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New post: Rebuilding the PW website, part 5


ryan
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I hope that you all had a great Christmas holiday (or other holiday that was last week). And likewise hope that you have a Happy New Year this upcoming week. This week we'll take a quick look at last week's new master version launch and then discuss the status of the new ProcesssWire.com website currently in development:

https://processwire.com/blog/posts/rebuilding-the-pw-site-5/

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To Drupal, or to Processwire? The Million $$ choice.
We decided to make an early switch to PW. And in retrospect, it was probably the best decision we took.

Thanks are due to Processwire and the amazing system and set of modules that are in place.

-- Unni Krishnan, Founder of PigtailPundits  --

 

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Processwire is simply remarkable for sites like these.

The key things for the team here were:

>> Easy to understand and work with [learning curve compared to other CMS is negligible]

>> Fast [no code bloat]

>> Flexible for both programming and theming

>> Scalable, for publisher/user driven content sites as in National Geographic Traveller India

-- Unni Krishnan, Founder of PigtailPundits  --

(taken from https://processwire.com/talk/topic/7494-case-study-the-triumph-of-national-geographic-traveller-india-in-processwire/)

 

More can be seen here: https://www.fixmy.pw/blog/why-we-love-processwire-cms-so-much-especially-after-working-with-crappy-joomla-wordpress-and-drupal-cmss/, starting at "For Developers, it's a welcome dream."

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The learning curve is low. Our team got it in less than a week of tinkering around.

You can work with PHP plus you can work with ProcessWire APIs, and that’s always good for programmers getting into it

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We have used ProcessWire to build custom applications, large ecommerce sites built from ground up on the framework, and enterprise websites without issues

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It does not commit you to a pre-built content type but allows to build it as you need it. Your content dictates the content types.

?

 

Edited by horst
added some more from the same author :)
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this one

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The tutorial for the client over Skype lasted one hour and the happy part is that they are up and way confidently after that. The client's response:
"I was surprised that the site administration could be so intuitive and manageable by anyone with little technical knowledge."

from here: https://processwire.com/talk/topic/11355-large-b2b-website-goes-processwire/?tab=comments#comment-105946

 

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Exciting that the new processwire.com could arrive within the next week! Caught me by surprise too, as I thought it was early days yet for the design and that there would be more evaluation/discussion/iteration of it before it went out live to the world. But I can appreciate also that a "move fast and break things" approach is often the most productive.

A couple of observations/opinions of previous screenshots (I didn't comment earlier because I thought it might have been too early for this sort of thing)...

I'm not liking the typeface used in the new design. My main gripe is the curved strokes used on characters such as A, V, w, etc.

Untitled-2.png.f48a165602d49f52ea275b7f37e65930.png

This design detail looks ugly and amateurish to my eye. I know it's a small detail and such things can be a matter of taste but in support of my opinion I'll add that if you look at the work of the top-tier type foundries such as Hoefler or Klim you won't find any typefaces that curve the strokes on these characters. 

I also think the x-height is excessively large (the height of the lowercase relative to the uppercase). Again it's a subtle thing but I'd argue this sways the balance too far towards "friendly" versus "serious".

My preference would be for something more neutral and serious as the main typeface. As an example, Molde is very affordable at the moment and a great workhorse due to the many included weights and widths.

Another observation is that the pages that have the entire page background in blue are pretty intense. It's too strong IMO and not so comfortable or inviting for reading. And when it comes to the Showcase the focus should be on the site screenshots - the page design should aim to show them off as best as possible. A strongly saturated background distracts from and can clash with the content in the screenshots.

showcase-site.png.f48be924e1f21e4c11cf88df1dd26970.png

I think the blue background works better in smaller blocks on the page, to highlight a section or provide differentiation between sections on the page. When it comes to large background areas I think white or greys would be better (this could include dark greys or black if we want some blocks to have reversed type). 

 

The other thing that I think it would be good to discuss is who the target user of ProcessWire is. I'd love to hear @ryan's view on this, as well as other community members' views. Of course many different types of user could find value in PW, but when it comes to designing and evaluating marketing materials such as processwire.com I think it can be helpful to form a clear picture of a specific target user. We can't have "everyone who wants to make a website" as a target - so who is the user that will find most value in PW, who is that user we want to draw in?

