Subject: bug#22546: Download-Page is "hiding" what the options actually are

From: myglc2 <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Feb 2016 11:54:35 -0500

[email-masked] (Ludovic Courtès) writes:

> Robin Vobruba <[email-masked]> skribis:
>
>> Being new to Guix, i went to the Download page:
>> https://www.gnu.org/software/guix/download/
>>
>> immediately saw the 3 big options
>> read their title/names
>> was confused what the difference might be between "GuixSD" and "Guix Binary"
>> could not find anything inside these 3 option's boxes that would help me
>> read the text below them
>> read the text above them
>> finally understood that the first option is the OS, and the second is only
>> the packag-manager
>
> I think I’ll have to disagree.  :-)
>
> For each option there’s a line right below the title saying what this
> is.  I’m no expert in “information architecture” but I’m under the
> impression that there’s little margin for improvement.

You are too close to Guix to appreciate this user's confusion.

> More importantly, I think that someone who cannot be bothered to read
> this will not install the thing at all since installing requires you to
> read the much longer installation instructions.

It is a mistake to think this way. 

During the first few moments of checking out Guix a user is looking for
clues about how well "wrapped" it is. She is "using" your web site. If
the experience of using your web site is difficult it signals that the
software is difficult. Is this what you want?

> Of course we want them to be as small as possible, but I don’t think
> that’ll be a single line anytime soon.

The Guix web page and doc are very beautiful and detailed. But they do
not clearly convey the relationship between Guix and GuixSD. This is why
you have had to use so many puzzeling words on the download page.

I have drawn two diagrams that illustrate and address this issue.  They
are posted it on gmane.comp.gnu.guix.devel under the subject 'Guix vs
GuixSD'.

I suggest that you discuss the diagrams and agree on a top-level diagram
that explains the Guix-verse. Once you have that, you can use that
diagram on the download page to make download choices easy.