Please bear with me...
Decided to publish a rather raw redesign cause fuck it. And I’m excited about having a platform for some new features and I needed this live first. If you see anything that seems off or wrong to you, please post the link to the page, a description of what you’re seeing, and the browser you’re using. Or better still, a screenshot.
Comments
Fuck it it’s awesome!
It looks good on my iMac at home and my HP laptop. Both run Firefox, but the laptop has a much smaller screen.
I love love love the green date box. It’s my favorite part.
The colors are kind of messing with my mind. Kind of like how Quickman took over the site back in college and everything was varying shades of pink. I do like the layout, but that other guy (can’t remember who, don’t know who he is, and far too lazy to look it up) was right about how the links look like ads for stuff.
I like that you allowed for a quick comment on the link you share.
Paris, you are my favorite. Even if you do have a criticism, at least you’ve buttered me up first.
I do love how easy it is to link to stuff now. I don’t have to know ANYTHING.
It was that easy before!
Nah. Before I had to look up the html to link stuff and put text in and copy and paste. I don’t think you understand how lazy I am.
But… the links haven’t changed with the redesign. It’s all the same!
No no, it’s the linking ability. If I want to just make a post about a link – BAM! Copy link into box, copy link text into box. No problems.
That was there a year ago!
Nah, I don’t believe it. Or I can’t read.
Wow. I had been reading this site all morning at work on IE and it looked horrible. Like unbelievably so.
Then I went home on lunch and loaded it on Firefox and it looks about a thousand times snazzier.
i must say, i’m loving the color scheme.
it’s running on my imac.
i’m confused about the big, little, big, little headlines too but you probably already explained that and i just didn’t read it.
if i’m gonna be a grammar nazi, the apostrophe in “99” is facing the wrong way. the apostrophe is a punctuation mark to show what is missing and what is missing is the “19” before the “99.”
Kevin said:Wow. I had been reading this site all morning at work on IE and it looked horrible. Like unbelievably so.
Then I went home on lunch and loaded it on Firefox and it looks about a thousand times snazzier.
IE6, right? Did it have the warning message at the top that your browser is out-dated and you need to upgrade?
John said:
IE6, right? Did it have the warning message at the top that your browser is out-dated and you need to upgrade?
I don’t know which version, but my work computer is only a few months old. And yes, it has the warning at the top.
Then it’s definitely IE6. You should upgrade or use Firefox. I’m going to do my best to improve the site on IE6, but suffice to say, it’s not a priority as IE6 users make up about 8% of the site’s total visitors and that number is steadily dropping.
The issue is essentially that IE6 doesn’t support transparent png (image) files, so I have to replace all the backgrounds with solid colors.
It’s just my work computer so I don’t really care. At home I use firefox or safari.
Yes, but all of us web designers in the world care because your IE6 browser shows up in our web stats and then our bosses tell us we can’t drop support for that stupid browser.
christina said:i’m confused about the big, little, big, little headlines too but you probably already explained that and i just didn’t read it.
i haven’t seen it explained, and i’m confused by it, too. is there any logic behind this or is it random? it draws my eye to certain posts and makes me miss other ones – i’m not keen on that at all.
the orange banner up top is also out-of-place colourwise. it just doesn’t seem to mesh well with the rest of the scheme.
mandy said:the orange banner up top is also out-of-place colourwise. it just doesn’t seem to mesh well with the rest of the scheme.
you think so? i think the orange goes nicely with the green. i used to have a blur shirt with those colors on it, so maybe i am biased.
also, what’s with the 84 new posts. i mean, each day, there’s going to be well over 100 so it’s not like we’re keeping count. i think it’s just not really needed because we all look at the activity to see what’s new anyway. might i suggest “X new threads.” like, brand new topics?
christina said:mandy said:the orange banner up top is also out-of-place colourwise. it just doesn’t seem to mesh well with the rest of the scheme.
you think so? i think the orange goes nicely with the green.
yes. maybe if it was repeated somewhere else, even somewhere subtle, it would work more for me. everything else has a nicer flow to it.
