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