Hi Gerv, first of all thanks for your interest and your feedback.
Our site is still in "development" and we are open for constructive feedback.
Let's come to your points:
- "Vendor neutrality" has trumped usability - it offers a choice of 4
(Windows), 2 (Mac OS X) or 5 (Free OSes) readers rather than the best one for each OS. This is probably the primary foot-shooting move - it will bewilder anyone trying to use the site.
Yes, that's right. We are working on OS auto-detection, and we will choose one reader for each platform that we think is the most-usable/easy-to-install.
- They don't detect the OS the user is running and highlight choices
for that OS.
See above.
- Some software is marked "additional software may be required to
use this program". What does that mean? Either it is or it isn't, and if it is, what is it and where do I get it?
We removed that note.
- There are paragraphs of text to read before you get to the
download links.
The focus of the campaign is to educate the visitor about Software Freedom and Open Standards, because these issues are important.
But in my opinion the text that the visitor has to read before he sees the downloads is very short, and may easily be skipped, because the table is self-explanatory.
- At least one of the Windows downloads leads to an FTP site with a
ZIP file. What are the chances of an average user correctly installing that software? Even with a proper Firefox installer we lose almost half of downloaders along the way.
Well, that's a bit difficult as some authors of the readers want us to link to their project pages so that they get credit.
Anyway, we will take things like this into consideration when chosing the recommended reader.
- They forgot to register the obvious typo "pdfreader.org" and it's
now been grabbed by a squatter.
Damn squatters ;)
What do you recommend us to do in this point?
Please take your time to answer my points.
I am looking forward to hearing from you again.
Henner
On 23/02/09 10:04, HennR wrote:
Our site is still in "development" and we are open for constructive feedback.
Great :-)
Yes, that's right. We are working on OS auto-detection, and we will choose one reader for each platform that we think is the most-usable/easy-to-install.
Wonderful! That's the biggest improvement you could make. I'm very happy you are doing that.
The focus of the campaign is to educate the visitor about Software Freedom and Open Standards, because these issues are important.
But in my opinion the text that the visitor has to read before he sees the downloads is very short, and may easily be skipped, because the table is self-explanatory.
Sure. But once they have started the download, you actually have a _better_ opportunity than before, because they are waiting for something. Why not do that thing Sourceforge does, where it directs you to a new page with "your download will start momentarily" and then present the message about freedom and open standards on that page?
After dinner speeches are after dinner, rather than before, because people are happier to listen when they've had what they want :-)
Well, that's a bit difficult as some authors of the readers want us to link to their project pages so that they get credit.
Are they going to take their projects down if you don't?
Again, perhaps a link to the project page ("Learn more about this software...") might be a good thing to put on the during/post-download page I mention above.
- They forgot to register the obvious typo "pdfreader.org" and it's
now been grabbed by a squatter.
Damn squatters ;)
What do you recommend us to do in this point?
Not sure there is much you can do, as "pdf reader" is a generic term. Keep an eye on whois and hope they drop it, I guess. Or you could offer to buy it, depending on the price they want and if you think it's a good use of money. Of course, such an offer will probably mean they never drop it...
Whatever you do, don't keep visiting it to check what's there! :-)
Gerv