I discovered this older topic recently that has some interesting discussion about promoting ProcessWire as an "enterprise CMS".

I'm not saying that "enterprise" is what we want to focus on as a primary target market (I don't think it is), but I do think that we need to have more of these kinds of discussions with the aim of clarifying who ProcessWire is targeted to and how best to reach that audience. 

My view is that the PW's biggest asset is its powerful and well-documented API. And the user who is most able to benefit from that is a user who has a fair amount of development experience. It's probably a user who is a professional developer in one form or another. It's hard to get a sense of the breakdown of types of users currently working with PW - the forum is one of the few ways but it's not a good guide because there could be many experienced developers using PW who don't need help via the forums and are perhaps too busy to make other contributions there. But generally I get the sense that PW is not reaching experienced professional developers as well as it could.

Part of reaching and capturing the target audience involves making sure processwire.com communicates to that audience that you've come to the right place. The cues for this can be subtle. I think the visual and written language of processwire.com should be serious, neutral (PW is "unopinionated"), and prepared with the professional developer in mind. The API should be emphasised and we should be careful to avoid any "dumbing down" that might obscure the fact that PW is a powerful and sophisticated tool. I'm not saying that the proposed design or the existing processwire.com are failing in this regard - just that I think these things should be key considerations.

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Other quotes: 

"I am currently managing a PW site with 2 million+ pages. It's admirably fast, and much, much faster than any other CMS we tested." Nickie (ProcessWire Developer)

image.png.2298d78dd8b00cb07c03fea6134447df.png

Moving my blog to a @processwire installation was the best decision I could have made. So simple to update via mobile devices #processwire
Barry Smith (@Lazysod) 4. Juli 2017

@processwire the PHP cms that just Keep on giving. Download it today and enjoy stressfree and fun web development. It realy has changed my life as a developer. It comes with many features and support for https included. #webdev #cms #processwire #php https://t.co/Af1y4QfjHP
M. Bonnevier (@magnusbonnevier) 10. November 2017

Transformed my static Single page website https://jensmartsch.de  into a dynamic one with #processwire in 5 hours. Adding sections is now soooo easy.
Jens Martsch

Yesterday sent client a short documentation for the #processwire website. Today all features already used with no questions. #cmsdoneright
Marc Hinse (@MadeMyDay) 23. März 2017

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Thanks for all the quotes Horst, Margie and Jmartsch! I have added these into the site. 

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A couple of observations/opinions of previous screenshots (I didn't comment earlier because I thought it might have been too early for this sort of thing)...

Thank you for all of your feedback and excellent comments/questions. I'm glad you are interested in this, as I love to type about it. ?These are all very subjective things. I've tried to focus on making myself happy with it first. I don't expect everyone to like the same things, as we are all a product of our conditioning, especially as it relates to likes and dislikes of colors, fonts, etc. Even more-so with a global audience. Since I've done the build out this time around, the result is currently consistent with my own conditioned preferences, trying to put my best effort towards that. That's where I have to start. But it won't stay that way and I fully expect design elements (like those you've outlined) to evolve. But because it's all subjective, unless something immediately makes sense to my own understanding, I've got to focus on broad consensus more than individual opinions. 

That's in part why I want to go ahead and get it online, because it's going to be a lot easier to communicate and collaborate. You are picking things out of the few screenshots I've posted (which is all that can be done right now), but these are just basically thumbnails that lack context. So it's feedback about screenshots rather than an actual site, and I'd like to get to the actual site. The site and the screenshots really aren't the same thing, and the screenshots have a whole different feel than the actual site (for better or worse). For instance, once online, if you think you've found a more suitable typeface, you'll be able to use your browser tools to inspect and change it, take a screenshot and post it, and if it seems pretty unanimous then we'll change it. Other things might take more than just browser tools so I'm also hoping to get it into a site profile. 

