Join Page Refresh

[Paul W. Frields]

On Wed, 2008-07-23 at 08:36 +0100, Jonathan Roberts wrote:
> 2008/7/23 Paul W. Frields <stickster at gmail.com>:
> > On Tue, 2008-07-22 at 22:41 +0100, Jonathan Roberts wrote:
> >> Hey all,
> >>
> >> I said in last night's meeting that I'd start work on a draft of
> >> content to go on the join page, to clarify the process and make it
> >> more useful. This is what I have so far, but is it too wordy? (Lol, of
> >> course this is entirely text, but is it too long!)
> > [...snip...]
> >
> > What is the purpose of this page?  What should the user be doing on this
> > page?
> 
> To me, the purpose of this page is to explain the process of how one
> becomes an active Fedora contributor.
> 
> As it is now, it provides very little information beyond signing up
> for an account and a link to a wiki page with very little information
> about each role and the associated teams. To become an active
> contributor I think one needs to know at least a little bit more than
> what's currently there.

I agree this page is wrong as is.

I think the right way to do this is to simply direct people to the
account system first from this page, without any fanfare.  At the
completion of the process, the user should then have a choice of:

1. self-service information, by choosing a role that holds interest and
landing on a page with actual useful data about what to do next
2. full-service information, where the user is presented with some
selections that present a task list.

This page fails on #1 because the paths to the self-service data lead
the user away from the account system, and not just one click either.
The place the user lands has nothing truly useful, so the user is forced
to click repeatedly to find other information, making it more unlikely
to return to where the path started.  The self-service information
should be stripped from this initial join.fp.o page, and be presented as
a link following account creation.  No reason the join.fp.o page
couldn't have a small but obvious link like "Why sign up?" leading to a
general page like:
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/FAQ#For_Fedora_Contributors 
...or a better page including text similar to what you laid out earlier.

You should talk to Luke Macken about #2, because he has some amazing
ideas about what to do there.

-- 
Paul W. Frields
  gpg fingerprint: 3DA6 A0AC 6D58 FEC4 0233  5906 ACDB C937 BD11 3717
  http://paul.frields.org/   -  -   http://pfrields.fedorapeople.org/
  irc.freenode.net: stickster @ #fedora-docs, #fedora-devel, #fredlug
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