They’re links vs. articles, people. C’mon. I explained in another thread, but here it is again:
I had a few main goals with the redesign (other than just a visual refresh). I noticed a trend in the data where the amount of Articles with a paragraph or more of actual written text was dramatically reducing while the number of links posted was increasing. I certainly don’t want to discourage anyone from posting anything, so I wanted to make room for more links while giving the articles a bit more weight. In addition, I wanted to allow a bit more commentary on the links.
So, in terms of the visual space used, an article with a few lines of text will end up taking up about twice the space of two links. Plus the user avatars are included on articles because I thought attribution was more important when you were actually writing something instead of just linking to something.
In the future, there will be other post types (twitter and polls) which will have their own style and weight. I felt it was important to establish the paradigm, so to speak, of different styles for different post types right away.
Two more things:
- The post count is a placeholder for now for one of the future features I mentioned. It will become a “## new posts since your last login” box that you can click and see all the new posts or comments since you last loaded the page.
- The orange is the highlight color. You could make a point that it doesn’t belong on the top bar, but it fits the theme nicely. I needed to bring the color into the theme now, however, because orange will come to represent links that are new to you since the last time you refreshed.
okay, i finally found the part where you explained it before – sorry! it’s difficult to catch-up on this shit after 8 hours of being away…goddamn no internet time at work. it’s still a little weird. i LOVED the Zelda icons you used before as they were both geeky and informative.
i will be very happy to see the orange used more throughout. it is a nice colour, my only complaint there was that is stood alone and looked awkward.
mandy said:i LOVED the Zelda icons you used before as they were both geeky and informative.
I agree, but from some very loose, unscientific polling, it seems we were in the majority. And, like I explain above, I don’t think the icons lent any weight. That said, I was planning on putting an arrow icon of some sort in the links… perhaps link could make a return.
mandy said:
i will be very happy to see the orange used more throughout. it is a nice colour, my only complaint there was that is stood alone and looked awkward.
Yeah, I think it’ll make more sense if you saw my original comps where the color was used more throughout. Soon enough, I hope.
I swear, you people are collectively the worst client I’ve ever had.
John said:I swear, you people are collectively the worst client I’ve ever had.
reasons? the thought at sucking at giving constructive criticism irks me and i want to change that. aside from, you know, not reading what you wrote earlier.
John said:I swear, you people are collectively the worst client I’ve ever had.
No one here’s as smart as you and me, and they resent me… er… us for it.
mandy said:John said:aside from, you know, not reading what you wrote earlier.
Mostly this. I got at least 5 IMs today from different people going “WHY ARE THE FONTS DIFFERENT SIZES?! IS IT BASED ON POPULARITY?!?”
sigh
Still, if it’s not obvious to everyone, it’s not right. So I gotta fix some things and make some changes.
yeah, it’s still a bit jarring. good thing i am never on IM.
I haven’t chimed in with my obnoxious opinions yet.
Actually, I think it’s pretty goddamn great. Nice work there, J. I like the color scheme. I like the attempt to make the links and articles into a flowing continuum of information.
I got that the big text/little text was to differentiate between articles and links, but it’s a kinda rough. Have you changed that since yesterday? I’ve noticed, today, that it seems to have a little more breathing room. Or I’m just getting used to it. I like the date tab, but I’m not so sure if it’s worth the space to tell us what today is. Maybe you can use that for something else.
But still: everything you’ve done is a step in a good direction.
Thanks, Justin! I did actually drop the font-size of the articles a tad. But nothing with the spacing. And I totally agree about the date. It’s there now cause it looks pretty and I like big, oblique georgia numbers, but it’s more a placeholder for future new features — not sure what yet.
Sammy said:John said:I swear, you people are collectively the worst client I’ve ever had.
No one here’s as smart as you and me, and they resent me… er… us for it.
wow, you are SUCH a kiss ass!
We getting a mobile version of the site? Just the stories and a stripped down comments section….
Yes! I actually am in the process of figuring out how to set up subdomains with linode so I can set up m.thescrabbled.com.
christina said:
wow, you are SUCH a kiss ass!
Humor: You’re doing it wrong.
>The orange is the highlight color. You could make a point that it doesn’t belong on the top bar, but it fits the theme nicely.
Also….because it’s Justin’s favorite color.