Piwigo.org new design

Hello readers!

Many things have happened to the Piwigo project since my last post on this blog. Piwigo has reached the 2.0.9 version number, I’ve left my previous job to focus on Piwigo and piwigo.com, Piwigo 2.1 is near to be released with numerous enhancements.

But for now,  let’s talk about piwigo.org website new design. Piwigo.org is the website introducing Piwigo, the opensource software you can download for free.

The new design is a minor enhancement. The colors are unchanged, yes we still have the light grey text on dark grey background. What really changed is the homepage. The most important page I would say. The previous homepage was beautiful but was not efficient. Each time I got feedback about the old homepage, it sounded like “your homepage looks nice, but I have no clue what Piwigo is about”. Here is the old homepage:

I’ve taken the screenshot on my 1680px wide screen, to show that it was producing a lot of empty space.

Here comes the new homepage:

On the homepage itself, the recipe is:

• illustrate what Piwigo is with a big screenshot
• describe Piwigo in a few words, with a big font-size, as easy to read as possible
• make the download link obvious
• describe a few features (Categories, Tags, Themes & Plugins, Privacy)
• give the quick start (the Hosting page is under preparation)
• quote users about Piwigo (true testimonials, of course)

The audience of the homepage is the new comer in priority. It must be clear what Piwigo is just from piwigo.org homepage. I hope the new homepage will achieve this goal.

Second big change: the header you see on all pages of piwigo.org. Here is the old header:

Main links are in small size, with a heavily decorated background, links are not at the same height (floating effect). Here comes the new header:

Here is the recipe for the new header:

• no disturbing background,
• bigger font size,
• the active section has a distinct background color,
• language switch (piwigo.org is currently available in 10 languages),
• search box (using Google Custom Search),
• nice looking tooltips (using jQuery tipTip plugin).

Here is the language switch:

And the nice tooltips:

I hope new comers on piwigo.org will appreciate the new design.

Another deeper redesign is in progress, this one was focused on making the homepage more efficient.

Visit piwigo.org