Very early stages! Very very very early!
Use Firefox or Opera…Internet Explorer=my head asplode.
It would need to be reworked to be more browser compatible, and the menus don’t work yet. But I’d welcome constructive criticism of the layout.
Disclaimer: I suck at graphic design!
http://personal.southern.edu/~timburnham/haiku-ish/index.html
Very early stages! Very very very early!Use Firefox or Opera…Internet Explorer=my head asplode.
It would need to be reworked to be more browser compatible, and the menus don’t work yet. But I’d welcome constructive criticism of the layout.
Disclaimer: I suck at graphic design!
http://personal.southern.edu/~timburnham/haiku-ish/index.html
Good first stages : )
Lots of whitespace here (I have big windows, 1260x885 was just the viewport size… ), maybe it could either resize and use min-width, or you could include an image there or something… it also has problems with small widths too, you can lose the navigation bar.
A few navigation links at the head of the document is a must too.
Change the aspect ratio on the logo, it’s rather horizontally cramped.
I really liked how you worked the leaf into the page :twisted:
New version out! The old one is still where it was before, new one at:
http://personal.southern.edu/~timburnham/haiku-ish/v2/
I decided to be a little less crazy and try a more traditional layout. It still doesn’t really conform to the ideas laid out on the Website Team wiki, but I’m just throwing ideas out there, really. It’s a pretty flexible layout, and if anybody is seriously interested in using this thing, it should probably be recoded from scratch again anyways.
Please, comment more!
Well, you have MUCH better design skills than I do. (I guess that’s not saying much though because I’m horrible at aesthetic design. :p)
I actually like the first one more than the second one. And like [beta] said, the leaf incorporation is too cool. 8) I’d also like it to fill the width of the user’s screen, much like PHP.net and others do.
Great work though, keep it up! 
Minor revisions
Had idea for section color-coding: compare leaf on top of body-text to leaves in menu, augmented by the text over the vertical linkmenu.
I keep on expanding the text width, but I think this is as far as I’m willing to go. The whole “lite” page concept depends on effective use of whitespace. Make my page full-width, and suddenly it looks empty instead of tastefully understated.
Lots of polishing and consistancy issues resolved.
Problem: I think I’m getting too leafy. Need advice on other relevant graphics to use, or at least advice on which to keep/which to toss.
http://personal.southern.edu/~timburnham/haiku-ish/v2.1/
Comments comments comments! I thrive on comments!
Minor revisionsHad idea for section color-coding: compare leaf on top of body-text to leaves in menu, augmented by the text over the vertical linkmenu.
I keep on expanding the text width, but I think this is as far as I’m willing to go. The whole "lite" page concept depends on effective use of whitespace. Make my page full-width, and suddenly it looks empty instead of tastefully understated.
Lots of polishing and consistancy issues resolved.
Problem: I think I’m getting too leafy. Need advice on other relevant graphics to use, or at least advice on which to keep/which to toss.
http://personal.southern.edu/~timburnham/haiku-ish/v2.1/
Comments comments comments! I thrive on comments!
I like the 2.1, but I’m not that crazy about those leaves at the top of each menu.
The page width is perfect IMO, though. A good balance. The leaf watermark at the bottom is very cool as well.
One thing… I’d do something about the menu at the top. It doesn’t really stand out even though it’s the main menu. Nothing fancy, just more than white text on blue background, ya know?
Other than that, it’s really good. I’m going to have to hire you to design my bulletin board's default skin when it gets out of hiatus and I finish it. 
Drop down web menus.
Don’t use them. They are a usability nightmare!
Drop down web menus.Don’t use them. They are a usability nightmare!
I completely disagree.
Purposeless wrote:Drop down web menus.Don’t use them. They are a usability nightmare!
I completely disagree.
They break accessibilty laws in countries which have them, and generally work only with a few browsers properly (find one which both opens and closes properly and doesn’t randomly close on you without being asked to and does all that in more than just the "big three" browsers. 'cause you won’t). Souns like a usability nightmare to me.
skoe wrote:Purposeless wrote:Drop down web menus.Don’t use them. They are a usability nightmare!
I completely disagree.
They break accessibilty laws in countries which have them, and generally work only with a few browsers properly (find one which both opens and closes properly and doesn’t randomly close on you without being asked to and does all that in more than just the "big three" browsers. 'cause you won’t). Souns like a usability nightmare to me.
Drop down menus written in Standard CSS work on most browsers without too much fuss. For example, see http://www.h2ogames.net. It’s not done yet, but works in most browsers…
As for the accessibility laws, sure some people will miss out. But the quick availability of navigation to ALOT of pages does outweigh some of the not-so-good-points. Accessibility is a good thing, yes. Everyone should be able to share Haiku. But Drop down menus aren’t the ‘end all nightmare’ as their being made out to be.
Hence, i disagree…
As for the accessibility laws, sure some people will miss out. But the quick availability of navigation to ALOT of pages does outweigh some of the not-so-good-points. Accessibility is a good thing, yes. Everyone should be able to share Haiku. But Drop down menus aren’t the ‘end all nightmare’ as their being made out to be.
Hence, i disagree…
I would say you disagree with anybody that believes usability is the most important part of web pages. So ultimately the question has to be asked? What is the main reason for the site being provided? usability, to be visually attractive to initially draw people, to hold "ALOT" of pages.
When people are able to reliably find information they need from a web site they are more inclined to to revisit it. Otherwise, they are liable to do a google search and might look elsewhere.
It is nice to have a visually attractive site, but people will get bored with it quickly if it doesn’t provide them with the information they need.
Having "ALOT" of pages under all sorts of menu items can definitely be confusing. Check out Penn States web site to see what I mean:
http://www.psu.edu
Often times when there are "ALOT" of pages, a more thoughtful arrangement/combination of information is needed. Going nuts with providing "ALOT" of pages is a usability issue in itself.
To me, most web sites should be about providing reliable information in an efficient manner. Usability is a big part of it, but ultimately the content has to be good. Good usability won’t make up for bad/confusing information. However, not having easy access to good content isn’t much better.