Suggestions wanted for Linode.com redesign
caker
Linode Staff
So, we need help – professional help. I realize this now…
I'd appreciate any suggestions on the content and design, or even some actual mock ups, of just our public website -- the members' site is staying how it is (for now), although I'll take suggestions on anything. If you have any suggestions, or are a designer, or know a great designer, please let us know -- either by replying here, or sending us an email at
* We're after a better look and feel, and improved content.
We're after simplicity.
The public website will have its own new navigation. The existing navigation's look (the tabs+subtabs) will remain under the members' site, but we want the public site to have its own look/feel, and a fresh start.
We're after a modern design (read: 2.0ish) We'd love to know what you guys think.
-Chris
61 Replies
If you're set on a "redesign" use Drupal and you can integrate everything very nicely
As a fellow not-designer-but-gets-stuck-doing-it-anyway, kudos on a job well done.
There are a slew of "linode rocks, thank-you" threads in this forum. Maybe display a few quotes (as links) on the front page? It was a friend's testimonial for unmatched (personalized) customer service that lured me in…
Having just seen the Linode ad in this month's issue of Linux Journal, however, I'll agree you can/should throw some resources at marketing. Compare your ad to the likes of Server Beach in the same issue. Their ad really caught my attention, but I only noticed the Linode ad because I am a customer and recognized the logo.
Cheers.
IMHO re-designing a site opens the doors for innovation and progress. Current users might not like change but change brings new ideas and new and interesting ways at looking at things.
I'll TRY to ask my girlfriend (who is pretty good at webdesign) if she would be interested in contributing or I might take a stab at it myself.
Fred B.
But I do want to agree with a lot of people on one point:
WEB 2.0 is NOT ALWAYS GOOD.
A well-designed static page is a thousand times better than even the best Ajax application. Plus, static pages are easier on the server.
As it stands, your website is already much+ easier to navigate than that of a lot of your competitors.
If you are going to do a redesign, please keep the changes subtle. And for God's sake, NO flash! And don't use one of those irritating "Contact a sales representative" popups that so many Hosting companies just seem to love.
For another successful low-tech site, think about drudgereport.com. Hasn't changed in 15 years. It just works.
Sometimes less is more.
I'd rather the effort be put into WebService::Linode personally!
BTW, what about an open contest? Something like "Winner gets 1 year of free hosting!" With a little bit of $ incentive like that, I'm sure a lot of people here will be happy to share their ideas.
@weave:
think about drudgereport.com. Hasn't changed in 15 years.
It should have!
I think it's nice to see a new look every so often. I think what you have now works well. I like the simplicity of it.
2. I'd recommend redesigning the menu layout. Currently there are too many levels of the menu (account/profile/logout, then linodes/members/community, then linode manager/dns manager/…., then Dashboard/Console/…). I remember being unable to find where reverse DNS settings are until someone on the forum pointed me.
General separation Linodes (Offer/About could do better) / Members / Community is OK, but inside Members section the navigation should be rethinked (I'd prefer clear one menu with submenus/subtabs to four alternative schemes)
caker
Linode Staff
@Mekk:
2. I'd recommend redesigning the menu layout. Currently there are too many levels of the menu (account/profile/logout, then linodes/members/community, then linode manager/dns manager/…., then Dashboard/Console/…). I remember being unable to find where reverse DNS settings are until someone on the forum pointed me.
General separation Linodes (Offer/About could do better) / Members / Community is OK, but inside Members section the navigation should be rethinked (I'd prefer clear one menu with submenus/subtabs to four alternative schemes)
That is exactly the plan for the members' area. Separating out the public and private sides will allow us to move everything up one tab level – eliminating the "Linodes, Members, Community" top level tabs, and finally getting rid f those nasty sub-sub-tabs when manipulating a Linode.
-Chris
My only real suggestion would be to change the top tab "Linodes" to Home or something.
I'd say, keep doing what your doing (which is doing Linux VPSs very well and within a good price range) and keep things the way Linux likes things (using K.I.S.S). You'll probably have a large, dedicated user base then.
Another "me too" on the "keep things simple" comments.
One other note on my own experience:
When I was first looking for a virtual host several years back, one of the things that really sold me on Linode was that you had screen shots and descriptions of all (or most) of the control panel screens on the web site so that I could see them before ordering. This "peek" at how I would be able to control things, and the obvious care that went into making a flexible, well designed interface helped reassure me that Linode was the best available choice and I haven't regretted that decision.
So whatever you do I'd recommend keeping that part of the site in some form.
–John
And I agree with others about no flash and keeping things simple and breathable.
Also, I don't think "Web 2.0" design is all about AJAX and it is not about complex designs at all. You can make a perfectly Web 2.0 style web site without AJAX. It is a much more broad phenomenon. Some elements recognizable in Web 2.0 are clean, lean, sharp spacey, uncluttered, easily readable designs. You probably saw that trend on the web already and by accident or not, Linode.com already employs some of these. It's by far not outdated as far as modern web design trends go.
