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index page refresh/redesign
Ramius
Joined: July 19, 2000Administrator, ClubPA admin
Joined: July 19, 2000Administrator, ClubPA admin
I would like to freshen up the main index page a bit.
I am not interested in revamping the entire forums or their color scheme.
I've run through several different ideas and come up with what design elements I want to include include in the new index design. The actual composition and colors of those elements is somewhat flexible and open to interpretation, however.
I know how impossible it is to design by committee, but I've felt pretty happy in the past with the process of gathering design ideas from forumers and then picking the parts I like.
So if you feel you have an eye for design / color, please feel free to chime in.
The screenshot below is a pretty rough cut. It shows the general elements I want to include:
+ a 2-column forum listing
+ a "latest threads" sidebar
+ penny-arcade artwork flanking the forum titles/descriptions.
+ A graphical indicator of how active the forum is
It also shows off a lot of my indecision in areas such as:
+ What colors should the "activity bar" be, and how should that info be made clear to new visitors?
+ How should the "latest threads" sidebar look?
+ use square images or round? drop shadow or not?
+ should some sort of box or background surround each forum title/description?
+ what page and text colors can I use and still be within the general PA pallet?
Feedback welcome, but understand that I get final decision-making power on everything and will not be swayed by efforts to convince me that "popular opinion" says I should do it "like so".
(spoilered for big)
I am not interested in revamping the entire forums or their color scheme.
I've run through several different ideas and come up with what design elements I want to include include in the new index design. The actual composition and colors of those elements is somewhat flexible and open to interpretation, however.
I know how impossible it is to design by committee, but I've felt pretty happy in the past with the process of gathering design ideas from forumers and then picking the parts I like.
So if you feel you have an eye for design / color, please feel free to chime in.
The screenshot below is a pretty rough cut. It shows the general elements I want to include:
+ a 2-column forum listing
+ a "latest threads" sidebar
+ penny-arcade artwork flanking the forum titles/descriptions.
+ A graphical indicator of how active the forum is
It also shows off a lot of my indecision in areas such as:
+ What colors should the "activity bar" be, and how should that info be made clear to new visitors?
+ How should the "latest threads" sidebar look?
+ use square images or round? drop shadow or not?
+ should some sort of box or background surround each forum title/description?
+ what page and text colors can I use and still be within the general PA pallet?
Feedback welcome, but understand that I get final decision-making power on everything and will not be swayed by efforts to convince me that "popular opinion" says I should do it "like so".
(spoilered for big)
Ramius on
0
Posts
I'd also say maybe make people use checkboxes for which subforums they should draw from for the "What's New" threads. Not knocking on SE++ or anything, but I think stuff like "Some Stupid Fucking Shit" or "you sonofabitch, i'm calling you out" would give the wrong idea about appropriate behavior in the on-topic areas... and while integrating and intermixing the subforums is good, I'd be leery about providing direct links to threads for newbies that completely bypass even seeing rules threads.
What's with G&T and D&D being highlighted? I'd also move all the game and game related subforum stuff together instead of having them at the top and bottom. Like things should be grouped, ne?
The activity bar would show up next to every forum, not just G&T, and might be more obvious then because it would be longest for G&T, then SE++, then D&D, etc...
What does it mean? What does "lurk" measure? The average time spent browsing versus the average time spent posting? The number of users who visit and don't post per time period vs the number who do? Some formula relating hits to posts?
And how do you expect people to use it?
but if you're going through with it, those images are way too big.
Temp forums would go in Misc. or under the heading of an existing forum I think (a la MMO/E3 forums).
Perhaps make a permanent pretty picture button that says hot topics, and make the link point to whatever temporary subforum is the flavor of the week?
Edit: I mean, you have room there for one more anyway.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
I would prefer it if a last post subject and time was under the pretties. No need to go hunting through forums that haven't had a post since I went.
I will probably do a black-and-white or desaturated version of the picture to indicate "no unread posts". Not sure how that will work out for the WB.
why i myself witnessed a post earlier today
What I want is to give some sort of statistic which indicates how busy a particular forum is. What we have right now is the "[232 viewing]" tag. I'd like to convey that information graphically.
Originally I had tried using sparklines, but that didn't work out.
So my next option was a simple bar which would be, e.g. 244 pixels wide for 244 active users, 85 pixels wide for 85 active users. Then I decided I could probably calculate amongst those 244 active users, how many had posted in the last 15 minutes. If they haven't posted, they would be lurkers. This is meaningful info about a forum's "activity", I think. So I wanted to include it.
Haha he meant because the picture of Mr. Period is already in black and white you fruit loop =P
I can certainly make a pretty-picture option for you in the admin panel.
EDIT: Wait, the regular index is gone in that mock up. A text only alternative is my suggestion then.
Nice choice of pictures for the forums. Sword in eye socket and money in tophat are very appropriate for H/A and D&D. I do not dig the beveled grey box around the two forums at the top though.
I presume the mod forum isn't going to be visible on the index to us plebians. Oh, and is there any reason why we need Chatlog and Archives as two separate forums? Just curious, I never visit either.
You can use your hedgehog avatar as a forum picture if you'd like.
