Re: business perspective

> > Here are a few sites that I am basing my comparison on:
> > sendmail.com
> > sun.com
> > redhat.com
> > ibm.com
>
>I find none of these web sites particularly well-done from a usability
>point of view.  On the contrary, I visited the latter three of them in
>recent weeks to find actual information and found them completely
>overloaded.  I visted the first one last night, and my first thoughts were
>"when you thought it couldn't get worse...".
>
>Some web sites I find rather well-done are kde.org, mysql.com, xemacs.org,
>and freebsd.org, for a variety of reasons, but it occurred to me that they
>mostly match postgresql.org in organization.


I agree on what you say about usability.  I think the sites I referred to
are good at marketing communication but suffer from several bad usability
decisions (as do many sites).  Design should promote both usability as well
as influence the overall "feeling" that visitors get when visiting a web
site.  My hope in referencing those sites is not to suggest that we copy
what they are doing, but rather to collect some input regarding which
aspects of which sites are good and why and how we can use that data to
influence the way businesses feel about postgresql.

This is a difficult subject because so much of it appears to be subjective
and people sometimes have an personal attachment to one design or idea over
another.  I do believe that through informal usability testing and market
research the postgresql website could shine as both a highly usable
informational resource and successfully market postgresql.  I think it is
lacking mostly in the latter area at the moment, although I hadn't felt it
as much when the Great Bridge site was still up.  In the past, when I
needed to find information about postgresql, I went to
postgresql.org.  When I wanted a potential client to understand postgresql
and feel comfortable about it, I sent them to greatbridge.com.  Perhaps it
isn't and shouldn't be one of the roles of postgresql.org.  Perhaps it
should.  What is your opinion?  Why?

Maybe a second - completely marketing - postgresql site should be
developed.  It is a difficult decision, and I wouldn't want the usability
of postgresql.org to suffer because marketing messages where included,
although this would necessarily happen.  Perhaps postgresql.com could be
developed as more of a marketing tool?  Perhaps no one in the community is
concerned about marketing or they feel that the current site says exactly
what they want.  Completely valid thoughts.  My needs are not necessarily
the needs of the rest of the community - although before I come to that
conclusion I would like to understand what the rest of the community thinks.

-r
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