Here are a few links I dug out of my bookmarks and web that might be helpful.
A List Apart
53 CSS-Techniques You Couldn’t Live Without
And for inspiration here are some sites where you can look at other well designed and cool looking modern sites. I love browsing these for inspiration:
And more
Also, if you'd like to launch a contest (buy whole or part of the design from the winner), here's a nice site for that: 99designs.com
Cheers
Having confessed to that which I'm most ashamed of, I'll proceed with the requested feedback…
The problem:
The structure of your post sales support could be improved to help new members climb the learning curve. What you currently have quickly gets me to my node's command prompt within SSH, but that's about it. The wiki is a start, but not enough to give new members like myself a framework in which to quickly move up the learning and easy-administration curve.
What I'm looking for:
What would be nice is sort of a road map that I could refer to in order to get full use of my account. I'll eventually get there on my own, but providing a little structure to the process would help me climb the learning curve.
One possible solution:
Have your customers voluntarily answer a survey that says how they're using their node, what tools they're using and how happy they are with them.
With such a survey, I might be able to plow through the following questions faster:
once I get my image setup, how do I back it up, restore it, and how well will that work.
how should I be doing my box administration
what sort of backup framework should I use that's effective, but doesn't blow my bandwidth and cpu budget
what sort of monitoring should I need to be doing
godaddy charges a lot for my domain renewals - can I do everything that they're doing now? If so what are my options and how do I implement them?
what the heck haven't I thought of that will make my life difficult if I don't think about it now
Adios and buen suerte:
I'll figure all this out on my own, but right now, I'm reading much more than I'm actually doing.
After all that, I realized you might only be asking about what sort of lipstick to get your site. Slashdot's popular and one of my favorite sites. Maybe you could see how they came up with such a super-slick presentation.
@cseifert214:
I just joined and am learning plenty. I do not have experience running Linux servers.
Having confessed to that which I'm most ashamed of, I'll proceed with the requested feedback…
The problem:
The structure of your post sales support could be improved to help new members climb the learning curve. What you currently have quickly gets me to my node's command prompt within SSH, but that's about it. The wiki is a start, but not enough to give new members like myself a framework in which to quickly move up the learning and easy-administration curve.
What I'm looking for:
What would be nice is sort of a road map that I could refer to in order to get full use of my account. I'll eventually get there on my own, but providing a little structure to the process would help me climb the learning curve.
One possible solution:
Have your customers voluntarily answer a survey that says how they're using their node, what tools they're using and how happy they are with them.
With such a survey, I might be able to plow through the following questions faster:
once I get my image setup, how do I back it up, restore it, and how well will that work.
how should I be doing my box administration
what sort of backup framework should I use that's effective, but doesn't blow my bandwidth and cpu budget
what sort of monitoring should I need to be doing
godaddy charges a lot for my domain renewals - can I do everything that they're doing now? If so what are my options and how do I implement them?
what the heck haven't I thought of that will make my life difficult if I don't think about it now
Adios and buen suerte:
I'll figure all this out on my own, but right now, I'm reading much more than I'm actually doing.
After all that, I realized you might only be asking about what sort of lipstick to get your site. Slashdot's popular and one of my favorite sites. Maybe you could see how they came up with such a super-slick presentation.
Google is your friend for Linux setup, I believe Linode is unmanaged hosting.
@cherring:
Google is your friend for Linux setup, I believe Linode is unmanaged hosting.
That doesn't mean that providing tutorials and articles to help the beginner won't be a good thing. One of linode's main competitors (you know, the other 'node') has a fairly extensive wiki full of tutorials on how to set up the basic facilities one would want on a server - mail with virtual users, apache + vhosts, django, rails, mysql, etc, all geared for newbies. While it's all well and good to say "lol google it", having a welcoming first experience for someone who's never seen Linux before has got to be good for sales, right?
@bdonlan:
@cherring:Google is your friend for Linux setup, I believe Linode is unmanaged hosting.
That doesn't mean that providing tutorials and articles to help the beginner won't be a good thing. One of linode's main competitors (you know, the other 'node') has a fairly extensive wiki full of tutorials on how to set up the basic facilities one would want on a server - mail with virtual users, apache + vhosts, django, rails, mysql, etc, all geared for newbies. While it's all well and good to say "lol google it", having a welcoming first experience for someone who's never seen Linux before has got to be good for sales, right?
Perhaps.
I guess I am a little cynical and sick of people who don't even make the effort to learn anything and just want to be spoonfed.
To clarify it is not my experience at linode that has caused this point of view.
@bdonlan:
While it's all well and good to say "lol google it", having a welcoming first experience for someone who's never seen Linux before has got to be good for sales, right?