Maybe I'm missing something, but how is it particularly meaningful data to a normal user? I mean, it's kind of neat to poke at, but what would you see is the difference between the behavior of someone seeing something with a high lurk to post ratio versus a low?
Double negative?
Double negative.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
I feel the current number is misleading, saying "244 active", when there might actually be only 100-130 active and 100-110 lurkers.
You could just say nothing. :P
also, a little aside: did you read the suggestion I made in the subforum thread about making text links akin to SA? small, inobtrusive, and useful.
Rami, ask yourself why you're redesigning the front page. Is it in someway dysfunctional in it's current form? If so, what specifically doesn't work as well as you'd like? Does cluttering up the User Interface with big, only vaguely relevant pictures that serve no real function fix these problems?
What I'm saying here is this isn't the 1700s anymore. Places do not need pictures for people to know what the place is, the plebs can read words just fine.
Why do these little tiny things bother you so much?
- The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (2017, colorized)
I think the important message here is that things shouldn't be changed, just because. If there is a design flaw, one that perhaps even requires a vast overhaul, it should be addressed. I don't think there's much point in changing it for the sake of changing it.
I swear, you people are so fucking change-averse. You do realize that change is frequently a good thing, right? It's the reason presidents have term limits.
Also Ramius, don't be discouraged about asking for feedback by a few people who are resistant to change. After all, people complained about changing things when it came to the MMO forum, too. Whenever you make changes, some people will complain, and if you don't ask for feedback beforehand, they'll just complain after the changes have been made.
Fine, Than. Have some concrete reasons why I prefer the way things are over the presented change.
A 2 column scheme is a poor organizational choice because there's no difference between the two columns and furthermore, there's absolutely no rhyme or reason to how things are listed anyway.
It's also less readable than an indented list since you're forced to look across images.
You used to have (arguably) useful information next to the subforum listing the most recent post... now gone and replaced with the sidebar full of often misleading titles to god only knows which subforum... especially if/when multiple subforums have threads for the same thing (tech news in both G&T and D&D, game threads in SE++ and G&T, etc)
Also gone, as near as I can tell, is the useful "mark this forum read" tool from the main index.
There's too much white space. The icons feel grouped vertically because there's no space between them, but the associated text is totally dissociated.
Does this mean suprise feature fridays? A new feature, every week.
please don't just spring changes on us instead of asking for our input instead. that's not cool
The question was not "Do I change or not change?". Change has already been decided.
The questions was "How can I tweak this mock-up to look better?"
Constructive feedback on that topic please?
I think it looks kinda cool myself, but I am also in favor of accessibility. By accessibility, I don't mean those who are change adverse; but rather those with actual accessibility issues, like vision impairments and such. I don't see a reason why this new site style would cause any problems for the vision impaired, but I am not an expert on the topic.
For those who just don't like the proposed changes, might I recomend some effort into making your own style sheets locally.
chair to Creation and then suplex the Void.
Really though, what's up with the activity indicator? Sure, it's showing the ratio of posters/lurkers, but when? Looking at it on the mockup I don't feel like I'm getting any meaningful or useful information from it being there. Perhaps it's a thing that makes more sense in use, but currently I just don't get it. If you do keep it, you should really change the colors, it looks really gharish and awful.
Anyway getting a little sidetracked, design elements. There seems to be a lack of the orange that would help tie it in with the PA scheme. I'm guessing the forum titles will be orange when you hover the mouse over them like the current setup.
Currently the what's new section almost looks like it's a poll of some description. I'd suggest loosing the bullet points for a start, replace them with the little page icon presently on threads that takes you to the first new thread. Something like that to make it obvious that these are forum topics. They also look a little odd with the wrapping of the text, I think it would look much better if they either had enough room to show the full title on one line (unlikely unless the font was shrunk, which wouldn't really work very well) or if they simply cut off and had ellipses or something.
I'd lean towards not having bevelled button backgrounds for the forum title/description. And just using square non dropshadowed icons, perhaps they could have a really thin border (which could also change from orange to grey or something to indicate new posts if the greying out doesn't work, although I like the idea of the artwork going greyscale to indicate that).
Uh... I think that's all.
For me (as I can't attest for others), this isn't an issue of being change-averse. It's a matter of functionality. If changes are implemented that enhance my ability to use the forum, I'm all about it. If changes are made because it's been a while since changes have been made, that's not constructive.
New features include:
1) Pictures - OK, these are neat. The fact that random pictures from PA strips coincide with forum names is amusing. Does it make me want to click and read any of that additional content? Not for me, but maybe for some.
2) Lurker/Active indicator - Whether or not other people will immediately view and/or reply to my post doesn't really affect what I say. Maybe for some people, but not for me personally.
3) What's New - This could be interesting. Perhaps a thread title on a forum that I normally don't view will catch my attention. Maybe a "Hot Thread" column as well that highlights some of the more active threads.
I tried out a couple of borders for the images to indicate activity, and they look better than I expected. Top 2 are 2 pixel borders, bottom 2 are 3 pixel borders.
Tried out the current number of people viewing indicator, both next to the forum title and in the imaginary corner of the forums area on the page.