New Layout

Scott · Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 4:05 pm Post subject: New Layout

I'm wondering what everyone thinks about this new layout someone made for my tutorial script, which I sell.

http://img462.imageshack.us/im.....w4ews6.jpg

It's a rough mock-up of what it will actually be, we were going for a nice, clean and simple design and I guess sort of a "Web 2.0" feel with Ajax and what not. I realize there is a lot of blank space between the navigation and the rest of the page, it's just there because we can't decide what to put there.
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Xtreme · Posted: Fri Apr 20, 2007 11:45 pm Post subject:

Indeed it is simple and appears functional and practical, but it is leaning towards the cliche and unoriginal side, in my opinion. It just doesn't seem to communicate personality to me.

But as far cleanliness, it's top-notch so far, I think.

krt · ... Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 4619 Location: Down Under

The jpg compression makes the template look worse than it is, coupled with the whitespace between the menu and the main part of the site as you mentioned, perhaps you could have just cropped this out until you decide what can fill the spot. Other than that, the template looks nice but it lacks something. I think I'm getting to what "Xtreme" said, and I discovered this when looking for free templates a long time back, a lot of them all have this generic feel, they may look good but I cannot picture it being used for a specific organisation. In fact, "doesn't seem to communicate personality" sums it up well in my opinion.

Scott · Posted: Sat Apr 21, 2007 5:17 am Post subject:

Well, it is poor quality because I just quickly took the PSD and saved it just to give an example, thinking it didn't really matter.

This is just supposed to be a default theme for the script, e.g. when you install a vBulletin or phpBB forum, you will start with a default theme. I wasn't going for any graphic intense design, to use as a default theme.
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ClickFanatic · Posted: Sun Apr 22, 2007 8:37 am Post subject:

The colour scheme is really not good. It somehow looks kinda cheap (you know these parked domain pages).
The layout itself is not too bad though. As far as tutorial sites go, this is probably the most obvious way of organising the page elements.

Back to the colour scheme: I think, as an improvement, you should try different colours that contrast a bit more. If you look at sites showcased in some of the CSS galleries out there, you should get the general idea of good colour schemes (link to a list of CSS galleries that was posted here earlier).
The icons you are using seem good, keep them. Smile

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krt · ... Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 4619 Location: Down Under

Ah... I, and maybe Xtreme as well, misunderstood the first sentence. It seemed to me you are selling the template, not the tutorial script that will use this template. In that case, a generic design is what you would want and therefore, most of my criticism doesn't apply.

Scott · Posted: Mon Apr 23, 2007 12:56 pm Post subject:

Now that you mention it, it isn't really clear, what I meant to say/was trying to say was that this will be a generic theme that will be built in, along with a script which I am going to mass distribute.
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drath · D Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1683 Location: Canada

After reading most of the comments and replies I will go a long and say, yes this is good in terms of a default theme for what you are trying to do. I will say that the color scheme is very calming and soothing (web 2.0 w00t). Everything about it is very modern, especially the huge whitespaces. You say you don't know what to put in there. I think if you just leave half of that whitespace in there, it would very nice; but make sure that same amount of whitespace is also on the bottom (they don't seem to be the same height right now).

How about copyright and reserves text? Have you considered where that is going to go?

On a more advanced design level, you might want to think about using more symetrics or invisible grids in your design. To illustrate I made the following image to show you that most of all the elements are randomly offset. This is just a couple examples:

[img:7cb61c8676]http://thegamersjournal.com/tutorialms.jpg[/img:7cb61c8676]

1. The main tutorialms could be centered in between the "HOME" and "TUTORIAL".

2. The bottom footer image element, could be placed in the same place as the tutorialms header.

3. "Look up a tutorial" element could be placed on the end of the "Featured Tutorials" block element.

Again, just a few examples. You can also align elements to other things, and not the ones I suggested. Just as long as you think about that kind of stuff in the end Smile

.
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Scott · Posted: Tue Apr 24, 2007 4:05 pm Post subject:

Actually it is a "fluid" design (% widths) so it won't be aligned exactly as you see in the layout.
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kdpk · Banned Joined: 27 Apr 2007 Posts: 44

is very bad - dono how say in inglish but no like is simple. no very profesonal if say me. i red book call wabb design. If need help pm me for this case i help improve this things for such i have buy photoshop is good program for help with this.

I red book - and if no wanna red same book - i say you waht bok is for.

pm me for more information

krt · ... Joined: 11 Jan 2005 Posts: 4619 Location: Down Under

I wouldn't listen to someone who "reds profesonal inglish wabb boks"...

Anyway, on second look at it, one problem is the contrast. There is very little of it but when there is, it stands out too much. For example, the thick blue top and bottom borders on the content sections and items. Again, that contrast would not be noticeable usually but only when relative to the surrounding elements. Probably just nitpicking here, but the rating images are the only ones that don't fit in, but maybe this is only because the image quality of the screenshot affected the transparent versions of the rating image.

drath · D Joined: 27 Sep 2005 Posts: 1683 Location: Canada

Vipralion · Lifeless Person Joined: 04 Feb 2005 Posts: 855

Contrast? I say more contrast in the content itself. Nothing is really featured. Everything has the same amount of emphasis placed on it. Well I suppose except for the middle content stuff that is in bigger blue boxes. But you see there is no contrast between various elements on the page. It's just a number of light blue and white rows in between two blue bars. And lots of text. The icons are nice but they are all the same size.

What you should try to shoot for is featuring something specific on the page. And more style to the text as well, especially headers.

I would suppose that based on this preview, I would not spend very much time at this website unless there was very interesting content and some of it caught my eye.
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DAaron · Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 12:11 pm Post subject:

Hi Scott I Have seen you layouts and stuff since you first joined and i you have imporved alot.
the colours on this layout are clean and simple i like this Layout. with the white space at the top you could put under neath a flash banner if you could or just make the white space have less white space as i think it looks cool the bottom needs a copy right or somthing.
thanks aaron
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Scott · Posted: Sun May 27, 2007 12:32 pm Post subject:

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