A new home skin for Smashboards

[UltiMario]

I have to say, I kinda like it. And if you don't like it, trust me, you'll get used to it.

But other skin users don't have to get used to it D:

I just want Revo back ;-;

 

[Zajice]

Out of curiosity...

Where did the back room go? Like, the one for green name people.

 

[Beat!]

Why didn't you leave Revolution as an option .__.

 

[LLDL]

Yes, please add back revolution as an optional skin. That would've been common sense I think.

 

[Deleted member]

10 char dodging

 

[Jonkku]

besides, it's 2011 and big pictures are a good thing now .

Oh silly me. Here I was, thinking it was 2011 a week ago, too.

But anyway, apart from the inability to hide the sidebar and the what's new -header, this skin's pretty nice.

Spoiler

Better than Revolution atleast

I know this place is called Smashboards, but I'm definitely not here for the Smash-related sections.
And most of the events are on the other end of the world anyway, so I wouldn't care about them even if I did play Smash.

 

[Bones0]

Viva la Revolucion!

I'm using Google Chrome, and I'm having this weird error where

I'M NOT USING THE REVOLUTION SKIN.

 

[Supermodel From Paris]

Can we have Revolution back? The new skin looks pretty bad. I recognize that a lot of work was put into it and I respect that, but honestly, there are a whole host of design issues here:

1. The perspectives on the logo are wrong, probably on purpose, but it doesn't look good
2. The columns are way, way too wide and should be reduced to match the ad box
3. The buttons are huge, and the colors of said buttons don't go together very well
4. New-age gradients mixed with solids and shadows, it clashes really badly...

I don't know, overall it just feels like the page elements are mixing really poorly and I just think Revolution had a more professional look. This looks like it was designed by a programmer, not a designer.

 

[MK26]

it looks nice, but not nice enough to warrant switching from classic blue
also, add 1 to the list of people saying that stage discussion is totally in the wrong place

at least put the brawl in depth section above brawl videos...

 

[Budget Player Cadet_]

it looks nice, but not nice enough to warrant switching from classic blue
also, add 1 to the list of people saying that stage discussion is totally in the wrong place

at least put the brawl in depth section above brawl videos...

Seriously. I'm going to ***** and moan bitterly about stage discussion not being moved into competitive brawl, and I'm going to recommend any other stage discussion regulars do the same. It makes us seem like we're a marginalized, non-competitive group, as opposed to, say, the crux of stage data, guides, and philosophy (which is, believe it or not, fairly important when designing a ruleset, especially when pretty much the only things that change from ruleset to ruleset are stagelist-related!).

 

[Wiscus]

Why is there so much glow? I just happened to go to the home page and wow.
Combined with the very bright buttons, the glow is too much and really distracting, the name glow not as much but it still seems too much. Top banner really doesn't go with anything at all.

Also as fond as I am of the HUGE buttons right now (I'm childish) they are really too bright for most of the people on this site, its a bit twee.....esp for the male 13-whatever number demographic.

 

[Overswarm]

Whoever made this needs to learn about miniamlism. It's kind of standard on, ya know, communication mediums. Like forums.

Here's a few design flaws you have:

Number One: It's size isn't regulated properly or intelligently, vertically or horizontally

That's what I get when I take up exactly half of my widescreen monitor using the windows key shortcut for doing just that. Given that it's kind of the bar when it comes to web design that your website not be so clunky and cumbersome that it needs to be fullscreen to be used, you might want to fix this.

Horizontally, you get jack ****. For HALF MY MONITOR being taken up, you can't read a full post. You have to scroll right and left.

You know where you don't have to do that? ANYWHERE ELSE.

Here's a link to a quick topic from one of my old mafia games (scandalous!). Notice how I can actually read the content? This is AFTER they put in their sidebar advertisements, too. Before it wasn't so smushed. But hey, they still thought ahead about the whole "reading content on their site" thing.

Your site is so freaking fat I didn't even know this existed until I full screened:

What is that side banner for? Why is it so large? Is it important?