There are other reasons I want to go ahead and get it online. First off, I love the current site, but I also think that for people new to ProcessWire, the current site is starting to look old. I'd become so used to it that I didn't notice until recently. For someone clicking around visiting the sites of the various different CMSs, they likely comparing it to the other CMS sites, all of which look quite a bit newer than ours (I've been visiting them all). We have a great site, but it's a 5-year old site, and I think new visitors see that.

I'm guilty of this— I evaluate some product/project/tool or another and don't give a second look to the those that don't subjectively appeal to me with their site. I don't have to love the design aspects of it, but I do have to be convinced that there is quality and that someone cares today, not just yesterday. It has to look relatively new or I just assume the project isn't active, or isn't going to be worthwhile, despite any other factors. Regardless of actual design, that first filter is: "does this look up to date and like someone cares?", because if it doesn't then I'm probably not going to look closer at the product/project. This is of course not very smart, but I've just noticed that's the way my mind seems to work. I'm thinking it might also be the way a lot of us work. So when it comes to the ProcessWire site, my feeling is, the sooner we can get something online that is newer than what's there now (and still accomplishes everything content-wise), the better. 

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This design detail looks ugly and amateurish to my eye. I know it's a small detail and such things can be a matter of taste but in support of my opinion I'll add that if you look at the work of the top-tier type foundries such as Hoefler or Klim you won't find any typefaces that curve the strokes on these characters. 

I appreciate your perspective and these are good points. Though this is one area where I feel differently. I like what this particular typeface communicates and the way that it does it, though maybe there are others that can do the same. But let me explain. It's precisely those details that draw me to it, because it's just ever so slightly organic. While not apparent at regular body copy sizes, it is in headlines in a few of the letters.

It steps outside the expected boundaries every once in awhile, which to me feels like breath of fresh air. Like I hope people perceive PW relative to the others. That little detail of slightly curved strokes on a few of the uppercase letters, when noticed, feels a little like warmth, like the friendliness of ProcessWire, and by that I mean that ProcessWire is more than software, it's community. Anyone can say they are friendly, but ProcessWire actually is. I think it also says something about ProcessWire's API in that it's quality and clear, but it's not just work, it's also something you will enjoy. It's professional first, but there's that slightly warm and organic craftsmanship aspect that goes beyond the hard edges of the cold machine. Lastly, purely side effect, but I do like that some of the strokes slightly curve in an almost wire-like fashion, giving a feel of flexibility over rigidity, which I think is also ProcessWire. But it's primarily the professional while warm aspect that appeals to me. 

There are all the things I like at least. Maybe there are other typefaces that can do it even better, but I've not found anything that does it quite as well so far. It'd be simpler to accomplish this all with a serif face, but I want the modernity of sans serif without the machine-like coldness, and feel like I found it. I look forward to seeing some other options too, I'm sure they are out there even if I haven't found them. I looked at Molde, and it's attractive but cold, kind of geometric and anonymous, and it's hard not to think of Helvetica, despite there likely being lots of subtle differences. It seems like its strength is in its variations. The condensed version feels like it's starting to relate to PW, except that...  it's condensed. ?

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Another observation is that the pages that have the entire page background in blue are pretty intense. It's too strong IMO and not so comfortable or inviting for reading. 

You might be right, but I think this is one where you'll have to see it in context first, rather than screenshots. I'm well aware that dark text on light background is considered the standard for legibility. So anything that involves paragraphs of text is always on a white background in this site. For pages where the primary emphasis is headlines, links, tiny snippets or copy or images, I'm going with the blue background (which is the same blue that is currently in use on this site). You mentioned intensity but I see calm (maybe it's screen related). Though the intention wasn't really either. It was instead just to have more depth where the content would allow, to show that ProcessWire is not a theme engine and there's a lot of inherent flexibility in how you output content. I wanted to get well beyond the 1-template appearance by having a strong contrast in presentation. To my eyes, it's just as legible as the pages with white backgrounds (and actually, I prefer it for reading, but my eyes have bad floaters so light backgrounds are difficult). But it might be one of those colors that looks great on one screen and not another, so we'll have to see if there's consensus and perhaps fine tune it further. 

