It has been several weeks since we finalized the new www.mozilla.org design and I wanted to post an update on things. There are several different pieces we’ve been putting together to prepare for the relaunch.
The new design is on a staging server and we’re making a few more tweaks to the templates to polish things. If you’d like to help with the HTML and CSS edits, please let me know.
We’re also moving from CVS to SVN to put the site on a modern repository and to help us work with more people (for instance, the l10n community uses SVN to localize web content and we are interested in working more closely with them).
Out of date pages are being archived to make the transition to the new repository (and the move to a new PHP-based templating system) easier. We’ve trimmed the site down from roughly 24,000 files to just under 14,000 files so far.
Many existing pages are being updated and new content is being added. This will continue after the site is relaunched, so let us know if you’re interested in helping us tell the Mozilla story.
As we move forward with transitioning files to the staging server, we’ll need some help to make sure pages are displaying correctly. We’ll post more information about that soon. Thanks again to everyone who has commented and contributed so far.
davidwboswell 
It looks really great and functions well.
I especially like the large Get Involved graphic (get-involved.gif) though perhaps it should be an image link.
I understand that Mozilla’s projects are what allows it to demonstrate and advance its mission, but I believe that providing information on mozilla.org about the projects (with a link to the product’s pages of course) would be a better idea than sending visitors away from the site to those projects just seconds after landing on mozilla.org.
I liked one of the earlier mockups that had the projects listed in the sidebar.
Currently, there is a greater emphasis or at least more visibility and quicker access to Mozilla’s projects than to content pertaining to Mozilla itself.
The links in the main navigation section leads (or will lead) to what is really the heart of Mozilla and what the site should be focusing on. I still believe that the majority of Internet users scroll down or “Skip to Main Content” to view a site’s or page’s offerings rather than using a site’s navigation options first.
Learn About Mozilla, Our Community, Our Projects, Our Causes (and Get Involved 🙂 ) should replace Our Projects IMHO.
“24,000 files to just under 14,000 files”
I’m sure that number will rise back up in no time. 🙂
Nicely done!
Ken, thanks for the feedback.
We do want to make the Get Involved graphic a link. That’s one of the tweaks 🙂
I’m sure you’re right about many people skipping over the main navigation. To help address this we’ve repeated each of the main navigation links in the short blurbs right above the Our Projects box.
For the number of archived files, I sure hope the number doesn’t goes back up 🙂 There are still a lot of outdated pages for us to go through and also a lot of documentation to migrate to MDC.
You still have the same problem that was already criticized last time: you are wasting a lot of screen space with that mostly useless black bar at the top. That way, on a typical 900px high screen, you only display about 30% of the actual content of the main page while on the old page really only the footer was missing and everything else was visible and readily accessible.
And you making the same mistake that took more than a year to rectify on the main page with the old layout: SeaMonkey and the Calendar product are again 2nd class and not visible by default.
Peter, thanks for the feedback.
For the header bar, we plan to tweak the CSS so that on smaller screens more of the main content is displayed above the fold. When the screen is large enough though, I think it is worth using the header to make a strong visual impression.
For the list of projects, that space expands with the size of the screen. For instance, I see Firefox, Thunderbird and SeaMonkey on my screen. There’s only so much space on the home page, so not everything can fit. Perhaps one thing we can do is randomize the projects list so we rotate through which projects show up initially.
simple draft ONLY could shorten the back and add some tabs ? “any style” IMO the header “links & tabs” has the most valuable real estate……………
the way it is now all pages with be mostly header above the fold that’s a lot of scrolling
5 min mock up
David, as many web designers I guess you are confusing “screen size” and “browser width”. In my environment almost nobody runs the browser in fullscreen (or maximized) view, so even on my 1600×1050 screen I only see two projects listed.
If you would go with 64×64 or even 32×32 icons, you could fit all projects on the same screen (on the old page 16×16 was good enough to make the project leads happy).
But yes, the design does leave a strong visual impression. It looks modern and cool. If visual impression would be all that you want to convey (compromising a lot on content), then the current design would be perfect. 🙂
Peter, I have been using ‘screen size’ and ‘browser width’ interchangeably sometimes although they are different as you point out. Our goal is to use media queries to optimize the design for both small screens and for larger screens when the browser isn’t maximized.
As for the project icons, Mozilla is about much more than a set of applications to download and the goal of the site is to be a portal for all community information. Because of that, the role of the project-related content needs to be balanced with other content.
As for visual impression, that is certainly one of the things we’re going for. It certainly isn’t the only thing that matters though.
Talking of relaunches, MozHunt (the easter egg hunt project but bigger, better and for mozilla firefox 3.5 launch) is launching soon and I would like very much, if you would once again help the project out by hiding a panda on your website. Please get in contact with me via the email I supplied to post this comment. FuzzyFox