[aerogear-dev] beta project site feedback

[Dan Allen]

I've collected some feedback for the Aerogear beta project site that I
would like to share. Before I get to it, though, I want to say great job
overall with the site! It gives the impression of a strong, focus and
active project. The fact that it has a responsive design all gives the
project credibility in its field ;)

I'll start with my feedback:

I'm not sure about the tagline: JBoss Focused Resources for Mobile and HTML5
>


This is how the confusion around the JBoss name gets reinforced. What is
> "JBoss" in this context? This logline seems to paint the project into a
> corner with a term that is both overly-vague and overly-specific, depending
> on how you define the term.
>


I'm not sure what the right answer is, but here are some suggestions:
>


- Middleware-focused resources for Mobile and HTML5
> - A backend solution for your mobile and HTML5 apps
> - Uniting the power of the server with the flexibility of mobile and HTML5


(you'll see later that Joe has much better ideas than mine).

Here is feedback from Jason Brooks, long time editor in chief of eWeeks
Labs, now working for the (shadow) man in the open source and standards
group.

Like Dan, the tagline is what stood out most for me. I felt like I had to
> spend a moment processing what that meant. Gives the impression that this
> is principally about JBoss, rather than about solving some problem. With
> that said, there are a lot of indications on the page of what this is
> about, and I like the various links to the code.
>
> The page is pretty packed with content, but all together it gives me the
> info I was looking for.


Here is feedback from Joe Ottinger, former editor in chief of JDJ and
theserverside.com, also a member of the open source and standards team:

My main thought is that "gear to get you mobile on jboss" is a better
> tagline - and it's de-emphasized on the page.
>
> The JBoss Focused Resources for Mobile... shouldn't that be:
>
> A) JBoss-Focused... (note hyphen)
> B) Better?
>
> At any rate, the color there doesn't really attract the eye enough to
> matter a lot - it looks like  a throwaway tag, and so it is.
>
> The biggest problem is that the "gear to get you mobile on jboss" is the
> best tagline, and it's not emphasized enough, and it could be better, too.
> The problem is that "gear" is catchy and "developer tools" is not.


Seems to me like the simplest revision might be to follow Joe's advice and
swap in "Gear to get you mobile on JBoss" as the main tagline and change
the color so that it pops.

The tougher question is whether saying "JBoss" gives enough context to
understand what Aerogear is providing. If the diagram is accurate, perhaps
you should just say JBoss AS (implying that things that work with JBoss AS
will work as well). You could also consider putting an FAQ somewhere beyond
the front page that explains what exactly "JBoss" entails.

Again, great work on the site!

-Dan

-- 
Dan Allen
Principal Software Engineer, Red Hat | Author of Seam in Action
Registered Linux User #231597

http://google.com/profiles/dan.j.allen
http://mojavelinux.com
http://mojavelinux.com/seaminaction
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