It seems that there’s been some discussion about redesigning the main website a little while back in 2015SummerDevMeeting that brainstorming sessions were made and mockups were posted in Trac. That got me pretty excited!
However looking at the issues on the wiki, there doesn’t seem to be anything related to the new redesign of the site. I think we should start planning and making the redesign sooner rather than later—not just for the sake of making it look pretty, but to communicate better to people (as you all are very well aware of!):
- Simplifying for new users. I agree with the mockup for removing the recent blog posts because the page seems like is trying to both give old users updates and convince new users to use Tor which ends up cluttering the page. Not having updates and keeping it simple on the introductory page is a common aesthetic on modern product websites.
An alternative to “User Stories” could be a bunch of quotes from users such as Molly Crabapple which you guys have done wonderfully on Twitter. I think this allows people to have more of an emotional connection with Tor. We could probably even go as far as merging both “Use Stories” and the “Why” sections into one section if we wanted to simplify the website even further.
- Explaining why donations matter. Right now the donate button is just … well ... a button. Explaining why people should donate to Tor is also important. Seeing something like this from Brain Pickings shows you that it’s easy to donate, and that your money is worth a lot when it comes to helping out. The emotion factor of that sidebar vs a button that says “donate” is huge.
Now this is just the main page, and there’s definitely a lot of work to be done as witnessed by the redesign work in other companies! I know that there are some excited people in Tor as well, and I’d like to help out if that’s possible. A little about me: I’m Jag Talon, and I work for DuckDuckGo making some front-end stuffs. I have the experience that I think would help in a redesign like this, and I have some free time to do it as well.
I think a good first step would be to have the core Tor people to sketch out their ideas and for them to say what would make this redesign a success so that we have an idea on what things the design should prioritize on. What do you think?
- Jag Talon