Because currently it is managing to be both irrelevant AND obtrusive at the same time. It truncates the actual content (see: forums on a forum) to show..... links to individual posts.

Solution: Get rid of the entire sidebar because it's there for no reason.

Add what you want from the side bar to the TOP banner, where all the other buttons are. I don't know what half-brained nitwit looks at the options at the top of the page and then says "I'll look for more options on the far right side", but they shouldn't be making websites. Or anything at all other people use.

But this IS a lot of information. How do we fit it all in one area while not being cryptic about it's location? If only we had some sort of other forum to look at that could tell us how to truncate it...

BAM. AiB isn't even that good of a site. But it's a helluva better pet project than this, and they were smart enough to realize that shoving too much information out in the open is a bad idea.

Truncate it.

This is just number one and it's taking forever.

Look at this. LOOK AT IT.

Despite being bright easter blue for some ****ing reason, and the buttons not having clear beginnings and endings (mostly fixed by the highlight colors, but they're still a little close), and the actual options being questionable (Why is there a members button there? Calendar? Who USES those?), it's actually not that poorly designed.

You have your variable and important information on the left, where the eye looks first, then you have your options on the right with the most important one being first and the "final option" being log off.... and it is SMALL. The only superfluous space comes from the fact that you made the text and vertical height huge, thus making it take up more space than necessary for simple text, and the site itself is wider than a pregnant hippo, thus giving you an ocean of baby blue.

Going back to the site itself, did you also notice how content was immediately available at the TOP of the page on that quicktopic image? Go back and look at it.

There wasn't a banner with giant buttons, then a banner with more options, then an ad banner, then an announcements box, then a breadcrumb trail, and THEN content.

This is basically criminal when it comes to web design. Those creating this took actually zero thought into actual USAGE of the site. You'll get no sympathy from me. I know you didn't get paid for this. This is still an embarrassment and I hope you don't put it on your resume for anything related to web design. Seriously, I spent the morning laughing at the design with friends and coworkers. People that do this stuff for a living. Sorry, but thems the breaks.

Users first. If you are a website, you are a servant. A butler. You aren't a salesman. If you're a salesman you're loud, bright, and annoying and no one likes you. They put up with you because they have to. If you're a butler, you stand silently off to the side and then the moment the user decides they need something you already have it for them ready and waiting... before they even knew they wanted it.

Number Two: Handicapped options are nice, but not for everyone

Here's a random post from the Bowser boards:

Here's that same post again:

You know why the second one is clearly and obviously better?

It's a butler, not a salesperson. In the first one you're saying HEY YOU WANNA QUOTE I GOT YOUR QUOTES RIGHT HERE I CAN QUOTE WHENEVER YOU WANT YOU WANNA QUOTE RIGHT NOW YOU SHOULD PROBABLY QUOTE RIGHT NOW. In the second, you're letting the user read the content without their eyes constantly being dragged to the bright, giant colorful buttons designed for this guy:

These sizes are for the visually impaired. Not blind, then they'd just be text, but visually impaired. Make them smaller and less dorky.

Large is BAD. View the website as a whole, not in pieces. You take just one aspect of the website and look at it, it'll look awesome. Put them together, they suck.

Number 3: If you don't understand the concept of color, don't use them

This banner looks much better when it isn't the size of alpha centauri, doesn't it?

But we've already talked about how much vertical space it takes up. Did I also mention no one cares about the banner? Because we don't. It isn't cool. It's useless and a waste of space and time for anyone that has to see it more than once. I know everyone likes pretty pictures and cool graphics, but...

Look, did you ever play Final Fantasy 7?

Did you ever use the summons?

What was it like the first time you used one?

What was it like the third time? The tenth? The hundredth?

What about Sephiroth's giant attack that showed it go through the entire ****ing galaxy with a bunch of mathematical equations for some reason. Did you like seeing that the first time? Weren't you immediately enraged the second time he used it?

It's because those moves were salespeople, not butlers. They were trying to sell you on how cool they were and they just tried way too hard. If there's no way to skip the animation or the animation is too long, people get pissed off.

