New websites

Capsia

Hi @johndoe . Sure, we can have a category for news too. My goal is to have a website that is simple to navigate both on desktop and mobile, so there will be design and testing to ensure that.

I don't write Q&A posts myself, but I forwarded your message to the right person

johndoe

@Capsia OK, thanks. I just saw that the summeries of the latest Q&As got added to the current website.

stanwood

I wonder if we could maybe add a heading with some screenshots of UT interface on the main website?
Regulary some people ask me how the UI looks like. (i.e settings, openstore, lomiri, web browser, calendar, etc.. )

Bolly

Hello,

Just as an idea, we could have something like this?

https://planet.opensuse.org/
https://planet.kde.org/
...

Capsia

@stanwood Of course. Will be added in the next revision of the design process

Capsia

@Bolly Hi, aggregating community blogs sounds interesting. I'll take a look at how that works, but that's probably material for future enhancement.

doniks

One thing that always confused me is why there are so many different websites to what I thought would be one thing. ubports.com, ubuntu-touch.io, devices.ubuntu-touch.io

after a cursory glance at the new designs, it seems that ubuntu-touch.io and devices.ubuntu-touch.io look more like they are one coherent thing, so that confusion might be solved.

but ubports.com versus ubuntu-touch.io I still find confusing. To be fair, I never sat down and thought about why there should be two pages and just chalked it off to ... uhm ... history ... volunteer project ... different people scratching their own itches ...

only just now, that I see this new proposal to come up with a coherent design, I thought about this again and I realize, maybe there is a good reason to have both. Because we want to tell this (complicated) story of here's the community and there's the product, and while they are linked, they are not the same, and maybe someone outside of this community/product circles could care about the distinction, because ... well, I guess because we want to cater to other projects/communities, a'la "hey <randomlinuxdistribution> look there at this great software product, maybe you want to ship it. Oh and by the way here is the community creating and supporting it" ... something like that.

so, after all this rambling let me get to one maybe actionable suggestion:

Please make it clear that one is the community and the other is the product.

e.g.

don't start the devices page with "The ubports community is ...", but with something about devices, like "Here you find an overview of all the mobile devices capable of running ..."
don't start the ut.io page with "We are building ... " , but "UT is ..."
keep the clear language of "We are the UBports community" of ubports.com
make sure (and maybe that's already taken care of in this new design) that there is a consistent top level navigation, where I guess "community" always links to ubports.com and "ubuntu touch" always links to ubuntu-touch.io , etc

AppLee

@doniks said in New websites:

maybe there is a good reason to have both.

You nailed it.
There are historical reasons that lead to this situation and now we want to make things more clear.
Delineate and explain the difference between the community website and the OS website.

There is also Lomiri.com that has to fit the visual identity, it's a lot of work.

And thanks for your suggestions, I think there are great ideas to help differentiate things and help people navigate more easily.

Capsia

@doniks Yes, that's exactly the reason. Ubuntu Touch is one of the projects that UBports' amazing contributors are working on. But our community does more, and some of these projects are not just for UBports to use, but to share with other open source communities so they can use them and maybe contribute back.

Fixed ut.io, I still need to think a bit about a new text for devices page. As for navigation, yes, it works like that.

Thanks for the suggestions

Emphrath

@Capsia hello there ! Just a quick note: the devices pages is a mess and has always been. To get to the list of supported devices you need to actually pick one of the "flagship" devices and ask for "details" and only then do you get access to what's what. Something more akin to the devices homepage of lineage os would be nice I think

Luksus

@Emphrath huh, I just open the dropdown list of supported devices list (on mobile).

Emphrath

@Luksus i'm talking about this page: https://ubports.com/zh_CN/supported-products

messayisto

@Emphrath At the top of that page is a dropdown menu where you can select “All Devices”

Luksus

@Emphrath ah, I understand.
Thanks for the clarification.

arubislander

@Emphrath yeah, that page needs updating or retireing. Especially as it is linked to directly by different other pages.

@Capsia, is the referenced page on your radar for reviewing / revamping?

Capsia

@Emphrath Hi! There are currently 3 different pages stating different devices to use Ubuntu Touch on, which are maintained by different people: https://devices.ubuntu-touch.io/ which is community maintained, https://ubports.com/en/supported-products and https://ubuntu-touch.io/get-ubuntu-touch for UBports and Ubuntu Touch websites, which is difficult to understand. The reason for having two different sets of devices is that the Foundation promotes devices from manufacturers such as Volla, which are sold with Ubuntu Touch pre-installed. The second reason is historical; in the early days of UBports, there were only a few ports available, and these were listed on the Ubuntu Touch page.

@arubislander The idea is that in the future there will only be one website that lists devices, and within that there will be a section or page that lists the promoted devices.

Emphrath

OK now I see it

kingu

Following up on our conversation yesterday

0 Establish the name. Do it once, and not in conjunction with "UBPorts foundation".
1 Get the moniker right. "A whole mobile operating system experience, that is yours.
Only have "800+ volunteers".
2 Get a screenshot of the desktop in. Would suggest using the birds https://ubuntu-touch.onestein.eu/web/image/64602/background_home-2.jpg and then imposing a fading image onto there.
3 Have the "Get Ubuntu Touch" type buttton in a greener colour. Current one looks reddish on bad panels.
4 Establish what sets UBPorts apart.

