Website landing page update

Hello Dear F-Droiders,

I am interested in updating the main landing page of the F-Droid website to make it more engaging for new users. I want potential users to be excited about FOSS the moment that the site appears on the screen.

If the user experience is lifted by my work I would aim to do further UX work on the F-Droid app itself and possibly also for specific apps.

Before I do any design work I want to ask the team, what would you like to see on the landing page that might not be there? What do you like about the current landing page? What do you dislike?

I like the idea of using SVG’s for images but they don’t seem to work on all browsers. I notice that the F-Droid logo is supposed to use a slab-serif font but doesn’t. I feel like the landing page isn’t making a strong visual impact above-the-fold, and isn’t giving me an essense of the abundance of exciting projects in the FOSS ecosystem. I think the landing page is suffering with a somewhat outdated layout and too much white.

Although I like the visual simplicity of using Javascript to make a “hamburger menu”, I feel we need to make sure that the menu still works without Javascript (so this means a fallback with css animations, ie. fade-in and timed fade-out possibly).

Please tag anyone who you know would be interested in this area of web design and UX.

I would not ask for payment as FOSS is a passion of mine. If you do like the design you are welcome to donate a bit to help me along.

Cheers,
Dario

It looks like folks on here don’t wish to get involved with a newbie to the scene.

For those who are interested, I can email my brochure that outlines my experience in providing bespoke digital solutions.

I am a Bach’ Computer Science from Australia, who has worked full-time for years developing web software. I’ve been a 3D artist for a videogame company, a photographer for events and interior designers, and developed numerous websites over the years for a range of businesses in Australia.

You are welcome to email me for the extra info. I now value my digital privacy too much to pour everything out on a webpage. It’s “web-dev” at rise up (one word) .net.

Also at conversations at (as above) at conversations . im

Cheers,
D

I tried to just re-arrange things in a mockup

I seem to remember making one with the phone in the middle, but it isn’t there.
Regardless, F-Droid is also for tablets.

We welcome contributions! Doing any UX design work is definitely valuable. You will need to also consider who will implement. This is a community run project with mostly volunteer contributions, so if you don’t have anyone lined up to do the work to engage the community in your designs, then implement the final result, the UX designs will most likely remain a conversation.

The most valuable approach is to consider how much time any changes will require, and organize them into bite size chunks that volunteers can implement.

1 Like

Hi Hans.

It looks like I can access this page from my desktop.

It’s good to hear from you. Yes my intention is to do the update myself. It will only be for the landing page, not other pages, I don’t envisage any major difficulties, but I really do not want to waste my time implementing a design that won’t be approved.

As such I welcome you to take a look at the sketch/design that I have uploaded in the other thread. Please click the images, especially the second image, to see them at full-size.

Tell me if proposal 1 and/or 2 represent something you might approve of. Which proposal do think you’d prefer. Please bring in anyone else who might be important in approving changes.

If people are happy with PROPOSAL 1, the next step is for me to make the splash/header image. If they prefer PROPOSAL 2 I may do another sketch.

1 Like

Hi Kingu,

Sorry for the late response, thanks for providing an interesting mockup to consider. I like the fdroid head peeking over the header bar. I might add this idea to my design if that is okay. I’m thinking it will be good peeking up above the Latest Apps section?

The purple header in your design makes for a good complimentary colour to the green f-droid head also.

I also like the way you have drawn attention to recently updated apps and the “copyleft symbol”, in the menu bar. It is making me think of how I can draw attention to it, in my possible future design.

Thanks again for sharing your ideas with me, Kingu, and for your words of encouragement. I couldn’t reply from my mobile phone the other day and then I forgot to reply. I found your design work very stimulating and thought-provoking. I hope you are proud of your work.
: )

Please feel free to have a peek at the design on this page and to tell me your thoughts. It is only a rough sketch at this stage.

Cheers,
D

Considering that major feature of F-Droid is reproducible-builds and that blue/white are major damaging burning colors for oled screens, I would suggest, for logo, some move like :

svg

I also re-iterate :

Cute logo idea, @oF2pks. Keep in mind that the logo is never going to take up much of the screen space, nor is it going to be on the screen for long in most people’s case. I actually don’t have F-Droid on my Home Screen because the Home Screen needs to be for apps I use everyday, and I simply don’t download apps everyday.

SEO is important. Thankfully I have not noticed any unfavourable treatment of Android apps in web searches but it could be a case of, “You don’t know what you are not seeing”.

I like the idea behind that individual app that you mentioned in your reply above. Have you ever been to this site (https://www.guide.ethical.org.au/guide/search/)? I find it very useful. When I see a new brand or a brand I am not familiar with it is my first destination. It sounds like the app you mentioned would compliment my shop ethical search.
: )

Forgot to say that blue (& white) doesn’t contrast well with oled prefered dark themes.

As for seo, @Bubu @hans can you tell us if F-Droid website is overloaded or underrated by indexing activity ? robots.txt looks empty : robots.txt · master · F-Droid / Website · GitLab
(Robots.txt Introduction and Guide | Google Search Central  |  Documentation  |  Google for Developers )

Any idea why F-Droid website wasn’t rebuilt since 2019-05-17 ?

This topic was automatically closed 60 days after the last reply. New replies are no longer allowed.