Community Blog
Thoughts on our new UI
Posted on Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 by Ross Turk
Category: Opinion
It’s been a few months since we started rolling out our new UI, and we’ve completed the front page, the project summary page, the download file listing page (which we call the “showfiles page”), and the page that shows after the file starts downloading (which we call the “thank you” page.) In essence, we’ve redone the most highly visited pages, the ones for downloaders.
You may be wondering why. I think the most important goal is to provide a simpler user experience to the 95% of our audience that just want their damn files so they can get on with their lives. SourceForge.net is a complex site with lots of hidden nooks and crannies; downloaders are here with a clear purpose and need to be shown a clear path.
Naturally, there’s also a branding aspect to the new UI. We want people to know that they’re downloading from SourceForge.net, and that they, too, can create a project here. We wanted our message to be clear and strong, but not to get in people’s way.
The same is true for the messages from our advertisers. Yes, they pay the bills around here and, yes, we can’t exist without them, but we have to be a bit intelligent about it…an ad experience that pisses everyone off is useless to advertisers, too. Moving things around a bit allows us to show higher quality advertising at higher prices…and, therefore, to show less of it.
There are a lot of strong opinions in our feedback forum, and while I think that venue is probably disproportionally negative, that feedback is extremely valuable to us and we’re tweaking our design based on it. I’ve been keeping an eye for any mention of SourceForge.net on Twitter and it feels like about 40% love it, 40% don’t like it, and 20% aren’t really sure what their opinion is (even though they feel strongly enough to express it.)
What do you think?
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Reader Comments
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I find it rather interesting Mr. Turk that you give absolutely
no recognition to the real reason for Sourceforge’s existence,
the projects and us developers. The downloads are not the damn
users files. They are mine and every other developer who has
spent countless hours expanding our skills and knowledge in
areas of interest who then freely give the results away. Granted
Sourceforge provides hosting for these activities and deserves
to be compensated, through any reasonable means. But remember
sir on your cozy little trip to France who really pays the bills
here is us developers. Perhaps it time with your type of attitude
that we demand our financial cut. Twitter that up your butt.
Dana M. Proctor
Project Developer & Manager.
Hey Dana!
Thanks for the feedback, but what’s your conclusion? What do you like or dislike about the new UI as it relates to developers? How would you have liked me to give recognition in my post that SourceForge is made possible by open source developers?
There’s not a person in the SourceForge crew who does not understand and respect the balance between the production of open source and its consumption. My post a week ago was all about recent improvements to our developer tools (hosted applications, tracker beta.) I think we’re making good progress, and the reality is just that we’ve got to serve many types of users who want different stuff.
Cheers,
Ross
(BTW, if you think my current trip to France is “cozy”, you don’t know very much about my life. It’s not just France - I’ve been in seven cities since last Thursday, and I haven’t been home more than four days at a time since January. The road life sucks more than you can imagine. I do it because it’s my job to talk to as much of our community as I possibly can to learn how SF.net can be better…but I’m an actual person, I’m tired, and I miss my loved ones.)
I see a lot of things wrong with it, but I’ll give just a few specifics.
1. On a project page there used to be an open link to the project Web site. That link is now on a dropdown menu with little likelihood of receiving a mouse click. My project Web hits have fallen to about 20% of normal. And your hiding the link must be the biggest cause.
2. Project news is very difficult (nearly impossible) to access. Clicking on it instead opens the hidden project details, not any new releases. That should be on an open link. The only way people can deduce from my project page that there is a major new release is to notice the date on the green Download box or know the version number.
3. The same goes for project details. You’ve got a large area of blank open space that people have to put in some effort to open up and see what goes there. It’s the same story on the SourceForge main page. Click on Find Software, and you get what should have been out in the open already in plain view.
4. Another problem, that only affects a few developers, is that the new uploading system does not allow uploads from Japan. I had to put on a new administrator just to get files uploaded for release. And he also has to manage the packages. I’m cut out from that, too.
The downloads page is a huge improvement. Now when folks go from my web site to the download area they can easily see what is available to download. Before the page was far too cluttered for an ordinary user to feel confident in what their choices were. Please keep it clean and simply like this.
