Increase information density (esp. on small (laptop) screens)

[nicoburns]

Increase information density and add narative

Summary

I would like to modify the overall design philosophy to more information dense, and to make use of narrative text.

Motivation

I'm browsing the new Rust site on a 13 inch MacBook Pro (1400x900), and it's very difficult to actually glean any information from it, because there is so little information on each screen. For example compare the "Learn" pages from beta.rust-lang.org and python.org.

The rust design looks clean and modern, but there is much less actual content on screen. Additionally, the python page can be read beginning to end, with the text indicating guiding readers as to which resources might be most appropriate for them, whereas the rust page just says what the linked documentation is. I have more context, and know which of the links I want, but I think we could do more for users who are new to the Rust ecosystem.

https://beta.rust-lang.org/learn

https://www.python.org/about/gettingstarted

Drawbacks

It could make the design looked cluttered. It's my opinion that there is still plenty of room to increase density before this becomes a problem, but it should definitely be considered.

Rationale and alternatives

• This would make it easier for users to find what they are looking for on the website.

Maintenance

This shouldn't require any ongoing maintenance once the change is made, although there may be work for translators if more text is used.

If people agree with this proposal, then I might be able to find some time to work on a design that implements these suggestions...

[varkor]

I completely agree with this.

This is such a waste of space — if I want to learn about something, I don't want to have to scroll to see any meaningful information. This also conflicts directly with what was said in the recent blog post: we should be increasing meaningful content, not removing it.

(Not to derail this issue, but I also think it's relevant to including code samples. There's so much space available and to me at least some of the essence of a programming language is in its syntax.)

[nicoburns]

An example of how the current home page could look simply by removing whitespace:

And further compressed with a couple of content changes:

[ashleygwilliams]

this is a good related issue to bring up the white space but in the interest of small actionable issues, i would prefer if we could file issues per change. so i would welcome an issue to reduce the whitespace under the slogan atm. that way i (or someone else) can file a PR and close the issue.

this issue is good but much much larger and not likely to be something we can address this year.

[ashleygwilliams]

@chriskrycho as part of the tachyons migration, could u keep an eye on how we can improve the density in some places? seems like they could go together well as we work on the vertical rhythm of the pages. thanks!

[nicoburns]

It seems like it would probably be a good idea to establish standards for how much padding is left between elements. I find this is often one of the main things which makes things like "well designed".