First a site I like:http://www.debianplanet.org/
It is very clear what is what and easy on the eye.

For some reason I am always confused when I use the drupal.org site.
Some points:

- Font color of links is hard to read, light blue on white or sometimes lightblue on blue.
Not everyone has eagle eyesight. At age 65 you get only 1/3 of the light you see on the age of 20. That is why pilots are not allowed to fly anymore after age 65.

- The sections are not clearly distinct.I know screenspace is valuable, but use a few pixels to make clear distinctions.

- Darker gray on gray is just to hard to read.

- when a link is visited it turns to dark blue, alsmost indistinctable from black text.

- consistent naming.We have "about" and "About Drupal" which point to the same.

- I count three menu bars. That is confusing.
First one is "search | archives | about | user account"
search is already on the front page. So is "about" and so is "user account" Why not drop this whole bar?

The second menu is: "Documentation | Forums | Mailing lists | Bug tracker | Development | Services | Contact"
It is the most prominent, but it also has features which are advanced and not for newbies.This bar is always visable but has no "home" item. A safe place to return to when people who visit drupal are lost. You have to figure out to click on the logo.Suggestion, put the word "home" below the logo.

Third menu: " About Drupal ? Features ? Drupal sites ? Screenshots ? Download"

This menu bar is intended for people who first visit the site. But it is less visable than the second bar and disapears when you visit one item, leaving only the second menu bar with obscure options for a newbie.

I have seen other drupal sites which really useable, so why can drupal.org itself be very useable?

Taxonomy upgrade extras: Deprecated - Drupal.org infrastructure