Network Criticisms

Attached is our new mockup, so tell me what you think. The only way I can get the design right is if you all participate in criticism.

Smokin'. I really like it.

Great. This design is supposed to make for a quicker site, and it should fix the problems in IE 6 as well. This "should" be integrated with the forum, so it looks like one site. I will verify if this will be the case. More opinions would be helpful, even if its a "yes I like it" or a "no I hate it". If you dislike it, tell me what you don't like about it, and what you were expecting. If you like it, or even a part of it, feel free to tell me what you DO like.

The new mockup has my approval! Much nicer and NO MORE CHRISTMAS TREE LOGO! YAY!!!!!

Looks great!

Who did the design?

How long till we see it in action?

It still doesn't match the forum, that's my only concern. I love the design itself, this is definitely a keeper. It either needs more brown in it, or the forum needs more white because we need to be as consistent as possible or else it still looks like different sites instead of one.

Ok I'm glad people are liking this better. I'm going to work with the developers very closely this time while they design it, and James/Hillary, both of you will will get involved. I agree it needs to match the forum. There will be no true integration since it will cost too much money, so we will have to have a "pseudo" integration, meaning we will have 2 skins still, the forum, and the network, but both skins header and top nav will be as identical as we can make them. Eventually if we start making money, we can have a truly integrated system. I still want to work on getting shared attributes, such as the IM system and the messaging system.

Looks great! Will it be faster?

Yes, I think so. I will definitely have you guys test it before it goes to the live site.

I find the smoke a bit.. what? It looks cool but I don't get why it's there.

I like things to be there for a reason. Though if nobody else is concerned with that then w/e. Not that I'm even concerned, I don't give a damn.

... *takes leave*

You might want to figure out how to put fields above the "Join Now" link for visitors to enter email, desired user name, desired password, and so forth. Why? Less screen hopping. Instead of three pages for the registration process, you'd have two... the main page and a user agreement page to sign off on. Then, the user gets the confirmation email in their inbox and they're off to the races.

Just a thought... screen hopping is a pet peeve of mine for websites.

-AA

The reason why I can't have quick sign ups on the homepage is because we need captcha (to prevent spam). For about 15 days this website did not have captcha implemented, and we were getting about 30 sign ups per day (where regularly we get around 3-8). Captcha on the homepage would look ugly.

As far as the smoke and violin, I personally think that's a beautiful picture, and the smoke softens the site a little. If the majority disagrees, changing the header really is the least of our concerns and should be no problem at all. The the main concern is getting the overall design faster, and easier on the eyes, with a better integration.

hey, just a question ....

are the URLs still changing (threads and network pages) if I want to send the address to a friend, it is already permanent or should I wait a little longer ?

I like the header/banner on first inspection. The only thing that still bothers me is that the pages are still too narrow! The forum uses 100% of the screen width. At least approach that figure on the network, it would let the layout breathe a lot more.

The URLS are permanent. As for the width, no problem, the devs are already aware that I want the top banner to expand the whole width, and the width of the body to be around 95%

Here is another mockup. Let me know if you guys like the nav, and if you like its location at the top. I personally think it would look better below the header.

Here is another mockup. Let me know if you guys like the nav, and if you like its location at the top. I personally think it would look better below the header.

I agree, the nav looks better under the header and all of the options would be closer together, making it ever so slightly more efficient.

I prefer the first one with the nav under the header.

Looks much better! Good, sensible, friendly colours.

The nav looks good at the top, and nice and slim. That kind of layout works well for facebook. I think the banner should also be a bit slimmer. Personally I don't think a banner serves enough of a purpose to be there at all. And it may look nice on big screens but the current one on the forums takes up so much space when I'm on a small screen. You have to scroll down to actually see anything useful. Even on my biggest screen, the current YC main page uses 1/3 of the screen for banner and nav, rather than actual content.

Can you have the same nav bar on the forums so that it feels integrated? So that you know on the forum you are a link deep into the site, rather than being confused which page is the "top" level.

The main area of the page still looks as narrow as the current version (but the colours at least make it *look* less cramped). Is there anyway of making it scale so that big screens can use the currently wasted space in the margins? It not, I don't think it's that bad. Again, facebook get by using half the page.

I like the Times New Roman with those colours. Perhaps the main body text ("Young Composers is a place where...") needs a tad more space around it, particularly the top and bottom. Either that or separate the block of black text into 2 paras. But that's getting picky now.

The logo is a huge improvment. Cooler, not visually ambiguous (i.e. not a christmas tree), simple and small enough to have as an icon, but also good when its big, and relevant but not patronising (the lone treble clefs on the current version seemed to get a lot of flak).

Still looking good, the design is so much more concise but I disagree with the navbar being on top as well. Not that it's just a big change, but it's not really our style.

I love the new logo, but it could use a little more contrast. The lights, middles, and darks just aren't distinct enough. You can't even tell what the logo is in the lower right hand corner of the orchestra banner. And yes, both of the banners could still be slimmer. Or even move the orchestra to the bottom of the page and stylise it like the guitar banner was. (I liked that banner... )

Would it be possible to dock things below the Login box at right? We could put recent forum posts or recent wiki edits there if we find or develop the appropriate modules. It'd be a nice place to dock those things, and they'd be at top when logged in since the login box disappears.

Would you like me to work on a forum skin to match the new homepage design?

What about this?

What about this?

That feels a little lopsided to me.

Would you like me to work on a forum skin to match the new homepage design?

James, not yet, until we finalize the design.

That feels a little lopsided to me.

Hmm, that's really the only solution we could come up with if we were to use 95% width with rescaling, and placing the nav below our header. Maybe it feels this way because of the lack of color applied still?

Hmm, that's really the only solution we could come up with if we were to use 95% width with rescaling, and placing the nav below our header. Maybe it feels this way because of the lack of color applied still?

It's the way the header is on the left, and only makes it two thirds across. The empty space in the top-right feels weird to me.

I really preferred it when the whole thing was centred like in the first new-version...what was the complaint with that one?

Hi, I really don't want to read through eight pages of info to see if this has been put, so sorry if it has.

I was on my PC the other day (on the mac it is fine :P ) and I went to the home page. The home page took extremely long to load, and I wondered why. I glanced at the status and it said it had to download 1386 items. Even at a fast pace this took about forty seconds, so I'm wondering if this could possibly be fixed. I don't really have a suggestion, as I don't have a clue at what can be merged or whatever, but I just want to make sure that I'm not saying take everything away - because I love all the links on the homepage - but if you could make it run faster with the same links it'd be much appreciated.