1. The Wired.com headline on the homepage is terrific, but it's buried in a paragraph of other text. Set it apart. Let the world know!

2. There are nice, subtly rounded corners on just about everything but the very square Go button that enables the search.

3. If you're going to make the Mozilla Store a separate website, that's fine, but consider putting that last in the nav bar.

4. Finally, the Mozilla Store doesn't provide sufficient linking back to Mozilla.org. That's just my opinion.

I think you've done a good looking job here and I'm looking forward to seeing it launch.

Good luck!

I haven't read through the forums, so maybe these have already been discussed. A couple navigation nits:

1) It seems like there should be a tab for the main page. Once I click on one of the tabs, it is not obvious how to get back to the main page. Clicking on the Mozilla logo in the banner works, but that isn't intuitive. I think there should be a tab for the homepage.

2) Also, it seems like it might be nice if the banner remained consistent for all of the tabs. Right now, the store is the only one that doesn't preserve the banner. As a user, I like to click through the tabs on a site to see what's what. But, the change in navigation throws me off.

-Darin

It does not work right in IE 5.0. The headings for "Get Thunderbird," "Mozilla Suite," and "In the Store" are halfway underneath the Firefox information box. I know IE 5.0 isn't too common anymore but you don't want the page to look bad if your convincing those remaining 5.0 users to switch.

I would not have noticed the square corners on the Go button by myself, but now that it's been pointed out by Dale Cruse above, I can't not see it :(

In terms of content, I'd agree with Darin Fisher's comment above about possible moderation of the Planet Mozilla content. I love planet because it's not always strictly mozilla-related (some of it's personal), but I'm not sure that it's a great idea for personal posts to make it to the front page of mozilla.org.

It does tend to give the impression that firefox is almost the only thing mozilla does; personally, I would love to see thunderbird get similar billing to firefox. Possibly half-width boxes, firefox on the left and thunderbird on the right? then you could put Bugzilla or Camino in the spot where thunderbird currently is. (I'm not a designer, but I'm trying to make constructive suggestions rather than just say "it sucks" :) )

Nice work on the random images; Sorry Ben, as cool as your car images were, websites that people visit daily is a nicer promotional image ;)

Overall impression: I like it a lot.

2) "The future of the browser" hyperlink on http://website-beta.mozilla.org/about/ is leading to a password-protected webpage (http://www.infoworld.com/article/03/10/10/40OPstrategic_1.html), and I don't know the password. Probably the page is not available for other visitors, not for me only.

To satisfy the non-English speakers, it would be great if the home page (and much of the rest of the mozilla site) could be translated and served up with index.html.en, index.html.de, etc. with links to the appropriate localized builds.

Also, the link on the main page to get Firefox on CD (below the Free Download link) is clickable all the way out to the screenshot on the right.

The shop shouldn't necessarily have the same design as the rest of mozilla.org, but it should at least have the same menubar.

1) Yes, there is a download link on the first page, but only for Linux version of Firefox which actually implies that Firefox is only available for Linux.
2) Yes, it would look crowded if all the different platform and language versions had their own download links on the first page.

These problems can be solved with a simple download page that has own row for each product with following info/links: 1) product name (with logo) and short description (e.g. Thunderbid e-mail application) 2) links to download the latest release of the product for Mac, Linux and Windows, file sizes next to link would be nice 3) two links: download product in different language and download product for another platform. Nice and easy. Of course the "Download now" links on each product's page should stay.
Update: oh, sorry, it took a while to find but you do have a download page. Although I would change the word More in the link pointing to other versions to something more descriptive. But but... Where are the links to this download page??

Screenshots about the products are another thing that are missing. Well there is one shot on each the page of each product, but those images are so small that it is impossible to say what the product will look like. It would be nice to have a link to screenshots on each product's page. It is also so much easier to demonstrate tabbed browsing and (surprise) themes by using screenshots.