As a “non-developer newbie” I have no problem with the new UI the developer that complained about the drop in web hits is making an assumption. Also, it’s NOT just the developers that bring in revenue. It’s also the users like me who send the money and have friends drop by and see what I’m doing and say WOW!!! Where’d you get that! And run straight home and get said same. There’s no better advertising than word of mouth. For Christs sake it’s just a UI not the Holy Grail. People will figure it out soon enough. It hasn’t changed a thing for me, I can still search and find whatever I’m looking for. If someone’s looking you they’ll find you. I also think accusing someone of taking cushy trips to France to promote the community shows a profound lack of respect for him and those good folk that keep this site running that did not go to France et al.Life on the road does suck! Take it from a retired USAF Officer. I’m a noob with a capital N but I can spot a pseudo-intellectual crybaby with a God complex whining because he’s momentarily losing some hits for “unknown reasons”. I also think the offer of feedback is a gesture of goodwill toward your community. They didn’t need your permission. If it bothers you so much start your own site. Who knows, maybe you’ll get to go to France?
Yes, this is “just an UI” - and Sourceforge is just a hosting. Like Savannah, Berlios, Google Code, Tuxfamily - it is *NOT* as if we developers had no recourse other than meekly suffer every wannabe web designer’s “good ideas”. And if said designer doesn’t need my permission to force-feed Javascript to me, fine - I don’t need his permission either to migrate my project elsewhere, so we’re even.
If my Sourceforge project page still requires Javascript for basic operation when time comes for me to do a new release, I’ll be forced to consider moving my project to one of hostings listed above - every single one of which operates perfectly fine with Javascript disabled.
hey
great
Convenience yes. Get at others executables.
get at others source. Get at my source. Make my source and object code available to anyone interested. As part of my member UI experience I have some apprehension about beginning inside here. CVS? SVN? License? There are some serious learning curve issues. I’m lucky if I can find time to write and test code! My instincts presently suggest ignoring the community and doing stuff on my own
ABOUT THE PUBLIC FRONT END WHERE I HAVE BEEN FOR A WHILE I GENERALLY LIKE IT
SORRY CAPS LOCK MISBEHAVING
This user interface is the best thing to happen to sourceforge in years. A user interface like this has been needed since day one, and I’m really glad to finally see one. The new user interface is just fantastic.
Java Script is a show stopper!
I had a lot of arguments with users of my project (davfs2) why I will not sacrifice security for some little gain in ease of use.
Now things have changed. Users are forced to enable Java Script. Important parts of sourceforge.net will not work with a secure browser configuration.
If this is the price your advertisers demand you to pay, it isn’t worth this price.
Please make sourceforge.net fully functional without Java Script again.
Werner
sorry for being harsh,
but the new sf.net web user interface sucks !!!
instead of putting effort into useless gui enhancements it would be more important to add functions and simplify the usage of the site. For example unify and simplify the way web pages, files etc are uploaded, or get the mail notification to work. Or put a search button on all forum pages.
please turn off Java Script ! Or at least allow full functionality without java script.
have you tried searching forum messages when some ad with java script opens an image on top of the search boxes ? I have now wasted my time turning java script on and off just to be able to search.
- Ron
PS: With java script, the browser back button now does not react as expected:
after clicking a forum search result there is no way to get back to the search results.
There is no “back to search results” button on the page and the browser back button gets you back to the project summary page. So you now have to reiterate the search.
I have been with SF for a few years and I have been happy with the site. But currently I am seriously thinking about moving my projects elsewhere.
- Ron
Actually what you’re trying to do is to create UI that will be suit regular user who is here just get his damn files and a developer who is working on a project. One site “to rule them all”. As a result you’re making something that is IMHO pretty frustrating for developer and for a regular as well. Which is once again quite natural as soon as what you’re trying to do is merely impossible because these groups of target site audience are as different as they can be.
Why do you need to transform sourceforge into something that is even more annoying then tons of ads? Keep it *source* forge please. Why not to create a separate portal - let’s say download.sourceforge.net - with lots of advertisement, eye candy, intuitive UI and similar crap. Just place a button on a main page - Looking for a software? Click me or Wanna join a project? Click me - and that’s it. You can even get rid of advertisment on an old sourceforge for developers - just redirect all downloads to this download.sourceforge.net spot.
That’s it. Sorry for me english.
The new UI has a more polished look to it but it’s excessively slow. Also, I’m used to the old UI so things are somewhat of a learning curve for me.
But yeah, the biggest issue for me is the apparent slowness of the overall UI and entire website itself.
I think that the project pages could use a bit of work in terms of making them more accessible and intuitive.
Either way, I think it’s progress in the right direction. Just more time to tweak the interfaces and improve its efficiency.
I am really amazed that UI improved within five months and not only they but also they got great share in Market.
David Williams
Social Bookmarking Service
I strongly appreciate UI works
[url=http://www.widecircles.com]Social Bookmarking Service[/url]
hi
exellent
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