Concerning the “Ruby on Rails” box. We’re concerning treating this like an advertisement on the homepage. The editorial staff will highlight popular or interesting projects from time to time. While I think we want Rails to frequently appear on the home page, we may switch it out for Rake or Instiki or Needle, either on a weighted randomizaton or periodically.

Wow, very nice. This one get’s my vote, for sure.

I really like the logo in this one. Other logos I’ve seen that are actual photos of a ruby, such as the one at http://rubycentral.com/, don’t look that great. They’re too dark, or they don’t have enough contrast, or are too busy, etc. The logo submitted here is evocative of a physical, 3D ruby, but is very clean looking and pleasing to the eye. The reflection effect is a nice touch, too, though the logo could probably work just as well without it, if desired. Regardless of what layout gets chosen for the site, I think this logo’s a keeper!

Of the two, I like this one best. What I think will be extremely appreciated by newcomers are the three large topic boxes near the top. This should solve some of the search woes people have had.

Concerning text, I prefer the fonts size of Michels for the nav links across the top. Also, I would like to have the body text (and sidebar text) to be slightly larger.

I prefer this design to the minimal one. It is a bit confusing to see “Learn Ruby” next to “Documentation” in the links bar, though—learn Ruby seems to be a subset of documentation. Perhaps “Tutorials” and “Reference” would be clearer.

And can there be a timestamp on the “from the blogs” section, so we know when it was last updated. And whatever method the “top projects” are determined by should be listed as well (XYZ downloads?). This would keep the feeling of being dynamic, and mesh with the timestamps given in the news section.

Ths logo on this one seals the deal I think.

This is very nice. The use of color for the headings creates a nice balance to the site. +1

Love it!

The “Download | Learn | Build” thing is great.

Firstly the logo seals the deal. I also love the way the designer has managed to balance simplicity and beauty. I love his style. This has to be the next look of ruby-lang.org.

Warren hyperionreactor.net

I’ll take one of these, please.

The Ruby Red design is more aesthetically pleasing, but I really like the “Hello World” section header on the Clean one.

I think sample code is one of the most important features for a programming language site. You might want to cycle through snippets of interesting code with a link to “more samples”. The Io sample page—although not especially pretty, has the right content (see http://www.iolanguage.com/SampleCode.html ).

Awesome work guys! Keep it up.

I am for this one

Very nice!

Would be cool if you could intergrate the ruby blob thats there on the other design.

I want to respectfully disagree with why. I feel that Rails is of such importance to the ongoing development of Ruby, at this stage, that Rails deserves preferential treatment. Needle and Rake are things that people use once they’ve got into Ruby. Whereas Ruby is, in many cases, something people use once they’ve got into Rails.

Apache is most well known for their HTTPD server – so much so, in fact, that most people call it ‘Apache’ itself! – so why shouldn’t Ruby be primarily well known for Rails? As far as I can tell, in the non-Ruby world, it is Therefore, I feel that Rails should have a permanent place on this page.

Ithis! OTOH , I appreciate the idea of the “guest star” box, but maybe it should have something hinting what the box is. Great work, thanks to all the people collaborating.

Pretty nice and easy to read, Good job !

Wow… really really nice. I especially like the lovely Ruby logo – it’s perfect!

winner.

Maybe a bit more polish: - lighten up the red boxes, they’re dominating the ruby/logo header. maybe make them gradient, as that’s the popular thing now - the top right drop down needs to say ‘Home Page’ so that the user knows where they’re at and what it does - I agre with titling the ‘project ad’ box. maybe some play on words off ‘red hot ruby gem’ or the like

coops: You make a great point. It’s wise to always have Rails on the home page. We’re still talking about this.

We may leave room for two projects in there. We may just have Rails always shown on the first impression. We haven’t dug too deeply on this just yet.

Wow. Excellent—and I say that as someone who is extremely conservative about changing things like this. Good work.

I worry about favoring certain projects sometimes, but I don’t have anything concrete to say.

I Ruby Red better, mainly because it feels less corporate than the Clean demo.

Still, I think sans-serif and serif type don’t go together well in Ruby Red.

I’m aware of how difficult it can be for designers to predict how browsers will render type and that finding the right balance is a difficult task.

I’d rather go for an all sans-serif font type usage.

The Clean demo makes better use of type, and Ruby Red looks better overall, probably because its use of colour.

Why not fusing both picking the best qualities of each ?

I agree with Jason—this rocks and I prefer it over the other one, but I think the red box is too extreme. It looks a bit odd to have that extreme red tone and inside boxes in a slightly lighter one that have such small text. I think a few bright gradients and less extreme contrast between the inside and the outside (while brightening up the whole thing) would be wonderful.

I think that this one is going in a lot of good directions. It has things that I would expect to see on a front page, and is concurrently interesting to both new users and old hands.

