New template design
good or bad?
| Is this a good start or a bad start? | |||
| Looks great | 1 | 9% | |
| On the right track, keep going | 8 | 73% | |
| Parts are better, parts are worse | 2 | 18% | |
| It needs a re-think | 0 | 0% | |
| I like the current design better | 0 | 0% | |
| 11 votes | |||
New template design
good or bad?
| Is this a good start or a bad start? | |||
| Looks great | 1 | 9% | |
| On the right track, keep going | 8 | 73% | |
| Parts are better, parts are worse | 2 | 18% | |
| It needs a re-think | 0 | 0% | |
| I like the current design better | 0 | 0% | |
| 11 votes | |||
Comments on New template design
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7867
I think this looks nice so far, but my thinking something looks nice has historically proved to be a sure indicator of extreme ugliness in the eyes of the rest of the world. Thus I need some people with design taste to tell me whether I'm on the right track or the wrong track. (It's far from finished of course.)
I confess to spending a lot of time looking at the designs of the In-Portal and Gossamer Links SQL demos.
Feel free to put any design-related suggestions/requests in this thread as well.
Attached Files:
Forum Regular
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Aug 09, 2004
Location: Chile
Total Topics: 172
Total Comments: 462
Paul,
I believe color combinations can be improved, and also the behaviour (hover, active, ...) of the top personal menu (if you have not improved already).
The presentation of the functions at the right looks nice.
Forum Regular
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Aug 05, 2005
Total Topics: 94
Total Comments: 272
Its definitely an improvement. I'd remove the blue-grey background, as that colour has always been a little odd. I'd keep a plain white background, which will sit very nicely with the new beautifully designed WSN Links logo. Also: use some CSS for the SELECT tags as the default Windows styling is ugly. Use verdana as the base font. Change the font for the 'Edit' link - it doesn't sit well with the design (either use some small graphic or just the text 'EDIT' in a small size)
Forum Regular
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Sep 22, 2004
Location: Wake Forest, NC
Total Topics: 23
Total Comments: 161
I like the menu on the right. Better than the current method of scattered all over the page.
I can't make up my mind about the links page. Seems more elegant, but I like each link being very segregated as in the current design.
Forum Regular
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Aug 14, 2005
Total Topics: 33
Total Comments: 107
Hi,
I think you are on the right track but I think the colour scheme needs a rethink. Maybe add some colour to the site, not horrible in your face colours but just a bit of variation.
Anyway hope that made sense
Jon
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Jun 15, 2005
Location: Ontario, Canada
Total Topics: 7
Total Comments: 33
Good layout style. I agree with capitaine - a white background is very clean and crisp looking and is very refreshing. I'd place the white background behind the links, but a color outside like zdnet, download.com, msn.com. Blue like in your logo would be a good choice as it seems to be very relaxing and loyal - pretty popular in most of the top sites as well.
Nothing wrong with getting good ideas from others. Look at successful sites/directories such as: google, yahoo, aol... better yet - just take a peek at the top 10-20 websites in the US listed on Alexia. These guys spend the big bucks to get information to users fast, and in a pleasant to view manner:
www.alexa.com/site/ds/top_s...&ts_mode=country&lang=none
Beginner
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Mar 03, 2006
Total Topics: 5
Total Comments: 9
The glinks 3 template in its standard for isnt by any means a design masterpiece visually, what makes it good is its totally css generated.
I agree about the colour variation, although I'm being a bit of a hypocrite because I like clean designs myself.
With regards to the appearance of the links page, I personally prefer one link per line but thats just my own preference
I'd not heard of in-portal til you mentioned it, just had a look, i like the look of in-link but the whole thing looks a bit like the gaggle of sites you see coming out of the likes of template monster with its garish colours, personally I think a meeting somewhere in between in-portal and what you have now would sit well
developer
Usergroup: Administrator
Joined: Dec 20, 2001
Location: Diamond Springs, California
Total Topics: 61
Total Comments: 7867
I find white too blinding to look at comfortably for long, but here's a whiter version.
Attached Files:
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Oct 14, 2005
Location: Singapore
Total Topics: 11
Total Comments: 31
very neat i love it
adding a lil more colors will definitely make it look better
Member
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Jun 15, 2005
Location: Ontario, Canada
Total Topics: 7
Total Comments: 33
I like this better.
Expert
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Aug 19, 2005
Location: England
Total Topics: 391
Total Comments: 1303
The biggest problem I have is changing the colour scheme. This is because there are so many different shades used in the default css. Font instance I found 6 different shades of white and even more of blue. The white shades to my eye they all looked the same but the hex was slightly different for them all, and I couldn't really see a reason for having so many different shades of blue. This meant that I could not simply do a search and replace with my colour scheme.
So a more uniform colour scheme would be of great help
Beginner
Usergroup: Customer
Joined: Apr 24, 2006
Location: Ontario, Canada
Total Topics: 3
Total Comments: 8
I wonder if it would make it easier if there was a page to adjust the css color scheme in the admin panel? Kind of like a visual template? It would show the current color and you click to change the color from a palette menu. Just a thought - not sure if this would be easy to do or not.