
But please make Drupal.com multilingual!
August 14, 2009 - 21:23Overall, I like it, but I want to the images in the carousel to say something. There's no need for the images to have empty alt text. Go ahead and brag about what companies are using Drupal, tell us who those faces are, and for the love of Pete tell us where we can get those snazzy Drupal socks!!
August 15, 2009 - 18:06I agree with the suggestions to get drupal.org above the fold and more prominent. While Drupal.com can become a great service for _selling_ Drupal we have to make sure that people will find the "real" full site for Drupal, which is still drupal.org
If there were a stronger and more consistent call to action that led to drupal.org that would help a lot (in the header, perhaps). I'd also love to see links that mirror the major links from the redesigned version of drupal.org - support, documentation, download, etc.
The village background image appeals to me greatly. It reminds me of a European village at night which is a perfect visual for a project whose name comes from "dorp" and that has a strong connection to online communities. It may not appeal to everyone, but it can't ever. The overall design helps get across the feeling of Drupal: a serious system that still has fun and is a little on-the-edge both in terms of the technology and the community ;)
August 15, 2009 - 19:03I think the site looks sharp. But I agree with the critique that it might confuse people. I think a clear explanation and link prominently displayed could address this. Done right, the .com site can complement the .org site nicely.
August 15, 2009 - 20:56Not enough contrast for the section that tells the visitor, what is Drupal. I didn't see that there was a link between current what is Drupal tab and the statement "Drupal is the only open source..."
Some kind of arrow pointing down would help people understand that there are more options.
A down arrow right underneath the left tab select for more info for other # parts of the homepage is an idea. Is it ie6 compatible? A quick links buttons on the right side, underneath the right arrow button to select tab would be one way to cut down on download/accessing resources annoyances.
August 16, 2009 - 05:30The design is awesome! But I agree with John's opinion, for someone new to Drupal, it's a little bit confusing.
Cheers,
August 17, 2009 - 17:25I am _VERY_ happy that you are using Drupal.Com!!!
August 18, 2009 - 23:10Using a redirect would be a complete waste - it is a separate identity. I understand that it may cause confusion, but you have clear links to drupal.org on each page, so there should be not too much problems
My hope has always been that this domain could be used in a way to support the Drupal project as some separate from Drupal.Org
I love it, I only wish that the link to the official site was more obvious. For example, a orange button in the top right side with the text "Get Drupal" would be great.
August 20, 2009 - 07:29I think we should link to drupal.com from the 'Powered by Drupal' block in D7:
http://drupal.org/node/661806
December 17, 2009 - 03:15Post new comment