This is going to come off sounding like an elitist jerk, but if you can't answer these questions yourself, then a linode isn't for you. This kind of support is very expensive, and linode keeps prices down by not providing it, allowing those of us who know what we are doing to get more bang for our buck. I personally would rater mikegrb (lolz) be coding than telling someone how to set up postfix (which is a PITA for anything beyond a canned install).
My opinion, if there's not a lot of hand holding evident when signing up and it scares away a few customers that would be spamming the support ticket system with "newb" questions, then that's a good thing.
With that said, I find the community here very helpful and the irc chat channel where you can talk to Linode principals directly pretty amazing. My previous self-serve VPS hosting company had great tech support, but there was no community boards for VPS owners, no IRC, or anything like that.
@weave:
This is going to come off sounding like an elitist jerk, but if you can't answer these questions yourself, then a linode isn't for you.
Ah, an hour later I reread my post and it does come off that way.
You took the time to write out a well-thought-out posting with good suggestions. Us linode customers can often be a bit too protective methinks at times.
I hope you've found out by now that, even without a lot of knowledge, a linode is a great learning tool. If you screw something up you can just delete the image and create a new OS image. You can try various distributions easily. If you lock yourself out of the system, you can get back into it with lish or with finnix in the worst case scenario.
Of course if you have anything "production" running, even if it's your own personal stuff, reinstall is not an option, so eventually you figure out how best to back it up (there's been other threads on this on the forums lately) and restore.
Some people have even taken their linode images into their own PCs and run and test things in a virtual machine environment like vmware.
@weave:
This is going to come off sounding like an elitist jerk, but if you can't answer these questions yourself, then a linode isn't for you.
Unfortunately, I agree with you. Only unfortunately, because I see how low Linode's prices are to competitors, how much hardware you get for your dollar is awesome, and the fact that doesn't seem out to make the owner a million dollars, rather to provide a great service to others in the Linux market while fulfilling his dream.
Perhaps the last part is just a vibe I get, but linode seems like a normal, honest person, not like a business pr*ck that would try to screw you over at first chance to make a buck.
While providing tutorials is great, there are so many on the net already (howtoforge, linux.com, the Linux Documentation Project) they do there job very well. If we want to provide good documentation we would probably just copy everything from there anyway.
@freedomischaos:
Unfortunately, I agree with you. Only unfortunately, because I see how low Linode's prices are to competitors, how much hardware you get for your dollar is awesome, and the fact that doesn't seem out to make the owner a million dollars, rather to provide a great service to others in the Linux market while fulfilling his dream.
My biggest fear is that some horrible company like Go Daddy will buy out Linode to get the technology and software, then ruin the company.
@weave:
@weave:This is going to come off sounding like an elitist jerk, but if you can't answer these questions yourself, then a linode isn't for you.
Ah, an hour later I reread my post and it does come off that way.
:-(
No problem - customers can kill a business and I don't know what sort of support makes sense for Linode. I was merely pointing out an area of pain and one person's pain is another person's opportunity.
@cseifert214:
No problem - customers can kill a business and I don't know what sort of support makes sense for Linode.
Unmanaged and unfettered.
@cherring:
I guess I am a little cynical and sick of people who don't even make the effort to learn anything and just want to be spoonfed.
One thing this site could use is slashdot style moderation so I could mod the above comment +5 insightful.
Other than that the site is perfectly functional and any changes should be small and incremental. Any big redesign would cause more trouble than its worth.
@memenode:
Also, I don't think "Web 2.0" design is all about AJAX and it is not about complex designs at all. You can make a perfectly Web 2.0 style web site without AJAX. It is a much more broad phenomenon.
Web 2.0 can't be described because it doesn't exist. It's marketing fluff and nothing more.
Does the phrase 'the emperor's new clothes' mean anything?
Well, I just heard about and signed-up with Linode yesterday, so the reasons for that decision are fresh in my mind. I can say for sure that the website was a big part of why I signed up. It was simple, easy and to the point. It conveyed a friendly personality, as if there were reasonable human beings on the other side of the site; that's rare for a web-host.
That being said, I tend to find that things are constantly changing whether anyone likes it or not; you can stay on the ball and direct those changes for the better or relinquish control. So, I'm always in favor of well-designed changes.
Anyway, I had some down time last night - registered a domain that wasn't going to get activated until morning - so I decided it would be fun to take a shot at a mock-up for slightly next-gen Linode. Certainly could still use some work, but here's rough draft #1:
Enjoy
-Nicky
@TumbleN:
Anyway, I had some down time last night - registered a domain that wasn't going to get activated until morning - so I decided it would be fun to take a shot at a mock-up for slightly next-gen Linode. Certainly could still use some work, but here's rough draft #1:
http://www.tumbledesign.com/wip/linode_mockup.jpg Enjoy
:) -Nicky
Wow, I like that! A definite good start, IMO.
