I really don’t want to be a killjoy, but the current state of spreadopenid.org is not appealing at all. I appreciate its effort and I know this is work in progress. So I won’t complain about the difficult stuff like making the provider matrix more usable. I’m sure you guys are working hard on this.
Instead I chose some points that may not be too obvious to you developers ;) Here are my suggestions:
1. Make it Readable!
Shortly after launch I sent a message to the authors via Twitter, so maybe it’s gone lost. For the record, here is it again:
The font-size in the main column is much to small for the column’s width. Enlarge it and/or make the column narrower!
Additionally adjust paragraph indents, margins, paddings, image alignments, link colors etc.
2. Get a Design and Do Graphics!
I’ll be so blunt and allege that for most people an “appealing website” means graphics. So, please, do graphics! Use images, charts and other visualizations wherever it supports you to make your point clear.
Good recent examples from “our” area of interest:
[Update: Added the first two to the list. Thanks to RWW.]
- openid.net — even they get it right. If the license allows it, steal it from there!
- id7.com — a provider that makes its use case clear in one sentence
- apml.org
- dataportability.org
- microformats.org
Note that most of these sites are developer targeted, i.e. for an audience that’s usually fine with long text-only specs. Yet, they offer me a quick overview what their respective objective is. Normal, non-techy users, will request that even more.
3. Drop the Planet OpenID sidebar!
Most non-geeks aren’t familiar with the Planet aggregator and will assume that this is editorial content. But it’s not and most articles appearing there will not be useful for them.
Hope this helps someone.
Fabian Neumann