It's the same way with pictures like this. Imagine that every time you logged onto smashboards some HTML5 code fired up and said "We're going to have bowser claw through the screen and breath fire at you, and then mario will jump on his head to knock him unconscious and then a bunch of toads will run on and fix the screen". The first time you see it? Awesome. After that it sucks.

This banner is huge.

I have to see it every time I go here.

I can't ignore it.

I have to scroll down.

It's annoying as hell. It's almost as annoying as if everyone quoted this giant freaking post over and over again which, by the way, they should do. Then when people think "man, it sure is annoying scrolling" a light bulb will click on in their head and they will suddenly realize that they don't want to scroll forever and large banners are bad.


But I digress.

It's a white freaking banner on a black background.

What do you think? It's the new color scheme for my website!

What's that? Bright, glaring opposites are hard on the eyes? That's odd. I always thought staring into a light bulb was fun.

Although, that makes the giant buttons make more sense now.

Your images must look like they belong on the same site. That banner does not belong on a grey and black smashboards.

Number 4: Always design your site for those that use it

There's always a bit of a divide between the newbies and the vets. Doesn't matter in what. This includes website usage and what those users want.

From a newbie perspective, this site doesn't do that bad of a job. If someone sat down with five hours of time and a new account, they could get to most of the information they needed to. This is good. Unfortunately, this is the worst long term design decision you can make.

When making a website, you have to ask yourself: "Are they going to use this once a year, or are they going to use this every day?"

I use Turbo Tax to use my taxes. I see its ads here. I go to its site to do my taxes. Everything is clear and open and easy to find, and it guides me automatically through everything.

You know what happens when I go back to do my taxes and I need to jump to a specific point? I am hindered by their site design. Their site design is HORRIBLE when it comes to jumping the que, and it is horrible because it is designed for those that take things one step at a time and in line.

This is a good move on their part. People will go to this website to use it once a year, forget it every year, and come back fresh. It's constantly being used by new members that want to take things a step at a time. People like me that say "Oh, I needed this form" have to put up with some irritation but it's okay because we aren't the target audience. It's not common.

Smashboards, on the other hand, is used every day by the same people. If someone comes to your site once then doesn't come back, you have failed to keep them around.

That giant bar on the side that would be so awesome for someone that didn't know what was going on? That is AWFUL for vets.

That giant banner that lets you know where you are and has giant buttons with pictures as large as our avatars inside the giant banner? Awful for vets.

Those giant buttons telling us to quote? Awful for vets.

Vets want things to be available when they want them, and out of the way when they don't.

Your job as a web designer is to design for your target audience. You are designing for vets.

Find a way to introduce new members to the site. My suggestion is good navigation, a "start here" page users that aren't logged in, or other such things.

Number 5: What you tell me isn't as important as how you tell me

Do I have a new PM?

How do I know?

I should see a button change from 0 to another number.

I should see a PM come up when I go to User CP.


Simple, right? Unobtrusive, but visible, unless I'm actively looking for it.

How about getting a new post in something you've subscribed in?

Oh.


Well, that's just stupid. Why do you need a giant alert? I understand if the way it is set up that you'll see that in your User CP (even though only new posts show up there anyway), but... those are freaking huge. Like they were designed for another site and just tacked onto this one.

What does it look like when you look at all your posts?

Oh come the **** on.

WHY DO THINGS HAVE TO BE SO LARGE AND OBTRUSIVE?

I just... what?

Wait, why are some of those orange? Why are some red?

Is there a difference? There's no alt text for some reason, which should be around for EVERY IMAGE ON YOUR SITE that needs to explain anything at all.

Your job is simple when making a website. Hard, but simple. This isn't a result of lack of skill or lack of ability; the ability is obviously there. This is a result of a complete and total disregard of purpose, which makes more sense when you realize JV posts "I have decided for you that you shouldn't like something and have taken it away from you for no reason other than I don't think you should like it. Other people might not like it too, and then where would we be?!"

When making a website, you want to do everything softly. Your users are a bunch of spontaneous people with a wide range of desires. You know the saying "You can't please everyone"? That's bull****. You can please everyone. You just don't piss them off and they are happy as a clam.

