The Bugzilla website needs an overhaul

[Mike Morgan]

Those are great suggestions, Myk.  It seems that consistency with 
mozilla.org seems to be a hot topic -- I have _a lot_ of experience with 
this kind of stuff.  I do a lot of pages at Oregon State University that 
have to incorprorate a university template to maintain consistency for 
site visitors.

It brings up an good question in my mind about mozilla.org -- do they 
have an established web identity and/or template tools so project pages 
can have a similar look and feel in _certain areas_ of their pages that 
tie them into mozilla.org without sacrificing individuality?  An example 
of such an 'area' would be a consistent banner, image, horizontal nav, 
etc., that ties bugzilla.org into the main site without MAKING IT the 
main site.

OSU uses a black or orange banner a the top of pages to signify a tie 
into the university, and after that it's free game.  Many universities 
follow this same type of format, like UW, Ohio State, MIT, UofO, etc.  
Example: http://oregonstate.edu/cws/ (my dept's site)

Here are some more examples of web projects I've worked on at one point 
or another that involved a process similar to the revamp we are looking 
at for bugzilla.org:
http://oregonstate.edu/cws/development/
http://oregonstate.edu/cws/development/portfolio.php
http://oregonstate.edu/dept/affact/
http://tss.oregonstate.edu/
http://oregonstate.edu/career/
http://oregonstate.edu/groups/pfla/
https://helpdesk.tss.oregonstate.edu/
https://helpdesk.tss.oregonstate.edu/help/
http://oregonstate.edu/~morgamic/ (view at your own risk)

Ultimately, I'd be willing to help you guys crank out a great website 
that's standards compliant, accessible, and pretty -- but most 
importantly simple and easy to use -- not to mention consistent in some 
ways with the cool new mozilla.org look.  :)

I'll drop you a line this weekend after I have some time to work on a 
mock-up.  Should take about 8 hours to throw together a template/mock-up 
and send it along.  I'd really like to help out however I can, since you 
guys have done so much for Oregon State.

Mike Morgan

Myk Melez wrote:

> It's a good start!  I like the left-hand navigation bar and the 
> segmentation of links based on audience (curious visitors, 
> administrators, developers, etc.).  Besides plunking in some content, 
> which really helps test a design for practicality, I have a few 
> suggestions:
>
> 1. left-align the links in the navigation bar; it makes them much 
> easier to read;
> 2. left-align the logo, or place it in top of the navigation bar 
> (perhaps easier with the bug on the mozilla.org website beta);
> 3. replace the drab grey background on the left-hand navigation bar 
> with another color that matches the blue links better;
> 4. consider using a horizontal navigation bar along the top of the 
> screen in addition to the vertical one down the left-hand side of the 
> screen for important links (like "Download") or links to major 
> sections of the site (like Documentation).
>
> -myk