From owner-freebsd-advocacy@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Mar 31 20:02:47 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 997B016A4CE for ; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 20:02:47 -0800 (PST) Received: from cimbali.dssrg.curtin.edu.au (cimbali.dssrg.curtin.edu.au [134.7.165.135]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id DB53A43D41 for ; Wed, 31 Mar 2004 20:02:46 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from root@cimbali.dssrg.curtin.edu.au) Received: from cimbali.dssrg.curtin.edu.au (localhost.dssrg.curtin.edu.au [127.0.0.1])i3142MGB034093 for ; Thu, 1 Apr 2004 12:02:22 +0800 (WST) (envelope-from root@cimbali.dssrg.curtin.edu.au) Received: (from root@localhost)i3142MMu034092 for freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org; Thu, 1 Apr 2004 12:02:22 +0800 (WST) (envelope-from root) Date: Thu, 1 Apr 2004 12:02:21 +0800 From: Charlie Root To: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20040401040221.GA33856@cimbali.dssrg.curtin.edu.au> References: <002f01c4165c$a0c0d1d0$6f01a8c0@miter.local> <40697A82.2070402@sitetronics.com> <20040330101519.R2711@beck.quonix.net> <200403301116.51886.DavidJohnson@Siemens.com> <4069C8F2.5000809@sitetronics.com> <406AF173.6040003@sitetronics.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <406AF173.6040003@sitetronics.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Subject: Re: Call for Developers (Was: Re: The Website) X-BeenThere: freebsd-advocacy@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: FreeBSD Evangelism List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 Apr 2004 04:02:47 -0000 On Wed, Mar 31, 2004 at 06:27:31PM +0200, Devon H. O'Dell wrote: > Please, if you're interested in helping, let me know. Can we have at least some of the dialogue concerning the website on the mailing lists. It would help to keep the discussions/themes/ideas from becoming volatile (in the sense of a new subscriber might miss the thread). I had a closer look at some of the sites mentioned - RedHat, SuSe. IBM, and m0n0wall. I started with a goal 'I want to download Linux' or 'I want to download software' and tried to get a sense of whats involved. I found it easiest to think of it in terms of a finite state machine with pages representing a state. The visual cues, information in proximity to those cues, and apparent target audience I listed as triggers for a state transition (click to the next state). What sticks out immediately is the rapid differentiation of customers into business and other groups. If I am a member of a particular group I get reinforcement of the sense that the product is targetted at the group I belong to. What also sticks out is the limited amount of thought required to get from one state to the next and the limited number of total steps in the process (in the case of RedHat - from 'I want RedHat', to 'Buy' is 3 clicks). Also in RedHats case they have a neat shortcut - for anyone totally intimidated by whats presented after the first click they have a bright red 1-800 number in the top/right corner. IBM employ a similar rapid differentiation method, they even go so far as to use carefully selected paradigms once they have enough info on what your group is (shopping carts, specials, vanity merchandise and 'managers choice' are prominent in the page designed for the home/home-office group). SuSe starts off well but seems to go awol along the way. Mandrake is not too bad. In the case of FreeBSD (and Debian). There isnt any differentiation. The information present seems to target developers and solution implementors. Theres also alot of mixing of information that is used by a 'decision maker' and 'solution implementor' in different ways. For instance - a listing of online CD/DVD retailers lets a decision maker know that there is commercial interest and that the product is usefull and sells. The same listing lets a solution implementor know where to go buy the product. The same listing lets a developer know that their effort is supported and that they will get credit and profit by what they do. But - presenting the same information with lists of CTM/ftp/mirror sites etc makes the decision maker process more difficult and immediately gives the sense that the site is in some way pushing developer oriented software. Now to products and services. IBM has a clearly defined way of differentiating the audience and then presenting them with the idea that they are buying a complete solution or service. RedHat do the same. But FreeBSD does not provide either a product targetting a specific application nor a service for a business. What it provides is a product that needs to be taylored to an application by an implementor and information on where to find third party services. One way of handling this is to differentiate the sites user and then - in the case of a businessman or decision maker - use case studies, news articles, etc that don't contain technical implementation details but do contain positive outcome statements particularly when these cases target a particular solution. Side by side with this should be the means to rapidly find technical oriented information so that responsibility for implementation can be delegated easily by the decision maker. An example of how this could work. A CEO hears about FreeBSD and visits www.freebsd.org. he gets a visual cue that sends him through a series of states that provide easy to digest information and reinforces his ideas about himself and his business. now hes been differentiated and is targetted specifically by being presented with case studies and other information that tells him that others have done similar things and that a decision he is making is likely to be low risk, cost effective, and has a positive outcome. at this point he can click on a link that gives him implementation details (click: too hard, delegate to local implementori/CTO) or he can easily find some way to delegate responsibility to a third party for a solution (click: businesses that can implement the solution for him). ps: the m0n0wall website was a big help - particularly since i'd never visited the site and had no preconcieved ideas about the site. Can we get some feedback on other sites and maybe some of the ways they function?