You guys obviously didn't take a hint from Gizmodo... or Digg... or anywhere else with their "redesign" that ends up killing their website and opening it up to competitors.

DO NOT FORCE YOUR CHANGE UPON PEOPLE.

It's that simple.

You know what approach you should have? The approach of someone who doesn't know exactly what thousands of people want.

The idea that you can take something accepted and successful and decide to change it is nothing new. Improvements can ALWAYS be made. There were broken buttons in lots of places and, since some were removed, gaps that weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. Change is possible and can be good.

But what you CAN'T do is change the entire website and say "THIS IS HOW YOU WILL USE IT" when it is based on user-driven content. Why you would be so arrogant and shortsighted to think that you know what your users would like is, quite frankly, idiotic. It'd be one thing if you were coming from scratch or had a brand new purpose to the site.

If smashboards suddenly changed from a forum to a community site (they are very different), I could see doing that. You've had to have everything change to make the site work, and you couldn't have the old one around.

But you just changed how this one looked. You didn't do anything else, you just made it look worse. Then took away the most popular option and left the crappy options no one uses.

Here's some common sense web design info I found in 10 seconds with a google search:

Text
Background does not interrupt the text
Text is big enough to read, but not too big
The hierarchy of information is perfectly clear
Columns of text are narrower than in a book to make reading easier on the screen

Navigation
Navigation buttons and bars are easy to understand and use
Navigation is consistent throughout web site
Navigation buttons and bars provide the visitor with a clue as to where they are, what page of the site they are currently on
Frames, if used, are not obtrusive

Links
Link colors coordinate with page colors

Graphics
Buttons are not big and dorky
Every graphic has an alt label
Graphics and backgrounds use browser-safe colors
Animated graphics turn off by themselves

General Design
Pages download quickly
First page and home page fit into a reasonable space
All of the other pages have the immediate visual impact within that space
Every web page in the site looks like it belongs to the same site; there are repetitive elements that carry throughout the pages

I understand it can be difficult to make a website and people probably worked really hard on this. But I'm not the teacher forced to give you compliments for mediocre work. I'm a guy who knows what he's talking about and knows the audience you're pandering to.

This site looks like a prototype. If you cut the image sizes down to 1/3rd or maybe 1/4th their size, it would be a lot more manageable.

You need to test this site on multiple browsers, multiple resolutions, and multiple window sizes. You need to lower the screen width so the browser doesn't have to be full screen to make the site useable. You need to fix the colors of the buttons, banners, and make that banner not bright blue.

Be a butler, not a salesperson.

 

[Deleted member]

Wiscus:
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=12482197&postcount=151

you need the second block to remove the glow.


EDIT (almost doublepost whoops)

Overswarn I applaud you. (yes I read the entire thing)

 

[Wiscus]

Thanks Tpk, I missed that somehow.

Also Overswarms post is brilliant please dont tl;dr it.

 

[Overswarm]

Wiscus:
http://www.smashboards.com/showpost.php?p=12482197&postcount=151

you need the second block to remove the glow

Explain how this works and on what browsers.

 

[Deleted member]

you mean how as in "why does that line of CSS do what I said it does" or as in "how do I get this to work"? for the former, no clue since flayl (sorry for probably misspelling) found that line, for the latter, stylish plugin for chrome/FF.

as for the second question, I know it works in chrome (since I use that lol) and iirc flayl uses FF so it hsould work on that too.

 

[clowsui]

while i dig the whole new look of everything i see OS' point, long term idk how much i'll like this lol

 

[King Funk]

I'm quite dissapointed with this new look and I agree with most things that Overswarm said. I wish that among the skins you can choose in the bottom of the site you could use the old one. Quite funny that OS used a random post of mine from Bowser Boards lmfao.

 

[Beat!]

Overswarm is officially my hero.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I fully agree with what Overswarm said.

