re: RFC: Proposed new web site design
Looks great so far. Comments: 1) nested scrollbars are evil. Better to put the news on its own tab, lose the little sidebar the news was in, and have a very small area in the main box for just the one most important headline. 2) The main choice text needs to be closer to user tasks. So instead of Information Overview of Wine features. we should have About What is Wine, and why should I use it? and we're missing the user task Will my app work with Wine? which should link to the appdb.
2008/11/24 Dan Kegel <dank(a)kegel.com>:
Looks great so far. Comments: 1) nested scrollbars are evil. Better to put the news on its own tab, lose the little sidebar the news was in, and have a very small area in the main box for just the one most important headline.
I disagree about losing news altogether, I think it definetely serves a worthy purpose and perhaps can be integrated in a way which doesn't cause this scrollbar-sticker shock we're seeing. Otherwise I echo the opinion of others in saying I appreciate the overall look and feel, its rather pleasant -Z.
On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 5:43 PM, Zachary Goldberg <zgold(a)bluesata.com> wrote:
1) nested scrollbars are evil. Better to put the news on its own tab, lose the little sidebar the news was in, and have a very small area in the main box for just the one most important headline.
I disagree about losing news altogether
I didn't say get rid of it. I said give it its own tab, so that it's not scrunched in a tiny sidebar with a *!&# internal scrollbar. A single headline on the front page, linking to the news, should suffice.
On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 10:03 PM, Dan Kegel <dank(a)kegel.com> wrote:
On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 5:43 PM, Zachary Goldberg <zgold(a)bluesata.com> wrote:
1) nested scrollbars are evil. Better to put the news on its own tab, lose the little sidebar the news was in, and have a very small area in the main box for just the one most important headline.
I disagree about losing news altogether
I didn't say get rid of it. I said give it its own tab, so that it's not scrunched in a tiny sidebar with a *!&# internal scrollbar. A single headline on the front page, linking to the news, should suffice.
+2 -- -Austin
Thanks for all the feedback, folks; I have to admit that was a bit overwhelming. I've read through it all, and have tried to digest it, below. But I think there is a strong sense here that no one likes a web site designed by committee. Given that, I think the plan will be to adjust based on feedback, and then go forward. After all, once we take it live, patches will still be accepted <grin>. Here is the digest of comments as I saw them: 1. Folks are basically cool with the CodeWeavers positioning; there is some thought we should even provide more information and linkage to our compatibility database. (I think we'll baby step with what we have now). 2. Lots of people hate the secondary scroll bar. 3. People want a longer introduction to Wine. I think it needs to be short and sweet. We'll noodle; suggestions welcome. 4. We should have hovers on the Wiki page (Jer is working on that). 5. Some folks found the grey text a bit hard to read. (I avoid color discussions like the plague; I think it's kind of like emacs vs vi. I just report the news). 6. There was some agitation for more news, more description, and perhaps more visual elements, like a screen shot. 7. There is some concern as to Wine vs WINE I had raised this privately, and was given the back hand of the artiste. I appreciate the work of the artiste, and so have backed off. 8. There were comments about the icons Some folks didn't like the download icon, some folks wanted the icons to pop more when hovered. The artiste is chewing on it. And then, finally, there were some comments on the main text points themselves. Notably, this one from Dan:
About What is Wine, and why should I use it?
I think that's a good change. In fact, I think we were so focused on the visual elements that we didn't really spend a ton of time on the words and they could be tweaked.
and we're missing the user task
Will my app work with Wine?
which should link to the appdb.
I disagree with the second point. I think the top level should remain very simple. The secondary pages can explain that Wine may not run their application, and so the appdb should feature prominently in that explanation. But I think leading with it is part of the slippery slope to too many links. Cheers, Jeremy
Jeremy White wrote:
2. Lots of people hate the secondary scroll bar.
I love the secondary scroll bar. It allows a larger amount of content to fit into a small space. I did add a "more news" link to the area. That link will take you to a full width news view. Don't forget, the site will also still have the news available as RSS.