@weave:
@bdonlan:While it's all well and good to say "lol google it", having a welcoming first experience for someone who's never seen Linux before has got to be good for sales, right?
My opinion, if there's not a lot of hand holding evident when signing up and it scares away a few customers that would be spamming the support ticket system with "newb" questions, then that's a good thing. Sure, you may like may like to keep linode exclusive to those you consider your "peers", i get how noob questions may offend you. In the end though linode is in a competitive business. There is no room for a business that does not grow its customer base. Even if they rent out enough linodes now to be in the black, they can't just go on with out expanding their customer base. When those noobs go to their competitors, the other vps providers will grow stronger and more powerful. The noobs will refer more noobs, the revenues and resources of the competitors will grow, their staff and support will expand, they will have large marketing budgets and then linode will really struggle to find new subscribers. The old loyal customers will die off and then where will we be? anyway, i didn't need to go into even this much detail, but we can see the linode staff is starting to think about marketing again, and if they want to broaden their target audience then usability is one of the things they can work on. Simple things like embedding help files into the linode configuration manager or distro wizard would go a long way. Also, like the user above suggested, a brief "getting started" guide is good.
I know we have the wiki and support forums, and these are great, but something with a more official feel would give the noobs a more warm and fuzzy.
Managed hosting = hosting for noobs
Unmanaged hosting = hosting for people who know what they're doing, OR noobs who are willing to spend a little time experimenting, reading, etc.
Are you saying that nobody can be in the business of unmanaged hosting? It seems that the two types have been coexisting for quite some time. And Linode is unmanaged hosting.
Linode is a small company. They probably can't compete with the larger players if they try to be a jack-of-all trades. I think they are striking a right balance here. What other hosting company out there exists where you can hop onto IRC and talk to the principals of the company? If you need tech suppor at other hosting companies, start out at tier 1 through some drone in India, then work your way up through escalation and aggravation until you either give up or eventually get through to someone who can help you.
No thanks.
I for one do not wish Linode to become a "GoDaddy" or "Bluehost" ( :puke: ).
The power and flexibility offered comes with responsibility on the customers end. You diminish the power and flexibility once you have "Wizards" that do everything for you.
At work I once had a customer who bitched at me that he couldn't believe my company called our devices "Enterprise" equipment because it didn't have "Wizards" that did everything for you.
People who desire/want the power and flexibility need to learn how to do it. If they want "Ease of Use" they're going to have sacrifice something ya know. There's no such thing as a free lunch.
Bring back the network information that linode.com used to have. (
The only reason not to have this information is if it changes too often (kind of doubtful) or if it provides no value and just confuses users. Most linode users are nerds, and nerds like having this information.
Also, you should provide test IPs/files on the web site to help people choose which datacenter would be best for them. I know there is a forum post with this data, but not everyone is going to spend the time digging around the forum to find it.
Great job!
Edit: A very small thing: In the manager, the "Linode Manager" link at the top of the page points to /members/main.cfm, which just redirects to /members/linode/.
I would like the community link back in the members section though. I use the CGI IRC a lot while at work since we block IRC.
> 99.9% or your lost time is refunded back to your account.
or s/b of, no?
caker
Linode Staff
@dfelicia:
Looks great. Small typo:
> 99.99% or your lost time is refunded back to your account.
or s/b of, no?
No. It's worded awkwardly, but it's intended meaning is: 99.99% uptime, or your lost time is refunded back to your account.
I'll get that fixed.
-Chris
caker
Linode Staff
@eld101:
I love the new site…Only one thing I am not a fan of is the light blue sign up box on the front page.
Same here. It needs to change – maybe one of them there fancy screenshots…
-Chris
@Deviation:
Good work.
I would like the community link back in the members section though. I use the CGI IRC a lot while at work since we block IRC.
this.
@OverlordQ:
@Deviation:Good work.
I would like the community link back in the members section though. I use the CGI IRC a lot while at work since we block IRC.
this.
Yeah, I'd like this too. As far as I remember the whole puropse of a redisgn in the member area was to get rid of those sub-sub tabs, right? Since that hasn't happened yet, why remove the community link?
1) For those of us who only have one Linode, please have the Linode Manager default to the dashboard upon logging in.
2) Also, even though I only have one Linode, I've never liked the (rename) button being next to the Linode name in the Linode Manager. Perhaps move it to the far right instead.
James
@zunzun:
Can anyone easily read the blue text at the bottom of this page? I have trouble reading it, probably due to low contrast.
https://www.linode.com/members/ James
Should be white to match the design on the rest of the site.
@ang:
A few small suggestions:
1) For those of us who only have one Linode, please have the Linode Manager default to the dashboard upon logging in.
This feature would be greatly appreciated.