Please give us the old skin back. Like, right this very moment. Just, switch it back instantly. This looks like a little kid's form with all of the bright colours and giant buttons. We've gone from looking like a tournament scene, to a grade schoolers' Nintendo Fan Club. Terrible design is terrible...it's just....why would anything think this is good...just change it back already and pretend this never happened. It doesn't look modern: who was the idiot who said that? It looks like somebody tried to cram as many colours into a single page as possible. You know what modern, well made websites look like? Uniform and not like a mini-acid trip.

Fire the dudes who made this, don't even let them touch the controls again. Sheesh this is just terrible. I hate the more and more I look at it.

 

[King Funk]

Make the old one the default one and the new one an option in the menu below.

 

[Lore]

Overswarm, I agree with everything you just said, and it hit the nail on the head. If it gets ignored and we're stuck with this skin, at least you tried.

-Still using mobile skin-

So yeah, I want revolution back. I'm tired of acting like this is Kotaku and using the mobile skin.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Man, I just looked through all of the available skins: they are all terrible. Give us back the one that actually works.

The old revolution default is no longer selectable. It is a poor representation of the community, and after experiencing both I cannot honestly see why someone would rather use it.

Hey, here's a hint: we would rather use it because it doesn't look like a freaking rainbow and actually makes sense to use it.

 

[Lore]

I mean, the new skin is usable and the home screen is almost decent, but like OS said, there are just a lot of things wrong with it.

I don't mind the coloring, but like I said, there are just a lot of little wrong things that drive me crazy.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

The only reason it's "usable" is because it's the lessor of the evils. This is what happens when you try to fix something that isn't broken: you make a mess of things.

It's just...so bad. Why do we need a rainbow of colours with oversized buttons, a giant sidebar taking up valuable screen space, and clashing colours? It reminds me of one of those badly made games you run into frequently on Addicting Games or Armor Games. You know, the ones that instantly get a bad rating because there was obviously very little time put into it? The only time the bright colours work are in fact for a little kid's site, like said the LEGO website or maybe something like Neopets. Not sure about the last one, they may actually be aiming for a higher age group than the one you use this kind of button colour scheme for.

The sidebar? It looks like giant ad. Why does the SSBM and SSB64 backrooms need to be advertised? It's not like they do much of anything: their metagames are basically done. And believe it or not, I can find the SSBB stuff easily enough thank you very much. If you really feel the need to make those links easily accessible for newcomers, add a drop down menu to that hideous blue bar (after changing the colour of course), with a tab name of "Important Backroom Related Links" or something like that (but shorter). Under that, have the official rule set, tier list, ect. There ya go: makes perfect sense, and isn't a cluster.

Old one needs to be brought back ASAP, the current one is just a laughing stock.

 

[ihavespaceblondes]

I found a slightly less obtrusive skin (based on Miku of all things) after the switch last night, but it was gone as of this morning... really? Oh, and the front page is still messed up for me, everything's bunched up on the right (as people have complained about already).

Oh, and last but not least, Overswarm is fantastic as always.

 

[Vigilante]

I also agree. Too clunky, too large, bad dimensions. I had to change to Smash blue, because the text would be too small if I put the window to my widescreen laptop's size. It's that bad.

Furthermore, Brawl overepresentation. I'm not saying you should not have Brawl pictures, but Melee is also a living community and so is N64. This is Smashboards, not Brawlboards. I'd prefer an actual 3-gen montage over a huge brawl thing. If I wasn't accustomed to this forum and saw this, as a Melee player, I'd instantly click "back"

I say make the banner on top MUCH smaller and put the announcements boxes in a closed box. When you click on it, you can unveil it. You have to scroll down too much.

Or better yet, keep it simple.

 

[Deleted member]

where did the report button go in vibrant?

 

[Overswarm]

Old one needs to be brought back ASAP, the current one is just a laughing stalk.

Stock.

Laughingstock.