The "active" tab should look different. For example if I am on the support page the support tab of the navigation bar should "stand out from the crowd". Maybe a different background color would do. I also agree with Darin that the inconsistency caused by the store tab is confusing. And that is not the only place where it is easy to spot inconsistecy: Firefox is the only product without a logo, Thunderbird is only one having an excess "Get" word in section header, Firefox is also the only one with version number visible on the first page. These kinds of "errors" are quite small things and don't make the site look bad, but they are also easy things to fix. As I said in the beginning: the pages look nice. Even though nothing can ever be perfect it doesn't mean one should nerver try to make things perfect.
And sometimes the only thing you can do is to compromise. For example the image on the right side of the first page looks rugged because it is rotated. But when comparing to ordinary images the slanted image makes the page look so fresh!

but...
1/ everything is rounded, except the search bar in the top right.& it's go button.
2/ I would change "mozilla dot org" to "mozilla.org"
3/ Put the link to "in the store" where "planet Mozilla" is now.
4/ put a link to sunbird where "in the store" is now.

Other than that, good job with the site! It looks really great!

1/ The hit area for the '...get Firefox on CD' link on the home page extends horizontally all the way to the browser screenshot. The hit area should be limited encompass the CD icon and text only.

2/ No hover state for the 'Forefox 0.9.3' download link, which is different to every other link. This shouldn't be an image (especially not one wrapped in h2 tags) but instead should be CSS styled text like all the other titles (which are also links) on the page?

3/ There is inconsistency in spacing between the navigation (both main nav bar and the local nav) and the content on the support page (http://website-beta.mozilla.org/support/) and the Developer page (http://website-beta.mozilla.org/developer/). This probably happens with other pages too, and may be due to the difference between body classes (though I haven't the time to check thoroughly).

4/ The hit area for the 'Learn more about Firefox' link (browser screenshot) on the homepage does not always appear directly over the image. Sometimes it is vertically aligned to the top of the page, meaning that the hit area only covers about half the image. Actually, a cursory glance at the source code tells me that this is probably a Safari bug, but I thought it worth mentioning just in case you've got some fancy DHTML going on. Note though that this doesn't happen in Firefox 0.9.3.

Running Mac OS X 10.3.4 - Safari 1.2.3 - Firefox 0.9.3

(link)Free Download(/link)
in your language (4.7MB)]
and maybe also add:
[(link)Free Download(link)
for Mac, Linux, Solaris...]

Maybe I wasn't looking in the right place? But if I wasn't, this is definatly information you need listed someplace. (I was really looking to see if Thunderbird supported MS Exchange with domain login)

The "And" schoud be the same.

1) The global navigation needs to be consistent across all pages it accesses, including the store.

2) The wayfinding needs to be improved on the global navigation. When a user clicks on a tab, it should be marked as "this is where you are" by color or something similar.

3) There is no logo for Firefox on the home page yet all the other products have logos.

4) The logos on the three sections below are on the right; they should be moved to the left with the exception of the Arabic localized version of the site.

5) The text link for the wired article at the top needs to be separated from the block of text it is in.. it comes across too much like a call to action instead of a link to an article on a 3rd party site. Make a separate news headline section or just have it in the announcements section.

6) The labels for various text links found under the announcements section are poorly authored. Instead of "Firefox: wired." Perhaps it would be better to word it "Wired Magazine names Firefox as the latest hot product" or something along those lines.

7) The RSS buttons drift too far away from the section title they are associated to in higher desktop/browser sizes (resolution).

8) The marketing copy for Mozilla is not immediately clear as to what Mozilla is. Call it what it is, a software bundle... use bullet points to list the components.

9) The get a CD of Firefox call to action is pretty removed from the download for free call to action above it. If the intent is to make it less prominent, perhaps using a lighter colored box but keeping the overall design consistent in both calls to action.

10) Additional calls to action are needed in all of the sections on the home page, "read more", "learn more", "see more announcements" etc... with links to the articles, archives and so forth.