3. People want a longer introduction to Wine. I think it needs to be short and sweet. We'll noodle; suggestions welcome.
I used Francois suggestion for the top blurb. I also darkened it a bit.
4. We should have hovers on the Wiki page (Jer is working on that).
Added some simple hovers.
5. Some folks found the grey text a bit hard to read. (I avoid color discussions like the plague; I think it's kind of like emacs vs vi. I just report the news).
Since monitors vary so much, it is a problem. I agree, I had it a bit light. Made it darker.
6. There was some agitation for more news, more description, and perhaps more visual elements, like a screen shot.
I think these elements belong on secondary pages. The goal is to keep the front page simple.
7. There is some concern as to Wine vs WINE I had raised this privately, and was given the back hand of the artiste. I appreciate the work of the artiste, and so have backed off.
Everywhere else it is Wine, the logo is just that a logo. I preserved the logo from the old site.
8. There were comments about the icons Some folks didn't like the download icon, some folks wanted the icons to pop more when hovered. The artiste is chewing on it.
I agree the red glow needs to be more pronounced. We will tweak it a bit. Other tweaks I made. * More IE6 tweaks. I spent way too much time fixing the layout on that #*$'n browser. There still are a ton of users on it. It is the only one of the IEs that currently works well under Wine. On that topic, someone needs to fix the PNG loading with this new design. I'm using a CSS/javascript hack to get alpha channels to load in IE6. This hack breaks under wine, and the images are not loaded. It would be a good time to fix it before we take this live. I'd hate the new layout to not look good under our own software. * Front page rollovers use CSS now instead of JavaScript. * Front page layout, dropped the tables, and used CSS and DIV tags. Alexander suggested the news area be a bit wider, and grow a bit more as you stretch out the browser Window. I believe I accomplished this in a way that works on all browsers. * The design should hold up at 800x600 now. Other thoughts. * Rounded corners are here to stay. To me they feel consistent with the roundedness of the Wine glass logo. * AppDB, Forums, and Bugzilla will look like the Wiki Sample, just with their sidebar navs, and content areas. This is why I did not mock them up. * I like the larger logo on the front page. I did compromise and make the logos on all other pages smaller. -Newman
On Tue, Nov 25, 2008 at 12:25 PM, Jeremy Newman <jnewman(a)codeweavers.com>wrote:
* More IE6 tweaks.
The fonts don't resize correctly in IE6. Go to the view menu and choose Text Size -> Largest. Only the size of the bullets changes. This will exclude people from the site that have visual disabilities such as myself. I've seen this before and it's caused by specifying a fixed font size using points or pixels. The way to fix it is to use some form of non-specific size specification such as a percentage, an em, or one of the "small, medium, large" words. Other than that issue, I think the proposed design looks really nice.
On Wed, 2008-11-26 at 12:26 -0800, Matt Perry wrote:
The fonts don't resize correctly in IE6. Go to the view menu and choose Text Size -> Largest. Only the size of the bullets changes. This will exclude people from the site that have visual disabilities such as myself.
IIRC IE does not resize fonts if their size is specified in px. -- Dimi Paun <dimi(a)lattica.com> Lattica, Inc.
Jeremy Newman wrote:
* AppDB, Forums, and Bugzilla will look like the Wiki Sample, just with their sidebar navs, and content areas. This is why I did not mock them up.
This is probably just a small bug but a commenter on my blog pointed out that you should make the tabs themselves clickable, and not just the words within the tab. That way it's easier to get to AppDB by clicking as soon as you see the tab light up. Thanks, Scott Ritchie
participants (8)
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Austin English -
Dan Kegel -
Dimi Paun -
Jeremy Newman -
Jeremy White -
Matt Perry -
Scott Ritchie -
Zachary Goldberg