Critique please .. my new blog design.

It doesn't matter if you do all the error checking in the world, or if you have the most beautiful graphics, if your site or application design isn't usable, it's not going to do well. Get input and advice on usability and user interface issues here.

Moderator: General Moderators

User avatar
onion2k
Jedi Mod
Posts: 5263
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:03 pm
Location: usrlab.com

Critique please .. my new blog design.

Post by onion2k »

http://www.ooer.com/govwatchuk/

The site is going to be a political blog with a few extra features based on generating a league table of ministers. Does the design scream "awesome Web 2.0 blog" to you? What do you think of the menu being in the middle of the page? Do you like the big text?

(There's a couple of layout issues like spacing in IE and chart position icons in Opera ... so look at it in Firefox for now :) )
User avatar
Oren
DevNet Resident
Posts: 1640
Joined: Fri Apr 07, 2006 5:13 am
Location: Israel

Post by Oren »

Is that kind of a joke or you just deleted the CSS file accidentally or something like that? All I see is text - plain text :?
User avatar
califdon
Jack of Zircons
Posts: 4484
Joined: Thu Nov 09, 2006 8:30 pm
Location: California, USA

Post by califdon »

Yeah, I think you need to do a little more work on that one ... :?
User avatar
Christopher
Site Administrator
Posts: 13596
Joined: Wed Aug 25, 2004 7:54 pm
Location: New York, NY, US

Post by Christopher »

The problem would be:

Code: Select all

<base href="http://localhost/govtrumps/version1/">
(#10850)
User avatar
onion2k
Jedi Mod
Posts: 5263
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:03 pm
Location: usrlab.com

Post by onion2k »

Doh! The perils of posting after going to the pub. Sorted that now. Mind you, it all works without the stylesheet so that's something.
User avatar
CoderGoblin
DevNet Resident
Posts: 1425
Joined: Tue Mar 16, 2004 10:03 am
Location: Aachen, Germany

Post by CoderGoblin »

1. Change the background outside the main frame (light grey ?). I have a 1680x1050 display and the white space on the outside draws the eye more than the actual information.
2. In the second column (links).. Cannot distinguish other than the text that they are links.

Obviously these are very personal observations, feel free to say "what a load of *******" and ignore me.... :lol:
User avatar
onion2k
Jedi Mod
Posts: 5263
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:03 pm
Location: usrlab.com

Post by onion2k »

CoderGoblin wrote:1. Change the background outside the main frame (light grey ?). I have a 1680x1050 display and the white space on the outside draws the eye more than the actual information.
This is presumably a problem you see on most fixed width sites, right?
CoderGoblin wrote:2. In the second column (links).. Cannot distinguish other than the text that they are links.
Links will be underlined and a different colour (blue probably). I'm a bit of an accessibility nut ... it's just the dummy content isn't linked yet.
User avatar
CoderGoblin
DevNet Resident
Posts: 1425
Joined: Tue Mar 16, 2004 10:03 am
Location: Aachen, Germany

Post by CoderGoblin »

onion2k wrote: This is presumably a problem you see on most fixed width sites, right?
Most sites which I have seen which are fixed width don't have a white background with a white background for the main body. Most of them use either a flat colour or a graphic of some description as the <body> background.
jason
Site Admin
Posts: 1767
Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2002 3:14 pm
Location: Montreal, CA
Contact:

Post by jason »

Code: Select all

.blogText {
	margin: 10px 0px 15px 0px;
	text-align: justify;
        line-height: 1.5em;
        font-size: 16px;
}
Between line-height and font-size, line-height is more important. Font size is merely a recommendation. A larger font-size would be nicer. Also, do you have any real text that you can use? I don't assume that every blog post will simply be a large block of text without paragraph breaks.
User avatar
onion2k
Jedi Mod
Posts: 5263
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:03 pm
Location: usrlab.com

Post by onion2k »

The blog needs to allow uses to override the font size with their browser settings (an accessibility issue) so I've intentionally left it as flexible as possible. Regarding the dummy content ... I'm not going to be the person writing it so as yet I don't have proper text.
jason
Site Admin
Posts: 1767
Joined: Thu Apr 18, 2002 3:14 pm
Location: Montreal, CA
Contact:

Post by jason »

onion2k wrote:The blog needs to allow uses to override the font size with their browser settings (an accessibility issue) so I've intentionally left it as flexible as possible. Regarding the dummy content ... I'm not going to be the person writing it so as yet I don't have proper text.
Allowing the user to change the font size is fine. What I'm suggesting is to make the default larger and to increase the line-height. People generally don't use text-size changing options, and line-height isn't easily changeable.

Basically, the text is difficult to read by default. This makes it inaccessible. Giving people the option of changing font size is all fine and good, but don't make you lazy.
User avatar
RobertGonzalez
Site Administrator
Posts: 14293
Joined: Tue Sep 09, 2003 6:04 pm
Location: Fremont, CA, USA

Post by RobertGonzalez »

Wow, that is purply.
User avatar
onion2k
Jedi Mod
Posts: 5263
Joined: Tue Dec 21, 2004 5:03 pm
Location: usrlab.com

Post by onion2k »

It's actually more purpley now than the version up at the moment. :)
User avatar
CoderGoblin
DevNet Resident
Posts: 1425
Joined: Tue Mar 16, 2004 10:03 am
Location: Aachen, Germany

Post by CoderGoblin »

CoderGoblin wrote:1. Change the background outside the main frame (light grey ?). I have a 1680x1050 display and the white space on the outside draws the eye more than the actual information.
Like it now... :wink:
User avatar
superdezign
DevNet Master
Posts: 4135
Joined: Sat Jan 20, 2007 11:06 pm

Post by superdezign »

At first glance, the navigation menu made it looked cluttered, Likely from the large font size. Though, I think it'd look better along the top bar.
Post Reply