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The other thing that I think it would be good to discuss is who the target user of ProcessWire is. I'd love to hear @ryan's view on this, as well as other community members' views.

This is an easy answer. The primary audience for the website is web developers (or web designer/developers). The secondary audience is the actual clients that hire web developers, whether that be owners, marketing people, designers, etc. So from a marketing aspect, the purpose of the site is first to get the web developers on board, and second to tell the clients that: not only are they going to love the system, but that it's an exceptionally secure, reliable, safe and really easy-to-use system that will put them a step ahead of their peers. 

I feel like our old/current homepage only speaks a little bit to these groups and that it's too general and abstract in wording. The new homepage is quite a bit more specific about these two groups. I just need to figure out that darn iMac screenshot, as ProcessWire isn't some tangible thing/object that you show. But I just need a screenshot to show that is compelling enough to capture your eye and make you want to start reading what's on the rest of the page. I have not yet figured out how to show this in a screenshot.

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I'm not saying that "enterprise" is what we want to focus on as a primary target market (I don't think it is), but I do think that we need to have more of these kinds of discussions with the aim of clarifying who ProcessWire is targeted to and how best to reach that audience. 

ProcessWire is definitely an enterprise tool, but I'm not really interested in spending energy targeting this "enterprise" segment. Several CMS seem to target this, lose the interest of everyone else, and meanwhile the enterprise segment goes off and mostly uses WordPress. ? To a large extent, the enterprise segment listens to their web agencies or in house web designers and developers.  I feel that if you are attracting the web design/development community, then you are also attracting the enterprise segment better than you can do directly. 

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It's hard to get a sense of the breakdown of types of users currently working with PW - the forum is one of the few ways but it's not a good guide because there could be many experienced developers using PW who don't need help via the forums and are perhaps too busy to make other contributions there. But generally I get the sense that PW is not reaching experienced professional developers as well as it could.

The types of users currently working with PW are almost exclusively web developers, and related web design/development agencies. This much is pretty clear.

I completely agree that PW is not reaching this audience as well as it could. This really is a primary motivation for rebuilding the site. 

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Part of reaching and capturing the target audience involves making sure processwire.com communicates to that audience that you've come to the right place. 

Also completely agree. And they have come to the right place, but few realize it. That's the challenge to solve. I feel like the new homepage gets quite a bit closer to communicating this, but also think really nailing it perfectly is going to take getting a professional designer involved before it's a home run. However, I think next week when it launches, it'll be a step closer to where it needs to be. Some good momentum to get things going to the next steps hopefully. 

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 I think the visual and written language of processwire.com should be serious, neutral (PW is "unopinionated"), and prepared with the professional developer in mind. The API should be emphasised and we should be careful to avoid any "dumbing down" that might obscure the fact that PW is a powerful and sophisticated tool.

I largely agree with everything here. I've spent a lot of time writing copy this last week and this sounds consistent with what I've been after. Though I don't think marketing can really be unopinionated per se, because the purpose is to get you to buy into something. For instance, I might say that ProcessWire has the best API, and I really believe it, but such a statement can only ever be an opinion. 

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1 hour ago, ryan said:

The primary audience for the website is web developers (or web designer/developers). 

I think you should outline the fact that we have a friendly, warm and helpful community, which often responds to questions asked in minutes or hours. And the tone of conversations is very nice.

This is ONE thing that I love about ProcessWire.

Target groups

You are writing, that there is a second target group "actual clients that hire web developers".

So I think we need a separate landing page for this target group. The solution could be to present a chooser "Are you a developer/designer?" or "Are you a business owner, CEO... etc/ Are you looking for help?" on the main page which scrolls down on the main page if the first option is selected (because thats the main target group), and leads to another page if the second option was selected.

Devs

For devs please outline the use as a CMF. I developed two business applications with PW as a CMF, while using the existing backend, and customized it, to my likings.

CEOs

On the page for business owners there should be sections for getting support and the main selling points of ProcessWire, maybe even advantages over WordPress. Linking to blog post like my own "Why ProcessWire is the best choice for your website (not always, but in most cases)" could be helpful.

