A website is like the façade of a building, either it’s inviting and attractive looking or it’s not. Don’t judge a book by its cover… Sure, but we live in a physical world, not in an abstract world. And in the physical world : appearances are how one tries to assess the ideas that are inside a book, a building, a person, it is just the way it is. That’s why logos exist, that’s why the art of typography exists and why we don’t just use the same font for everything, that’s why architecture is not always just random holes in a block of concrete.
As of today the cardano.org website does not convey a feeling of efficiency and simplicity, but rather conveys a feeling of complex clutter, with its many unaligned text divs and clunky corporate look and language.
I believe this deters many potential developers and users whose first moments searching about cardano are heavily impacted by the design of the cardano . org website. While many people claim to not be impacted by the design of a website, it is well known that the human subconscious is in charge of a big part of a human’s behavior and I certainly doubt that people who claim this are as unaffected as they say they are. Even if the only thing that matters is the underlying technology, the first moments matter. You could have the most amazingly well thought out technology, if it is not presented in a neat, balanced, simple and attractive way, then it’s not going to feel good.
I am not saying the focus should be on attractive shallow shiny glitter. But rather on good efficient design, where things and information are so well tidied and organized that a certain beauty starts to emerge. Think Apple, or Dieter Rams. And then once everything is well organized, and squared, then you can even add art here and there. The cardano website should be a work of art, perhaps a minimalistic one to convey efficiency and openness to all kinds of projects.
On the other hand the cardano foundation’s website cardanofoundation.org is a good example of a simple effective website that feels aesthetically pleasing due to its design, and easy to read.
The lace.io website for input output’s new wallet is also very effective at conveying the ideas of efficiency while keeping a warm, relaxed appearance. It’s easy to read and navigate.
So this shows that there are people working for cardano projects who are good at webdesign. But someone needs to redesign the mess that cardano.org is. Where even finding a wallet to use for cardano is not a simple task. Having to dig into very large menus instead of finding that information on the first page, where there is lots of small sized corporate sounding text that doesn’t go directly to the point.
I know the website was designed by a company that makes websites for microsoft and other large companies. Well I think their design is very bland and ineffective, lacking simplicity and elegance. And I am certainly not the first person to bring this issue up.
What can be done ? Who needs to be contacted for this to change ? Because it needs to change. cardano.org is Cardano’s book cover, it’s the album’s art, it’s the virtual building’s façade.