[ocaml-infra] Redesigning OCaml.org

[Daniel Bünzli]

Le vendredi, 9 août 2013 à 00:18, Amir Chaudhry a écrit :
> Despite that, I disagree that we need proper text to assess the design. If it doesn't work with lipsum, then adding text will *not* miraculously save it.


That's not what was said. What was said is "it's not because it works with lipsum that it will work with the content" hence it's better to check the design with the real content, for the reasons you mention yourself.
  
> *Reducing* the density of content and effective use of white-space makes things easier to navigate (there's less to mentally process before making a decision).


This is wrong in general. It highly depends on how you define "easier to navigate", especially easier for *who*, e.g. recurring visitor vs casual one, etc. Besides reducing the density may imply scrolling and inability of seeing all the options at the same time. But sure, there's a tradeoff and the right balance has to be found.  

> I completely agree that 'popular' is a misnomer. 'Most downloaded' makes way more sense. I did find the list useful when I saw it in OPAM as I had no idea that so many things depend on ocamlfind.
  
Note that this is not what this number tells you, reasoning with a flawed metric implies flawed inferences. A more reliable way of asserting your proposition is to consult the "required by" field on this page:

http://opam.ocamlpro.com/pkg/ocamlfind.1.3.3.html
  
> ## Aside: Good designs last forever?

Stricly speaking long lasting <> lasts forever, but to exemplify there are many pieces of industrial design made around the middle of the last century that don't look outdated at all. Some of these things even made it in many people's pockets these days, see for example the iphone calculator (braun ET66 calculator) or the ipad clock (swiss railways clock).

> Designs change.
Fashionable designs change.  

Best,

Daniel