Looking for a web developer to aid you? We have a list of devs available.

Is this and that possible with ProcessWire? Most time the answer is "YES", but if you are curious: Go ahead and ask in the forums. Here the warm and helpful community should also be outlined.

Backend showcase

I think that ONE screenshot can not resemble ProcessWires backend accurate enough. Multiple sections that describe the main aspects are needed.

Also I think that we need different screenshots or maybe even screencasts of the admin/backend for different target groups, because different aspects of the admin are important for these groups.

What is important for developers?

  • Everything is a custom field and custom fields can be easily added
  • Dependency fields (showIf)
  • Repeaters
  • Backend is customizable (custom template input masks)
  • Can even be replaced with an own backend
  • Powerfull debugging tool (Tracy debugger, even if its not part of the core, maybe think about integrating it?)

What is important for CEOs, marketers?

  • Easy and intuitive backend
  • Fast
  • Access level control
  • Security
  • Customizable Designs
  • SEO friendly
  • Extendable
  • Performance

Thats all for now, but maybe I extend this post later, or do another one.

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I agree with Jens on the "are you a..." split on the homepage (think I've mentioned it to you before Ryan once or twice ;)).

If there's going to be a screenshot on the homepage then I think it needs to be below that section really, a bit like Activecollab and others show their main features here before leading into the screenshot - because the main selling points wouldn't immediately obvious from the screenshot itself:

https://activecollab.com/
https://www.kayako.com/

and some CMS' don't even have a screenshot on their homepage:

https://modx.com/
https://umbraco.com (.NET, but popular in that language)
https://www.drupal.org/
https://www.joomla.org/

Wordpress do have a screenshot on wordpress.org, but only to show that you can install a blog with a theme in seconds (their strong point of course).

I pretty much agree with everything Jens has said so far, especially this post: 

I also don't like the heading font, sorry! It seems like a small thing but ProcessWire is a professional system built for professionals, so somehow to me the playful curves on the heading font seems to detract from that for me. But since you're asking for everyone's opinion you're always going to get a split of "that looks fine" and "I don't like that" ?

Another thought - is it actually wise to launch the new website just to get it out by a self-imposed deadline? I'm thinking in case there's something in the navigation structure that may change, but equally if any pages get their content majorly shuffled around due to feedback it's probably not wise to change them multiple times on a live site in quick succession. I've made suggestions for changes to the top-nav over the years that I think make sense and I'm worried that - without seeing the new structure - others may also have suggestions that could be adopted and changing the navigation structure more than once in a short space of time is obviously not great for SEO (if that were to happen - there's a lot of "what ifs" until we can see it of course ?). Putting it up somewhere behind a simple password screen where search engines won't immediately gobble up the content and getting feedback makes more sense to me, though I realise that getting feedback from so many people before launch could drag out the process quite a lot.

Maybe give us somewhere to look at it before launch, see who's interested in helping out and get a small group together to help with the final touches? That way you get the best of both worlds, launch with any ideas you want to implement but then the small group collates and curates the feedback so it doesn't add too much time into the process.

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Plus, if you hang fire a bit, we can launch the forums and dev directory and other sections using the new styling all at once rather than a bit at a time. It actually bugs me when other sites don't do this as you're getting new visitors all the time so, whilst it's only a visual mismatch, it can be jarring and look a little disorganised/unprofessional if people don't realise what's happening behind the scenes and it may be that they go elsewhere as a result.

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Well...

I'm excited to see Ryan's work (new processwire.com) that showcases what he created in the last years (ProcessWire).
I'm excited to see how and what Ryan has built in the last weeks.

If there is real need to fix something, we'll fix it.
If there are ideas worth discussing, we'll do so.

Ryan built several websites in the past.
I guess he knew what he did.


Always remember: release early, release often. (like PW Dev Branch)

 

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Thanks for the detailed reply Ryan.

On 12/30/2018 at 5:13 AM, ryan said:

So it's feedback about screenshots rather than an actual site, and I'd like to get to the actual site. The site and the screenshots really aren't the same thing, and the screenshots have a whole different feel than the actual site (for better or worse).

