Myriad Ubuntu Web sites with contradictory navigation

[Matthew Paul Thomas]

Ubuntu has dozens of official Web sites, and most of these have navigation that looks the same but behaves differently. This is confusing, and it is getting worse over time.

Example A:

    1. Go to any page on www.ubuntu.com, e.g.
       <http://www.ubuntu.com/download>.
    2. Scroll down and click the logo in the bottom right corner.
    3. Choose "Shop".
    4. Scroll down and click the logo in the bottom right corner.

    What happens:
    2. You end up at <http://www.ubuntu.com/>.
    3. The navigation and color scheme changes from Ubuntu to Canonical.
    4. Nothing. Unlike the Ubuntu logo, the Canonical logo is not a link.

    What should happen:
    3. "Shop" is not styled as if it is part of the ubuntu.com navigation,
       and either
    2. links to <http://www.ubuntu.com/> are not repeated in three corners
       of the page, or
    4. the Canonical logo is a link the same way the Ubuntu logo is.

Example B:

    1. At <http://www.ubuntu.com/>, search for "ubuntu developer summit".
    2. Follow the first result.
    3. Follow the "For more information, visit" link.
    4. Follow the "find out more" link.
    5. Follow the "UDS schedule" link.

    What happens:
    2. The navigation and color scheme changes from Ubuntu to Canonical.
    3. The navigation and color scheme changes from Canonical back to
       Ubuntu.
    4. The top-level navigation is
       "Home | Event | Community | Register | Sponsors | Enterprise
       Summit".
    5. The top-level navigation is
       "Event | Schedule | Community | Register | Sponsors | Using Summit |
       Today".

    What should happen:
    2. The #1 search result for "ubuntu developer summit" is the UDS site.
    5. The top-level navigation stays exactly the same.

Example C:

    1. Go to <http://www.ubuntu.com/>.
    2. In the navigation bar, click "Cloud".
    3. Scroll down to the footer and choose "Insights blog".
    4. In the navigation bar, click "Cloud".

    What happens:
    2. You end up at <http://www.ubuntu.com/cloud>.
    4. You end up at <http://insights.ubuntu.com/topics/cloud/>.

    What should happen: either
    3. "Cloud" is no longer in the navigation bar, or
    4. "Cloud" in the navigation bar goes to the same place no matter where
       you start from.

These are just three examples of a general problem, which is that Ubuntu's Web design and development processes are resulting in the ubuntu.com navigation making less and less sense over time. Yesterday I discovered <http://video.ubuntu.com/live/>, another example of the problem. And example C is a site that was proudly announced today.

Therefore, it is not sufficient to fix those four examples to fix this bug. This bug will be fixed only when there is a plan to stop the problem from getting worse, and then to fix the existing problem. This plan might include:

1. A single IA navigation map for ubuntu.com, or one for Ubuntu-the-product and one for Ubuntu-the-project.

2. A place, in that map, for -all- existing *.ubuntu.com sites -- right down to releases.ubuntu.com and icecast.ubuntu.com.

3. A requirement, in the checklist for the IS team when setting up any new *.ubuntu.com subdomain with a Web presence, that it must not be set up without signoff from the Web team.

4. A requirement, in the checklist for the Web team when giving signoff, that they (a) specify the site's place in the overall IA and (b) include the global navigation dynamically on all pages on that site.

5. A timetable for fixing existing sites to include the correct navigation.

[Peter Mahnke (peterm-ubuntu)]

Fixing this bug is part of the Global navigation project that started in April 2013 and is both important and ongoing. We are working with many site owners across Ubuntu to move to a more common set of navigation and look and feel.

[Anthony Dillon (ya-bo-ng)]

This is an on going project, worked on by the entire team. Therefore assigning the team.

[Anthony Dillon (ya-bo-ng)]

This is resolved with the new CSS framework Vanilla. Which was released a few weeks ago. There are on going projects to roll it out to all sites but this will align all our design patterns.