Usable open source project pages

Or: "Don't make me think"-style open source project pages.

  1. Have a short, unequivocal and to the point description of what your project does.
  2. Have an screenshot that convinces me that this thing works and it's not just a hopeful declaration of principles. Have a video too if you want to demonstrate how it works, but always have a screenshot first. We are impatient.
  3. Have a short "How to install" page (in the case of complete applications) or a short, "Hello world"-style example that demonstrates how to use/integrate it (in the case of a library). Have a prominent link to this in all site pages, or maybe even include it as part of the home page, right after the screenshot. Link to further, more complicated examples after the first one.
  4. Link to the source code from a prominent place in the website. Don't hide it under a "Code" header in a section named such as "developers" or "contributing", etc, etc. If in doubt, those Fork me in Github ribbons are quite unequivocal, even though they sound slightly bad to double-entendre inclined readers.
  5. Put a link to the list of known issues / bug tracker in a prominent place too.

Any other ideas? :-)