Hello Michael, all

Overall I like the new layout and contents of the new site. The front

page is attractive, compact and I think informs one just enough to push

them to click on that Learn more button.

The latest release notice on top of the page is also nice.

And I really like the new logo with the red "_". It does hurt a bit

somewhere deep to see the nostalgic tux go, but I admit that it does

look a bit too 90s. :-)

The new about page also looks nice and is not too verbose at first, but

I do like the full feature list at the bottom of the page. This is

information that may not be too important for a manager, but a nice

feature for anyone with a more technical background that is scouting

for a new/replacement firewall product and doesn't want to spend time

diving into documentation to find out what IPFire is technically

capable off. Here it is now nicely summarized.

I do have to note that in the upper part I have a few problems with the

wording in:

"We securely connect your employees to their desks at home, your global

business partners and the infrastructure in your data centre, giving

you maximum flexibility so that you can focus on what really matters."

I had to re-read the sentence a few times and I'm still not sure what

you exactly mean?

Are we connecting employees working at home to their office desk? or

employees working at the office to their home desk (which I don't think

is a big pro for many bosses, at least not the ones I worked for)

And are we connecting your global business partners to the

infractructure in your data centre, or are we connecting employees to

global business partners, and to the infrastructure ?

(I know that all is possible with IPFire, but the current wording

strikes me as too vague or unclear as it can be interpreted in many

ways (at least to me :-)))

And at last, I miss any mention of "the home user"; only "the employee"

is addressed explicitly giving the impression that it is an enterprise

only product or at least focused especially to enterprises. Which is

not the case, I think? So, I think, if the employee is addressed, the

home user should be mentioned also or neither should be.

Also on the Easy to use part, as a technical user I would like to also

read that access to the Linux shell (or "CLI" is maybe more attractive

to more Microsoft-minded users) for the "power user" is only a click

away. (Referencing to the "enable SSH" setting in the WUI, but adding a

SSH console in the WUI is maybe also an idea worth exploring sometime

:-))

 

The latest Release notes on the download page is also a really nice

addition. Maybe a link "Older release notes..." which redirects to the

blog would also be nice as I wouldn't intuitively go for the blog link

in the main menu when looking for an overview of older release notes.

But I think the current blog does mostly cover for an older release

notes overview page? 

The blog page also looks nice and clean.

An idea maybe, if easily implemented, is to add tags to blog posts

"release", "stable", "testing", "feature", "general", ... and the

ability to filter on those tags. This way you could set a filter on

"stable" and "release" tags when clicked on the above proposed "Older

release notes" link on the download page :-).

See below for my findings about to red color usage...

Michael Tremer schreef op zo 07-01-2024 om 14:29 [+0000]:

Hello Tom,

On 7 Jan 2024, at 01:47, Tom Rymes <tom@rymes.net> wrote:

On Jan 6, 2024, at 9:03 AM, Michael Tremer

<michael.tremer@ipfire.org> wrote:

Hello Tom,

Thank you for your feedback!

On 4 Jan 2024, at 23:44, Tom Rymes <tom@rymes.net> wrote:

I really like it at first glance, though the red used in the

banner on this page (and I think it’s all over the place, I

just didn’t confirm) is too close to magenta to my eyes. It’s

bright, but more tropical flower than fire, IMHO (it clashes a

bit with the fire video on the homepage).

Is it a bad thing to be close to magenta?

Not at all, it’s the juxtaposition of the video and the color that

clashed, in my opinion.

The two aren’t near each other on the homepage, but if you load the

homepage and then click on another page, the magenta is right where

the video was, so they’re adjacent while on different pages, in a

way.

Ah yes, that makes sense, depending on what page you are clicking

next.

What I did get as negative feedback before was that the red is

quite bright (as in: burns your eyes). I use Apple devices which

have generally good colour representation and this feedback came

from people that didn’t have calibrated screens (brightness and

contrast up all the way)

This is a bit of an issue, I suppose, but less so. My observation

was more of a clash between the magenta and the fire colors.

Magenta is often a bit intense, but maybe that just means it

shouldn’t be in big, broad patches covering large sections of

screen? I’ll leave that for the experts!

On my screen it looks fine without burning my eyes.

I do have to concur that the current red is too bright for my eyes. It

is acceptable on the buttons and as text highlight color and such. But

the big banners do hurt my eyes.

The login page (https://www.michael.dev.ipfire.org/login) and the

error pages use the colour for the entire screen and feels alright to

me. Definitely a statement, but that is kind of what I was going for.

This is too much. I really can't even watch this page without keeping

my eyes half closed.

I do have to note that it is currently night-time, it is dark, the

light is dim and my desktop theme has switched to dark mode. So the

contrast with the bright red may be too much.

But my monitor brightness adjusts automatically to environmental light

and is also quite dim at this moment and also has auto 'intelligent'

color correction (I checked if it made much difference to the red with

that setting off, but it didn't).

I also checked with "nighttime colors" (very warm colors, white is

almost yellow.) But the red login page stays too bright for me to look

at.

Maybe I can look at it with my eyes fully open at daytime. But I'm not

sure we want a website that is only comfortable to visit during

daytime.

Generally I do like darker colors, like the previous maroon, and I may

be a bit too sensitive for brightness/color intensity (had my eyes

lasered in the past, which can be a factor to that). But I assume there

are people that are more sensitive to these things than me. So I'm far

from convinced that this color is a good choice.

On my mobile phone the color on the banners is not as disturbing as on

my desktop. It would not be my favorite, but I could live with it. But

also here the login page is too much; I don't have to squeeze my eyes

yet, but it is still very intense for me to look at.

Robin

-Michael

Tom