Welcome Back - We want your feedback! - Page 5

NewSith · 2012-03-19, 02:34 AM

IMO news headers would look better if centered. But other than that - Sweeeeeeeeeeeeet!

Purple · 2012-03-19, 09:19 AM

looks great. nice work.

Hamma · 2012-03-19, 09:21 AM

I'd say we have gotten enough feedback on the front page image rotator to make some tweaks.

That's the first feedback on flipping the front page content.. interesting thoughts. Is there some kind of web design or human nature guide we can read when it comes to this?

Captain1nsaneo · 2012-03-19, 10:16 PM

Originally Posted by Hamma

I'd say we have gotten enough feedback on the front page image rotator to make some tweaks.

That's the first feedback on flipping the front page content.. interesting thoughts. Is there some kind of web design or human nature guide we can read when it comes to this?

Funnily enough...
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Hamma · 2012-03-19, 10:58 PM

Originally Posted by Captain1nsaneo

Funnily enough...
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Interesting stuff!

Ghryphen · 2012-03-19, 12:06 AM

Tapatalk works, you have to search for PSU again and click that result, then your favorite will be updated.

Tatwi · 2012-03-19, 09:47 AM

I appreciate the effort and layout wise it makes sense, but this color scheme is awful. Teal is very bleh and there's just SO MUCH of it.

With that out of the way

...

Good:
- Location of forum navigation is WAY better.
- Familiar blog feel.
- Notifications and personal details are easy to spot.
- Contrast works in most places, despite yicky color scheme.
- Works very well in Opera Mobile 6.5 with Single Column View enabled (no side scrolling and font size is legible) - on my Blackberry Bold 9900.

Bad:
- Vertical space usage is poor. No need at all for the Forms/IRC Chat/News/Contact Us/[SEARCH] links at the top of the page, as they are covered in the menu. Links in the menu bar could be a tad shorter.
- The site is about 40px too wide to use without scrolling on my Blackberry Playbook tablet (1024x600).Very annoying and disappointing...
- The background gradient is ugly as hell and should be replaced with, at the very least, a dimmed out screen shot from PS2. Check out the World of Warcraft or Everquest II homepages for an idea of what I am talking about.

All in all, the new site is a navigational improvement that you should be proud of. However, artistically it's a little uninspired, but that is easy enough to change within the current layout.

OK... I can't look at this color scheme any more. I'm not sure why, but it makes me hostile. Please email me when the custom schemes are back. Seriously.

noxious · 2012-03-19, 12:11 AM

The design is a major improvement, although to be frank, the previous design was so exceedingly busy that almost any layout that reduced clutter would have been a major step in the right direction

Some problems with the page width: On widescreen monitors, the background image doesn't fill the whole page. Setting the background div's width to 100% and allowing the background image to tile would resolve this issue. Meanwhile, on small monitors, the page is just a bit too wide. I'm not sure what web developers shoot for these days, but it seems like most sites still work on 1280x1024 screens; the new layout here is about 50 pixels too wide for such a resolution.

And as Malorn mentioned, the layout uses a lot of vertical real estate which pushes the content much further down the screen that it ought to. Aside from reducing the size of the large image, reducing the top and bottom padding on the buttons and headers would help without compromising the aesthetics (the text itself is large enough that it should remain tablet friendly). Moving the Forums, IRC Chat, News, and Contact Us links at the very top of the page to the right-hand side above the search box, so that you could move the PSU banner up, could save some additional vertical space.

Again, these nitpicks aside, the new layout is much better than the old one. Great work!