11) The CD icon image... this needs to be improved design wise, looks like crap.

12) There is no text based link for the Mozilla product section. All the other sections have them, its a good idea to include one here.

13) Too many text links for the Store section. I'd just use one primary text link for the store and remove the other two.

14) Missing mission or "what is this site about" content on the home page. I see the title content could be used perfectly for this issue. Maybe move it to just under the logo in a much smaller font (it's quite lengthy). This helps the user answer "what the heck is a Mozilla?" ?and instead of just using the product names maybe something more like "Firefox browser, Thunderbird email client, Mozilla internet software bundle" or something.

That's all for now, feel free to email me for further elaboration.

1. A other languages download link on the main page, Firefox will be comming in official versions in other languages. They need to be easy to find.

2. The firefox product page need s a little tweaking with regards to links.
"Product information" leeds to a page with mostly developer related information
"Get Thunderbird" should be replaced with a link like "Other Mozilla Products"
3. It us very hard to find a link to the newly created security center

4. The pages jumps from a bit in the left/right direction, because only half of them needs a vertical scrollbar. Slightly annoying.

5. Take a tour of the site in IE and fix the minor errors. As said by someone else the main populus of people to download Firefox will (hopefully) not allready have firefox.
- The main logo disappears/blinks on mouse over
- The menu tabs disappears/blinks on mouse over
- Some pages as huge fonts e.g. firefox/releases

6.

I would de-emphasize the version numbers of the various products. Your average web surfer isn't going to care all that much. This information could become something of a footnote ("Current version: 0.9.3, last updated xx/xx/2004")

The Firefox logo is missing.

There's no tagline for the Mozilla logo. The TITLE tag is very good, but should be supplemented with a tagline.

There should be a question mark or other such item next to the RSS button linking to a explanatory page.

The Mozilla 1.7.2 copy is awkward. Shouldn't it begin with "Mozilla is a..."?

On the Thunderbird page on Windows XP IE 6, the top of the green arrow image in the "Download Now!" are is cut off. Also, there's extra space between the header area and the beginning of the copy.

Again, on Windows XP IE 6, on the About page, the left nav is screwed up.

The main Mozilla product page has links too all systems in the "Download Now" area, but not the other products.

Overall, a great improvement over the current site. I have every confidence that this site will be just about perfect by the time you're done.

1) Whats the real priority...Wired? NASA? or Firefox? Get the logo up there.

2) The support page just gives a bewildering list of links for all Moz products.

3) The site is guilty of doing a Microsoft. Best viewed in Firefox!
Its IE and Opera users that will be visiting, hopefully.

I think the main page should direct clients to dedicated product sites and hopefully reduce the decision making once past the main page.

All the best with the ongoing development.

2) please put screenshots on the product pages. Screenshots are the first thing I usually want to see for any app with GUI.

Well, the OS depends on the visitors OS, so the linuxoids gets Linux downloads. But there should indeed be an "other versions" link quite visable nearby that will bring you to a manual "choose language & OS" Download-page.

> The shop shouldn't necessarily have the same design as the rest of mozilla.org, but it should at least have the same menubar.

Right on the money! Suddenly warping into an seemingly compleatly different site is very disorienting for a visitor.

> 3) The site is guilty of doing a Microsoft. Best viewed in Firefox!

Well actually the site is using proper standards code that SHOULD work in all nonbuggy browsers which it's actually compleqatly opposite to what
MS is usually doing. Fixing up the largest bugs in specific (especially IE) browsers should only be done in a way that doesn't break the page in a
properly working browser.

Well actually the site is using proper standards code that SHOULD work in all nonbuggy browsers which it's actually compleqatly opposite to what
MS is usually doing. Fixing up the largest bugs in specific (especially IE) browsers should only be done in a way that doesn't break the page in a
properly working browser.

----

STOP THE NERD COMMENTS!!!

The site has to attract IE people to switch to firefox!!

They did... well just add them to the statistics. :-)