We’ve recently redesigned the OCaml Industrial Users pages and would love to get your feedback to ensure it’s as helpful as possible. You can view both versions here:
As an expert or beginner developer using OCaml, we’d greatly appreciate your insights! You can also participate to the survey here: https://forms.gle/C7czFt36m7bx4fLt8 or we can discuss this topic below
Do you find the new page more useful and relevant for industrial needs compared to the old one? If so, why?
Is there any information missing or anything you’d suggest improving on the new page?
Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us as we work to improve the experience for the OCaml community.
I think the new design looks very nice. Even the old design could have been improved by making the spacing tighter overall and removing extra text.
I specifically like in the new design that the text has a purpose, rather than rephrasing what the headline of the section is.
What I think could be improved:
constrain the size of the logos. In mobile view header section expands and gets smaller, because not all logos are the same height.
I’m generally not a fan of carousels, especially those that do so automatically; logos on mobile, jobs view. For the later I think leaving only a single job displayed, since there’s a link to see all jobs should be enough. For the header logos, I think leaving the carousel navigable via swipe gestures should be fine.
text overlayed on case studies is not always accessible. The white on the light green overlay for Hyper has very low contrast. I think there’s a way to have it automatically done via CSS, but I am not 100% confident on that.
On mobile, the combination of logos/quotes that change size with the automated carousel, means that the text that follows shifts vertically while I’m trying to read it.
FWIW the linked-to OCaml Jobs has a few links to jobs that are 404. It seems the four latest are also on the industrial users page of which all four seem to work fine.
Not a fan of the title “What Industry leaders say about Ocaml” followed by anything other than testimonials.
I am a bit confused by the sequence:
“Case study” → “Why Ocaml” → a bunch of success story cards
Am I still in the same section? The why Ocaml seems to apply to Jane Street and not industry in general (“500 devs”…) which makes me wonder why Jane Street is presented in a different format than e.g. ahrefs below.
I found the two “company logos” carousel a bit much. I liked the second one as it is more informative with the text describing the company activity. I’d add to this text what they use Ocaml for, e.g.
"Simcorp
Simcorp has built a multi asset platform to
Support decision making and innovation. It’s backend is written entirely in Ocaml."
You can also drop the company name in the “title” and make it strong/bold in the description to be more compact.
[aside: as I am typing this on mobile, and try to refer to the Simcorp description, the automatic slides and unability to select text really is painful]
Maybe put a link only on the logo and not the full card.
I think this improved carousel can move up and replace the first one altogether.
To summarize I’d do the following:
move the “Who uses Ocaml” section (with improved carousel) first, replace the first one altogether, change title if needed, keep the button to list all businesses.
Follow with “Why Ocaml” (Rich Type System, Performance and Efficiency,
Powerful Static Analysis), remove the 500 devs bit.
Jane Street case study becomes the first card of the success stories, with consistent design. The 500 devs bit moves to Jane Street’s success story page.
Do remove the animations haha
The rest is pretty much unchanged: Jobs, testimonials, research.
I my humble opinion, this would make the page more streamlined and the presented info more accessible.
A last nit, a parenthesis does a weird line break:
