[sword-devel] Websites

Tue Apr 3 18:26:23 MST 2012

I like Patrick's idea of targeting different groups with different 
pages. What if www.crosswire.org were a very simple page with very 
little text - just a brief description of CrossWire (like the one we 
already have), perhaps a graphic cycling through screenshots of various 
front-ends, and rather large links targeted to different groups:

Read the Bible Online
Download Bible Software (Windows, Mac, Linux, and various mobile devices)
Build your SWORD Library (Download the ESV, NET, KJV, and Bibles and 
other resources in more than x # of languages)
Volunteer with SWORD (Contribute code, translate applications, create 
modules, and more)
Learn More or Get Help

In any case, the front page could be simplified to make it easier for 
various constituencies to quickly identify where to find what they are 
looking for.

Daniel

On 04/03/2012 04:44 PM, Patrick Zimmermann wrote:
> Hello,
>
> the following are mostly random thoughts off the top of my head while browsing
> the crosswire.org sites for ten minutes.
>
> I think that thinking about the target groups of the different pages can be
> helpful.
>
> The way I understand this, the sword project is effectively a library, thus a
> developer tool. So the target audience of /sword are developers. The
> introductory text on /sword sort of supports this impression.
>
> The crosswire page tries to show the different projects under the crosswire
> umbrella, including the affiliated sword frontends and gobible. So this seems
> like an end user page to me. The nice overview of the different applications on
> the crosswire main site supports my impression.
>
>
> I think most problems arise because end users browse /sword. So making this
> distinction a lot clearer might be a solution.
>
> A banner in a prominent location: "If you are not a developer go to
> crosswire.org" might solve that problem.
>
> Also I would not directly link the "The Sword Project" button to the /sword
> site. That makes it hard to understand the relation between the two pages.
> Putting a sub page with an introductory text (perhaps the text from the "Home"
> tab) will make it clear that there is a separate site that deals specifically
> with the sword library.
>
> I think the only link to the wiki (which I think is the part of the website
> with the by far most content) is on the FAQ of crosswire.org at the very
> bottom. I think putting a link to the wiki on /sword might be a good idea.
>
> Backlinks from /sword to crosswire.org should be prohibited (it's a separate
> site if I understood this right). So the FAQ link on /sword should be removed.
>
> Given that /sword is targeted at developers the "Developers" tab should be
> removed and the information presented directly on the page.
>
> The "Publishers" tab should go to crosswire.org, since they are no developers
> and not interested in a library.
>
> Greetings,
> Patrick Zimmermann
>
> On Tuesday, 3. April 2012 22:31:38 Greg Hellings wrote:
>> On Tue, Apr 3, 2012 at 3:13 PM, David Haslam<dfhmch at googlemail.com>  wrote:
>>> One thing would improve our website considerably.
>>>
>>> A more unified "Brand Image" and web-page style.
>> My understanding is that the varying site styles were purposeful. That
>> way it's easy to differentiate that "SWORD" and "GoBible" are
>> different brands. If I go to www.ford.com and www.lincoln.com the two
>> are markedly different websites even though they are the same company.
>> They are marketed as different brands within the same umbrella
>> corporation but they want to maintain a distinct identity.
>>
>> I don't think the difference from www.crosswire.org/ to
>> www.crosswire.org/sword/ is that big of a deal. I think the biggest
>> problem is that the /sword/ site is itself fraught with problems of
>> antiquated content, obtuse navigation, and difficulty updating.
>>
>> --Greg
>>
>>> The stark contrast in going from
>>> http://www.crosswire.org/
>>> to
>>> http://www.crosswire.org/sword/modules/
>>> (and related pages)
>>> illustrates what I'm referring to.
>>>
>>> It makes us appear incompetent to the outside world.
>>>
>>> 12 months ago Peter enlisted a friendly web designer to have a go at
>>> improving things.
>>> This fell by the wayside, probably because someone thought the changes
>>> were too "drastic" and deviated too much from how we began.
>>>
>>> Even going from
>>> http://www.crosswire.org/
>>> to
>>> http://www.crosswire.org/gobible/
>>> with my subsequent redirect to http://www.crosswire.org/gobible/newpage/
>>> involves a color change to the horizontal dividers, etc.
>>>
>>> To a large extent, these core problems arise because we're not a top down
>>> organization.
>>> We're all volunteers with different areas of expertise and interests.
>>> Some have less time than others to thing about these matters, by virtue
>>> of having day jobs or being in full time studies.
>>>
>>> If we were a business, then the CEO or management team would make firm
>>> decisions about such matters, and provide or allocate the resources to
>>> implement the company policies. I've worked most of my engineering career
>>> in a large multinational, so I've observed first hand how these things
>>> work out.
>>>
>>> Again, because many of us are programmers or engineers, few of us have
>>> strong experience in marketing, nor possess the skills that go with the
>>> job description. Just because all our products are free of charge
>>> doesn't mean that we don't need to be active in marketing them.
>>>
>>> Many of our applications are better in some aspects than other Bible
>>> Study software out in the market place, yet getting them recognized is
>>> an uphill task. Just one example:
>>>
>>> Our mobile (smart phone) apps do not require remote access to a streaming
>>> text server.
>>> They don't even "call home" with usage statistics.  This is quite common
>>> among other products.
>>>
>>> So for areas where internet access is patchy or restricted, we have a
>>> competitive edge in terms of how our applications operate. Once
>>> installed, modules do not need a continuous connection to keep working.
>>>
>>> We need to build on our strengths. Anyone care to do a SWOT analysis?
>>> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SWOT_analysis
>>>
>>> David
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> View this message in context:
>>> http://sword-dev.350566.n4.nabble.com/Re-sword-support-Video-tutorials-t
>>> p4528871p4530049.html Sent from the SWORD Dev mailing list archive at
>>> Nabble.com.
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> sword-devel mailing list: sword-devel at crosswire.org
>>> http://www.crosswire.org/mailman/listinfo/sword-devel
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