What do you think?

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.

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lafever
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What do you think?

Post by lafever »

Let me know what you guys think! I'm still tweaking a couple of CSS issues though (I know about the horizontal resize of the window smashing the background of the content, textarea being too wide and the tab being a pixel too high in IE) but I am not the best in CSS either. Still far from completion but just wanted some input so far.

[site down temporarily]

One thing I do plan to fix already is the dashed lines in between the most recent info (twitter, comments, and posts). I think it looks like crap.

I'll be linking to the forums on it also once I get more done.
Last edited by lafever on Sun Nov 15, 2009 7:34 pm, edited 2 times in total.
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califdon
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Re: What do you think?

Post by califdon »

My personal reaction is that a total b/w design is depressing, but overall your design looks good. I like the graphics at the top. I think my reaction would be more favorable if you added a bright colored line somewhere, or maybe some other point of contrast. Purely personal reaction.
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Zoxive
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Re: What do you think?

Post by Zoxive »

I like most of it, and think it could become very nice looking with some changes.
  • The picture looks distorted to me, and with that it throws off the rest of the design.
  • Also the content with round corners doesn't match everything else. (Nothing else is round, and To me round is more childish and currently out of style : p)
matthijs
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Re: What do you think?

Post by matthijs »

Agree with Zoxive that a few tweaks here and there could make it work very well.
- I don't agree that the rounded corners will not work. They might. Maybe use rounded corners on the photo as well to unify everything a bit
- try to align everything better. Using a grid so different elements above/below each other line up
- give the text in the box some breathing room.
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lafever
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Re: What do you think?

Post by lafever »

califdon wrote:My personal reaction is that a total b/w design is depressing, but overall your design looks good. I like the graphics at the top. I think my reaction would be more favorable if you added a bright colored line somewhere, or maybe some other point of contrast. Purely personal reaction.
I was thinking of changing the Aqua-ish color to an orange or some sort possibly. I'll test a few things out.

Zoxive wrote:
  • The picture looks distorted to me, and with that it throws off the rest of the design.
Picture distorted as in the edges of it where it was cut out? Or in general?
matthijs wrote:Agree with Zoxive that a few tweaks here and there could make it work very well.
- I don't agree that the rounded corners will not work. They might. Maybe use rounded corners on the photo as well to unify everything a bit
- try to align everything better. Using a grid so different elements above/below each other line up
- give the text in the box some breathing room.
I'll make that bottom box a little taller than, I agree with you now that it is brought up.

As far as the rounded corners go ... I really couldn't come up with anything else to throw in there , I'll start contemplating some more ideas on what to do to it.

Thanks for the input so far people. :D
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Re: What do you think?

Post by matthijs »

timmy0320 wrote: I'll make that bottom box a little taller than, I agree with you now that it is brought up.
I was mainly thinking about the whitespace around the text inside. Give the text some margin/padding left and right and you'll see it looks much better
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pickle
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Re: What do you think?

Post by pickle »

About the header part:
  • It's much too tall - 355px. I'd knock at least 100px off that height. If I'm coming to your website, I don't want to have to scroll past the same old header image on each page load.
  • The photo looks distorted in that it doesn't look like it's being displayed at its original width/height
  • It looks abruptly chopped off on the right hand side.
  • The photo stands out a bit too much
  • The text doesn't really match the rest of the site
  • I'd suggest fading the photo a bit - make it still visible but clearly a background image. Align it to the right so its always on the right edge of the window. Make your text a serif font rather than an image & align it left.
- There's a small (maybe 10px) space between the top of the window and your header section.
- You'll probably be working on this, but as you know, you've only got one link in your navigation bar - that needs to be fleshed out. Also, there's no way to get back to your homepage.
- Dashed lines are nice, but I think you've used them way too much. Try taking them out & see how it looks. The only place you might still need them is in your "Recent Actions" section, but you've spaced the entries far enough apart, they might still look good without the lines. If you do keep them, fade them to black a bit so they don't stand out as much as your text.
- The "I'm also at..." line should be indented.

- I like the colour scheme. Black (or at least dark grey) and white always look classy & the green adds a nice highlight without being overpowering.
- I think the rounded corners can work, but I don't like the specific graphics you've used for the white rounded corners. That little "spurt" of grey that gets in there throws off the look.
- try throwing a slightly darker gradient in as the background for the main section. That might make it pop a bit more.

Overall not bad - looks good for a homegrown blog.
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lafever
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Re: What do you think?

Post by lafever »

Thanks pickle. I took some of your suggestions and fixed it up. Looks better now.

One thing I am still working on is the header image. I'll take the image and scale it from there. I think what happened with the distortion was the fact I cut it out of the original image (which is over 2800 px in width) and scaled the piece I cut out and that is what messed it up. That or the fact I added a perspective to it did it to it.
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califdon
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Re: What do you think?

Post by califdon »

I like the changes you've made, Tim. Keep it up! In principle, I like the perspective on the image, but it might be improved with a little tweaking. Again, my personal preference would be to have a fairly saturated colored line or shape somewhere to relieve the mostly gray-scale main page, but just the addition of a few aqua elements is an improvement.
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RobertGonzalez
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Re: What do you think?

Post by RobertGonzalez »

I like the simplistic nature of it. It is very clean. I would like to see rounded tab edges though, since you rounded the content box on the screen.

Also, the structure of the markup seems to not flow correctly (in my opinion) seeing as you h3 tags with sibling/descendant h2 tags with sibling/descendant h1 tags. Seems to me the progression should go the other way.

Overall though I like what you have. Maybe adding another Gray/Green contrasting color might help it out a bit more, but still, it is nice.
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RobertGonzalez
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Re: What do you think?

Post by RobertGonzalez »

Oh yeah, and I am now following you on Twitter.
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lafever
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Re: What do you think?

Post by lafever »

Alright, since there's so much bashing on the header I think I need to post the shot of what its final output is going to be. Which I should have done in the first place. :P

[edit: site offline for now]

I believe that the search box will make the whole rounded corners match better and the search box will align with the regular content. The RSS button will light up in the Aqua when hovered. The reason I didn't put these in with the design yet is because I haven't coded them.

Everah wrote:Also, the structure of the markup seems to not flow correctly (in my opinion) seeing as you h3 tags with sibling/descendant h2 tags with sibling/descendant h1 tags. Seems to me the progression should go the other way.
Wow, didn't realize I did that.
Everah wrote:Oh yeah, and I am now following you on Twitter.
Woohoo! :lol: None of my friends have Twitter so it's good to make some new ones there. I will login and do the same.
Last edited by lafever on Sun Nov 15, 2009 7:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.
unibul
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Re: What do you think?

Post by unibul »

Very nice design. I would not change anything.
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