New site theme

sinewav · Post by **sinewav** » Sat Mar 07, 2009 7:55 pm

Lackadaisical wrote:Maybe it's a good idea before someone just starts making something to have a list of other sites to get sort of a feel of how the new style should look like.

/me seconds this proposal.

Lackadaisical · Post by **Lackadaisical** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 6:53 pm

*bump*

Ok I guess Kamp is afk, but when I read about lot's of whitespace and contrasting colors I personally think about websites like this:

http://www.jasonsantamaria.com/articles/
http://www.underconsideration.com/
http://www.avclub.com/
http://alistapart.com/

So would a site like that be a good/bad thing? I'd really like to see clear and readable design like that be succesfully adapted to something as a gamesite, so if anyone knows about one, or has any other ideas don't shy away from posting it!

joda.bot · Post by **joda.bot** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 7:47 pm

I really like the idea, and I'm willing to contribute by coding/designing something which is not taken care of (my amount of time is limited though).

About the forums: from my expierence and things I learned at university (user interfaces etc.) lines and borders tend to confuse. People are used to reality where things are either separated by free space or block the persons view to the "objects" farther away. Instead of borders try to use shaded boxes / layers stacked on top of each other (to achive some kind of pseudo deepth perception).

If you look at the design around this post, just try to count the number of borders.
Better: use more free space and slightly darkers colors for the not so important user profiles and other parts. The main post should be the focus of peoples attention.

Also picking a good display font, size, colors and perhaps limiting the amount of text per line can make text easier to read.

*I'd vote to ask around if we might be able to get some artist / designer to voluenteer for the basic design concept.*

Implementation of that concept on all levels will take some time. I guess.

----

But there are things everybody can do to contribute. Because the design is one piece, what really needs to be carefully examined is which parts need to accessible and what is rarly or never used in a given context.
Hiding forum features can really make a website easier for kids or players never having used a forum before.

*We need to analyse the desired/required structure and provide it.*

@kamp: you observations are excellent

, I guess the next levels will be more difficult though, but should atleast be considered now to some degree.

Take a look at the FAQ on the wiki (and shorten / update the FAQ with the really FAQ questions and precise short answers). The question and headlines there need to be shorter too.

MaZuffeR · Post by **MaZuffeR** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:33 pm

Lackadaisical wrote:I'd really like to see clear and readable design like that be succesfully adapted to something as a gamesite, so if anyone knows about one, or has any other ideas don't shy away from posting it!

Something like this?

sinewav · Post by **sinewav** » Fri Mar 13, 2009 8:46 pm

MaZuffeR wrote:Something like this?

I like that. Before I saw that page I was going to suggest a few things to be prominent on the home page. Those would be: the client on all platforms, a brief description of Arma, and screenshots/video.

Now, how to design without borders and still look "armagetron-y"? It seems strange since the game is based on a grid in a box and drawing lines around stuff. Kind of a paradox if you ask me. It's hard to pull a design motif from the game that translates to "open space" since the game is inherently claustrophobic.

Lackadaisical · Post by **Lackadaisical** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:02 pm

joda.bot wrote:*I'd vote to ask around if we might be able to get some artist / designer to voluenteer for the basic design concept.*

Can I volunteer even though we're trying to correct my mistakes in the first place?

I had some time to burn this morning, so I made a mockup. I tried to combine the different things mentioned in this topic.. not so sure how i succeeded. Feedback appreciated.

Post by **epsy** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:10 pm

The font and the lightcycle celshading pleases me, but I doubt we want a dark theme.

Post by **Tank Program** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:10 pm

That looks pretty neat, personally I would prefer a lighter color scheme, but I'd ask for other opinions before I'd say no to dark.

Where would quote/edit/ip/delete buttons go? I use those quite frequently. Ranks and post counts would be good to see too. Same for avatars and location. I don't personally use the buttons under the posts that often, but maybe a link to the profile would be good to maintain. The "Armagetron Forums Index -> Armagetron -> General -> A Modest Proposal... " links would be good to retain.

How would something like that translate to the main site or the wiki? Keeping the same type of feel and organization for the cross-site conformity.

Edit: signatures?

rumpole · Post by **rumpole** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 2:51 pm

I think it looks great, I light version might look better ?
I tried inverting the one you posted in pixlr to see but that just looked horrible, well not so bad except the bike

Post by **Tank Program** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:34 pm

The cycle does look cool.

On a side note, I've been fiddling around with the forums and phpBB3. I've got something vaguely resembling what we've got now put together. Could get it closer with tweaking the CSS.

wrtlprnft · Post by **wrtlprnft** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 3:44 pm

rumpole wrote:I think it looks great, I light version might look better ?
I tried inverting the one you posted in pixlr to see but that just looked horrible, well not so bad except the bike

Actually that one looks quite promising to my eyes

Lackadaisical · Post by **Lackadaisical** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 5:46 pm

Heh, I expected to get some comments on the dark background light text. I googled a bit and there doesn't seem to be a consensus on it; some people prefer dark on white while others prefer it the other way around. I suppose this also has to do with how the environment looks where the website is viewed in. I don't really care either way, but the reason i picked light on dark was because armagetron has such a scheme as well.
Maybe just offer an alternative?

Tank Program wrote:Where would quote/edit/ip/delete buttons go? I use those quite frequently. Ranks and post counts would be good to see too. Same for avatars and location. I don't personally use the buttons under the posts that often, but maybe a link to the profile would be good to maintain. The "Armagetron Forums Index -> Armagetron -> General -> A Modest Proposal... " links would be good to retain.

Edit: signatures?

Yeah didn't want to spend too much time on it, the quote/edit buttons and the sigs would just be at their usual place. I'd personally be in favor of text-only sigs, but ehh. Avatars would just be at their normal place, I've seen at a forum once where you could press the name of a poster and more info expanded below, I think that would be nice to have to keep clutter to a minimum.

Tank Program wrote:How would something like that translate to the main site or the wiki? Keeping the same type of feel and organization for the cross-site conformity.

attachment added for how a wiki page would sort of look like.

sinewav · Post by **sinewav** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:06 pm

Lackadaisical wrote:some people prefer dark on white while others prefer it the other way around.

Yes, I would be one of those who prefer the dark side (I have lots of yin energy). And I think it is more suitable considering the look and feel of the game. Can't we just have both?

Luke-Jr · Post by **Luke-Jr** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 6:15 pm

Well, we want to separate the design from the content for translation purposes anyway, so multiple designs shouldn't be too difficult...

rumpole · Post by **rumpole** » Sat Mar 14, 2009 7:01 pm

you could use a little php or javascript to store a selectable color scheme into a cookie / include the selected css file or config block