Sleek and secure
The best of both worlds.

Copylefted libre software
Use, explore, change, and share — with all.
… [Expandable info]

5 Establish opposition to alternatives.
The banner that says "Designed to last" could say:
Redesigned to last
Your mobile device can receive software upgrades for many more years to come.
Bring your phone back to life.

6 Image of connecting said old phone to a screen to use it as a computer, with a desktop showing an app.

Remove the CoC and every mention of it.

At this point I think the case is made.

The installer pages

"Stuck on your default OS?"
This ties someone elses OS to the user with "yours". "Default" lends credibility to it.
"A whole mobile operating system experience, that is yours" does better, but reusing the already established moniker wins points.

move to "copylefted libre software"

I think the confusion over calling Ubuntu Touch "UBPorts" is that it would logically follow that
The "UBPorts Installer" installs "UBPorts".
Having it be "Ubuntu Touch/installer" allows saying "About" rather than "About Ubuntu Touch"

Drop "It's simple". Make it look simple.
Show screenshots/an animation of the whole process.

"Command line tool" → "Command-line tool".
Drop every menion of "we", "you can" and so on.
Line-shift at "Select the appropriate".
Mac → macOS
deb → .deb
snap → Snap

Remove the exclamations

enable developer mode → turn on developer mode

Get the mascot off the logos of other OSes.
Align the download symbols rightwards and the icons leftwards.

Github → GitHub

will enable you → lets you

Have one selection of downloads.

smart-phones → smartphones
Issues tracker → Issue tracker
& → and

Email → E-mail

Don't hide the questions behind clicks.

Support A Device → Support a Device
Report a Bug → Report bugs
Fund Development → Fund development

Between the lot of us we can really make this shine.
https://ubuntu-touch.io has said "focussed" for quite some time, so it is all about honing the details and getting to the point with the fewest amount of distractions.

Capsia

Hi @kingu,
I think I've incorporated most of the feedback into a new design for ubuntu-touch.io

Just a few notes:

@kingu said in New websites:

2 Get a screenshot of the desktop in. Would suggest using the birds https://ubuntu-touch.onestein.eu/web/image/64602/background_home-2.jpg and then imposing a fading image onto there.

The birds image doesn't fit with a fading image, because on the screenshots the most important details are on the edges (dock and indicators).

@kingu said in New websites:

Sleek and secure
The best of both worlds.

I wouldn't put " sleek and secure " as a feature that sets Ubuntu Touch apart. Any other operating system could claim the same. A more appealing way to market it might be to showcase individual features: app confinement, read-only file system, data kept on the device by default. These would make sense if we wanted to differentiate ourselves from other mobile Linux distributions. We might want to think about what alternatives we are considering: Android/iOS or other Linux distributions?

This kind of marketing may be more in line with Postmarket OS promotion than UT's. They are more focused on libre software (not using Halium or proprietary drivers), security with full disk encryption and long lasting phones (using mainline kernel). On our side, I think we are more focused on Ubuntu Touch being user friendly and usable as a daily driver, accepting the compromise of having some proprietary software installed (Halium, Widevine...).

For the installer:

@kingu said in New websites:

"Stuck on your default OS?"
This ties someone elses OS to the user with "yours". "Default" lends credibility to it.
"A whole mobile operating system experience, that is yours" does better, but reusing the already established moniker wins points.

move to "copylefted libre software"

I think the confusion over calling Ubuntu Touch "UBPorts" is that it would logically follow that
The "UBPorts Installer" installs "UBPorts".
Having it be "Ubuntu Touch/installer" allows saying "About" rather than "About Ubuntu Touch"

As far as I know the UBports installer was never intended to be an installer exclusively for Ubuntu Touch, but a joint effort between communities to make it easier to switch between OSes. Branding it as "the Ubuntu Touch installer" goes in the opposite direction and is in my opinion detrimental as we need more contributors to keep it up to date and stable. Currently, postmarketOS and Droidian can also be installed from the installer.

Most of the other issues are already fixed in the real website components, only the design is a bit outdated and I have modified the text to remove the remaining issues.

kingu

@Capsia

Very good points.

"An operating system where nobody has more power than you."
is good for the moniker.
Different right off the bat. It piques the interest of why and how,
and then it is volunteers and values from there.
Ties into copylefted libre software, and then the explanation thereof.

I think the https://ubuntu-touch.onestein.eu/web/image/64602/background_home-2.jpg could be upright if that is what it takes to get the proper insight for what is going on at the desktop.
Without the internal "on-screen" line, if that is OK for the author.

Dropping "UBPorts" from what is then just "Installer" makes sense. Having other OS alternatives behind "other OSes" in the actual installer also makes sense when downloaded from Ubuntu-touch.io.
"Ports installer" maybe?
Harking back to the main idea being to buy devices preloaded with a good OS.