The process of downloading distribution bundles from GitHub presumes too much semi-specialist knowledge.
Starting from the stixfonts.org front page, the 'How to Install' button takes you to a helpful list, ... (step 1 is great!)
...step 1 of which takes you to https://github.com/stipub/stixfonts. What we see there is pretty clearly a working directory (of course -- it's just a standard GitHub project repo).
If you scroll down, the (comprehensive and clear) README says ‘Download zip files with some or all of the fonts.’ What we see there is another big list of files, but without an instruction to click on static_otf.zip.
If you do click on static_otf.zip, then you see what looks like an error message ‘(Sorry about that, but we can’t show files that are this big right now.)’, and you have to know to download the raw version, either with ‘view raw’ (but I don't want to 'view' it, I want to download it!), or click on the downward-pointing-arrow-with-bucket-below icon.
All of that is fairly obvious if you know what you're doing – you're familiar with GitHub and know that the ‘..._otf.zip’ file is likely to be the one with the .otf files you know you want.
But it's really not obvious otherwise. I recently helped a colleague who'd got as far as step 2 before concluding that they'd followed a mistaken link. They were a techie user but not, as it happened, familiar with GitHub or with the choices of font technologies.
If the GitHub project page is indeed the best place to direct people looking for a download, then it might be that the README is a little too comprehensive. People wanting to download the fonts are probably on a mission (getting and installing STIX2 is probably an intermediate step in a longer list which is part of a non-font project), and probably (unfortunately?) would find the detail distracting/irritating rather than helpful.
Suggestion:
I can perhaps suggest specific changes if that would be of interest/use, but I think at a minimum, step 3 would be a link to a very basic listing with big obvious text saying 'you probably want to download this one --->’. It might be that step 1 could direct downloading people here, and miss out GitHub altogether.
The process of downloading distribution bundles from GitHub presumes too much semi-specialist knowledge.
Starting from the stixfonts.org front page, the 'How to Install' button takes you to a helpful list, ... (step 1 is great!)
...step 1 of which takes you to https://github.com/stipub/stixfonts. What we see there is pretty clearly a working directory (of course -- it's just a standard GitHub project repo).
If you scroll down, the (comprehensive and clear) README says ‘Download zip files with some or all of the fonts.’ What we see there is another big list of files, but without an instruction to click on static_otf.zip.
If you do click on static_otf.zip, then you see what looks like an error message ‘(Sorry about that, but we can’t show files that are this big right now.)’, and you have to know to download the raw version, either with ‘view raw’ (but I don't want to 'view' it, I want to download it!), or click on the downward-pointing-arrow-with-bucket-below icon.
All of that is fairly obvious if you know what you're doing – you're familiar with GitHub and know that the ‘..._otf.zip’ file is likely to be the one with the
.otffiles you know you want.But it's really not obvious otherwise. I recently helped a colleague who'd got as far as step 2 before concluding that they'd followed a mistaken link. They were a techie user but not, as it happened, familiar with GitHub or with the choices of font technologies.
If the GitHub project page is indeed the best place to direct people looking for a download, then it might be that the README is a little too comprehensive. People wanting to download the fonts are probably on a mission (getting and installing STIX2 is probably an intermediate step in a longer list which is part of a non-font project), and probably (unfortunately?) would find the detail distracting/irritating rather than helpful.
Suggestion: I can perhaps suggest specific changes if that would be of interest/use, but I think at a minimum, step 3 would be a link to a very basic listing with big obvious text saying 'you probably want to download this one --->’. It might be that step 1 could direct downloading people here, and miss out GitHub altogether.