That's a good point. We'll have a much clearer impression of the new site when we can see it rendered in our browsers.

 

On 12/30/2018 at 5:13 AM, ryan said:

This is an easy answer. The primary audience for the website is web developers (or web designer/developers).

This is a very broad audience. When the market for a product is large (e.g. the car market), usually some market segmentation goes on so that you don't have every provider trying to reach the entirety of the audience. So instead of targeting all car buyers in the broadest way ("It has four wheels!", "It can transport you from A to B!") manufacturers tailor the product and its marketing towards the interests of a narrower group within the audience ("Lowest particulate emissions of any mid-size van!", "Traverse any terrain with huge 283mm ground clearance!").

But having said that and having now looked at the marketing of many CMS products it seems that few providers in the CMS space aim for a narrower market segment. This surprises me because there are many...

  • Different kinds of web-delivered content (single landing page, small brochure site, huge corporate documents database, Ajax-driven SPA, the list is endless)
  • Different levels of custom development (from off-the-shelf WP themes to fully custom design and coding)
  • Different divisions of responsibility between client and professional (client cannot design anything and strictly manages content only versus client virtually designs the site themselves via the backend) 
  • Different preferences for templating (via templating language such as Twig versus pure PHP)
  • Different levels of coding competency (experienced developer proficient in many programming languages versus newbie, or person who thinks website equals Squarespace - which is not a rare thing given the saturation marketing of that provider)
  • Different relationships with the finished website (this is my own website and I enjoy tinkering with it, versus I am a professional and I need to get the job done because time is money, etc)
  • I could go on...

Maybe we don't want to narrow down our audience much, but I think we should at least be mindful of people who PW is not going to suit:

  • People who want an off-the-shelf theme already integrated with a CMS product (we have few available themes/profiles I can't see PW seriously competing in this space).
  • People who have little to no PHP experience.

So I think there should be strong emphasis on the suitability of PW for custom design and development. And there should be some code shown on the PW home page ? (if that scares away anyone then PW was never going to be a good fit for them).

The best CMS home page I came across in my search is for Wagtail: https://wagtail.io/

2018-12-31_111419.thumb.jpg.646159c42a69e5654d876a1b42bdea6b.jpg

Not saying its styling is perfect (for one thing I'd say go for a fixed max-width rather than a fully fluid layout) but I like several aspects of it:

  • Many short, punchy value statements
  • It's a fairly long home page that highlights many aspects of the CMS but is not excessively wordy
  • I really like the tabbed interface showing off the top four features
  • It doesn't shy away from showing some code front-and-centre
  • It speaks to different audience segments in the "You'll all love it" section
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23 minutes ago, Robin S said:

The best CMS home page I came across in my search is for Wagtail: https://wagtail.io/

Just read "headless" on their site and thought this would be an important keyword for processwire.com as well. Maybe something like:

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ProcessWire - the CMS that has been headless and stable for over 10 years...

I'm neither a native speaker nor a marketing slogan guru, but I hope you get what I'm trying to say. And as a proof, this statement could be linked to this video as discussed here:

 

While I love that video content and know how true every word in it is, I think for new users this might not be obvious. Quite on the contrary, I think a video with one stranger telling something about a great system that he developed in his living room (sorry ? ) does not have the professional impression that it deserves. Also 33k views since 2010 is really not a lot - all of us know that these are no fair indicators for the power or greatness of processwire, but new users might not get that.

I think it would be great to have a 2minute introduction video in a modern and professional design. I even think that it would be great to let this video have 100% the same text of the first 2min of the ancient video from 2010 to show how revolutionary the platform was back then (all modern CMSs sell that as the new big thing) while on the other hand PW has it for 10 years and has been stable all the time! Maybe someone could help with such a video? @heldercervantes or @Jonathan Lahijani ?