• A “What is Ruby…” synopsis like here that is very short, immediately recognizable, and links to a more descriptive sub-page.
• A “featured project” which has a synopsis on the main page (possibly integrated with a more regular Ruby News section) and links to article subpage(s). Contributions from the community are key here.

• “Important” news updates (releases, security issues, official stuff) persist in the “Latest News” section but also in the main news section and link to a subpage;
• “Application highlights” are signified in some way but appear inline with regular news;
• Members of the community can submit news, also denoted thusly.

Basically I think that the site could use categories for news effectively to make the site intuitive, uncluttered, and helpful to many different types of users.

The logo has to go. It’s a beautiful little thing but thoroughly impractical. The best of the logos (from a reusability/printing/etc. perspective) is the middle one of Michael’s extra ones. I also quite like it aesthetically :)

The design of this page, however, is superior in other aspects. Just add the ‘random code’ box.

+1 for the code example box, if there is a way to stuff it in the page

I like this one. It’s much cleaner, has white space, and inclusion for direct commmunity participation (blogs) which other language sites don’t do.

1. I like the icon much better than the competing design.
2. I also dig that blogs make the front page
3. Lastly, the red rounded table helping users get more information (Download, Learn, Build) is nice

1. The short snippet describing ruby should be above the red table and in bigger bolder font as the other design has it.
2. Where are the links for other languages?
3. The sidebars look ugly bare with black, blue, and white. Give them nice rounded borders or a nicely colored background, more like the Rails section.
4. The main page is fine with a white background, but the greyish gradient is unappealing to me. I much prefer the subtle blue of the other design.

-1 on the “Always Advertise Rails”.

Sorry, while Rails is amazing, it isn’t the whole of the Ruby space. This isn’t Yet Another Website About Rails. It’s about what made Rails possible.

I like this one better. The logo is definitely the best one I have ever seen. Still I also appreciated the code sample in the second design.

One suggestion: I find the 3 red boxes over a red background a bit too “heavy” compared to the rest of the page. Wouldn’t it be possible to make them “Lighter” which we bring this desing clolser to the simplicity and elegance of the other one.

This is utterly gorgeous. I give my definitive vote for this one. It is visually stunning and attractive, and still manages to be an uncluttered and intuitive interface. Bravo.

I really like how it manages to appear non-linear and “natural,” even though it’s a very grid-based layout, which makes navigation a cinch. I actually really like the red-on-darker-red boxes. I think they do an excellent job of shouting to a new visitor “Look! Look at me first! I am an important and succinct summary of how to get started!”

Incredible. I love it.

-1 on a Rails-only PR frontpage

Nothing against Rails, really, but there’s a lot of other equally deserving, and hard working people out there.

Re: Rails… I’m sure it could be arranged that the “featured application” is rotated, even automatically. Let’s just mark this in the “for illustration purposes only” column, neh? :)

eero: my statement was mostly in response to Peter Cooper’s comment about highlighting Ruby on Rails. It’s important, but not the only thing, to be certain.

Very nice!

The “build” box should get a different title because the meaning of “build” is confusing. Maybe “programs” or “applications” or … would be better.

Great work!!!

I REALLY like the ruby (and the rounded corners), but otherwise prefer the header and the explicit download section from the other mockup.

This aproach is clean and elegant.

The search tool visible in the header is something I really appreciate.

Fantastic!

+1 for sma’s explicit download section

Clearly the new hottness. Love it, don’t change a thing.

The best design in my opinion. It looks clean, readable and complete. Very nice indeed.

I dig the serifed fonts. About time someone payed attention to typography.

I dig the serifed fonts. About time someone paid attention to typography.

This rules.

Ruby Red gets the beauty award: pretty and inspiring design. I like it, with some reservations:

I love the Ruby Red logo, but it may also be too big and complicated and may also look a bit too much like some jewellery advertisement. Any chance of simplifying that logo, perhaps towards the more abstract “Clean” logo designs?

The Ruby Red title row, including the huge logo may take a bit too much real estate of the important upper part of the front page.

The “Clean” design looks nicely simple and non-disturbing, however, maybe a bit too dull and unispiring too (not so good advertisement design). The “clean” design could try to be a bit sexier and less boring (maybe including the über abstract logos, although they could work ok).

My suggestion: change either of the two designs a bit more towards the other. Designers: steal from each others :)

This is something I’ve made using the (IMHO) best features of the proposed designs:

http://vworkers.com/vruz/stuff/screenshots/ruby-home.png

Now THIS is a pretty web page. I love it, and love that pretty ruby pic too.

If this doesn’t grab potential ruby programmers by the wotsits and drag them in, then nothing will!!!

The logo is just great, at least as good as the nice gem on the Rails logo. The rest of the site is clean and organized. Excellent work!

Yeah, this is beauty. No reason to be abstract. Beauty is beauty.

vruz: Hey, thanks for the screenshots and various contributed graphics. This has become a part of our discussion amongst the core team. Totally helpful.

The ruby image is awesome. Great aesthetic sense. Good job..