One more thing that I like on modern websites about products is a section where the product is compared to other players in the market. Like runcloud does it on their website:

cLhzv6p.png

Here is how such a page looks like:

screencapture-runcloud-io-alternative-plesk-alternative-html-2018-12-30-23_51_00.thumb.png.c68f069aa4741601c8ed7e7d7b914289.png

I think such pages could make a LOT of sense because people already know DroomlaPress and such a comparison page could outline the differences and show the strengsths of processwire in a fair and efficient way. If you try to compare it via google/youtube searches processwire will always lose the game because it's just not focussed on marketing the way the other platforms are.

But that could easily be outlined on such pages, e.g. comparing CMS XY to PW:

Quote

If you are looking for a fancy modern CMS that looks great on the first sight and changes it's syntax every 6 months, XY might be a good choice. If you are looking for a rock solid CMS that has it's focus on security, quality, long term compatibility rather than on marketing, you'll likely fall in love with ProcessWire and it's small but very responsive, respectful and professional community.

 

Good luck with the new processwire.com and happy and successful new year to everybody ? 

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A few more CMS marketing pages that I thought were effective...

  • https://www.silverstripe.org/ - I see SilverStripe as being quite similar to PW in terms of target market (or what I think the PW target market should be). If I wasn't in love with PW I'd probably be using SilverStripe, partly because of the New Zealand connection.
  • https://dotcms.com/ - good use of a video
  • https://prismic.io/ - simple with plenty of whitespace
  • https://ghost.org/features/ - their Home page is weak but I like this Features page
  • https://craftcms.com/ - the focus on custom design and development ("design and build exactly what you need") is similar to what we should do with processwire.com
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headless

Just a little game and play with words here.

headless = kopf·los [/kópflos/] which translates in german to due to confusion, surprise or similar unable to think clearly, to act meaningfully

ProcessWire is (no doubt) very well planned and executed and therefore absolutely not kopf·los. Which could be used and translated to something like:

Headless without confussion [in marketing language]

 

Comparisons

Regarding comparisons... they work well in tables with key features like themes, templates, user management, priviliges, workflow, etc. 
Something like this on satellite.me - a small competitor compares itself with the biggest players.

765213203_2018-12-3100_39_28.thumb.png.47de427e44d93ffcbcbd076aa9a2dac4.png

 

Other CMS sites

As @Robin S already mentioned other CMS sites here have a look at typo3.org and typo3.com as well. Or something very exclusive like inxire.com (kind of a unicorn - but still with a very dull website). They are the... let's say biggest and most known CMS in their field and are kind of milestones. Alone the inxire clients tell a story.

 

 

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12 hours ago, wbmnfktr said:

Well...

I'm excited to see Ryan's work (new processwire.com) that showcases what he created in the last years (ProcessWire).
I'm excited to see how and what Ryan has built in the last weeks.

If there is real need to fix something, we'll fix it.
If there are ideas worth discussing, we'll do so.

Ryan built several websites in the past.
I guess he knew what he did.


Always remember: release early, release often. (like PW Dev Branch)

 

I understand what you mean, but we're used to this as we're already here and understand ProcessWire, but new users (the target audience of a new homepage) aren't. They're also less likely to use anything but the master branch initially so whilst I understand your reference to the dev branch, I don't think it's applicable here.

I guess I just don't see the point in rushing to launch and tweaking it afterwards (aside from the inevitable excitement to share something new - I know I would be keen to release it as Ryan is, but the ProcessWire site is no small thing and gets a lot of visitors). Sure, the new docs are for everyone, but the public face (homepage) and marketing side of the website isn't really for the folks that are already here ?

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All valid points. But in my eyes if @ryan is confident that the current "work in progress" is better than the current "live" is there any harm in pushing? If new visitors see better than what is currently there surely that will gain new users in the interim. Feedback can then be received and implemented to make it even better and boost new users even more. The website is looking tired as it is, and with so many opinions, when would something that everybody is happy with (is that ever the case) actually go live?

Happy New year to everyone, it's been a great year with ProcessWire in our small team. 

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Looks lovely, and pleasantly surprised to see it working so nicely on an ultrawide monitor across all the sections!

I'm mucking about with ideas already (it's not got this lovely gradient through to pink in the original version ?)

pw texture.png

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