 

[shanus]

(11:45:32 AM) shanus: it could be tidied up pretty easily
(11:45:45 AM) shanus: shrink banner, shrink buttons (all of them), unify the color palette
(11:45:54 AM) shanus: get rid of obtruse top and side bars
(11:45:57 AM) shanus: resize properly
(11:45:58 AM) shanus: bam, done
(11:46:18 AM) shanus: like the quote buttons and post reply, all make them a soft blue/grey
(11:46:30 AM) shanus: banner up top, also dark grey background, make half theheight
(11:46:37 AM) shanus: allow for minimizing the news announcements
(11:47:16 AM) standardtoaster: but what about those who don't like/want change
(11:47:18 AM) standardtoaster:
(11:47:27 AM) shanus: add back revolution option
(11:47:29 AM) shanus: there
(11:47:33 AM) shanus: no need to whine
(11:47:41 AM) shanus: people act like the sky is falling when its really easy to fix it up

 

[#HBC | Red Ryu]

I like this set-up, Good work Bionic and MMM.

 

[Lore]

Exactly, Shanus! Even though I still want rev back, vibrant can be easy to fix.

Also, I just noticed that a few boards like the BR are missing. Where did they go?

 

[MetalMusicMan]

I like this set-up, Good work Bionic and MMM.

Thanks

Also, I just noticed that a few boards like the BR are missing. Where did they go?

Not missing, just at the bottom under "password protected".

 

[MK26]

Whoever made this needs to learn about miniamlism. It's kind of standard on, ya know, communication mediums. Like forums.

Here's a few design flaws you have:

Number One: It's size isn't regulated properly or intelligently, vertically or horizontally

That's what I get when I take up exactly half of my widescreen monitor using the windows key shortcut for doing just that. Given that it's kind of the bar when it comes to web design that your website not be so clunky and cumbersome that it needs to be fullscreen to be used, you might want to fix this.

Horizontally, you get jack ****. For HALF MY MONITOR being taken up, you can't read a full post. You have to scroll right and left.

You know where you don't have to do that? ANYWHERE ELSE.

Here's a link to a quick topic from one of my old mafia games (scandalous!). Notice how I can actually read the content? This is AFTER they put in their sidebar advertisements, too. Before it wasn't so smushed. But hey, they still thought ahead about the whole "reading content on their site" thing.

Your site is so freaking fat I didn't even know this existed until I full screened:

What is that side banner for? Why is it so large? Is it important?

Because currently it is managing to be both irrelevant AND obtrusive at the same time. It truncates the actual content (see: forums on a forum) to show..... links to individual posts.

Solution: Get rid of the entire sidebar because it's there for no reason.

Add what you want from the side bar to the TOP banner, where all the other buttons are. I don't know what half-brained nitwit looks at the options at the top of the page and then says "I'll look for more options on the far right side", but they shouldn't be making websites. Or anything at all other people use.

But this IS a lot of information. How do we fit it all in one area while not being cryptic about it's location? If only we had some sort of other forum to look at that could tell us how to truncate it...

BAM. AiB isn't even that good of a site. But it's a helluva better pet project than this, and they were smart enough to realize that shoving too much information out in the open is a bad idea.

Truncate it.

This is just number one and it's taking forever.

Look at this. LOOK AT IT.

Despite being bright easter blue for some ****ing reason, and the buttons not having clear beginnings and endings (mostly fixed by the highlight colors, but they're still a little close), and the actual options being questionable (Why is there a members button there? Calendar? Who USES those?), it's actually not that poorly designed.

You have your variable and important information on the left, where the eye looks first, then you have your options on the right with the most important one being first and the "final option" being log off.... and it is SMALL. The only superfluous space comes from the fact that you made the text and vertical height huge, thus making it take up more space than necessary for simple text, and the site itself is wider than a pregnant hippo, thus giving you an ocean of baby blue.

Going back to the site itself, did you also notice how content was immediately available at the TOP of the page on that quicktopic image? Go back and look at it.

There wasn't a banner with giant buttons, then a banner with more options, then an ad banner, then an announcements box, then a breadcrumb trail, and THEN content.

This is basically criminal when it comes to web design. Those creating this took actually zero thought into actual USAGE of the site. You'll get no sympathy from me. I know you didn't get paid for this. This is still an embarrassment and I hope you don't put it on your resume for anything related to web design. Seriously, I spent the morning laughing at the design with friends and coworkers. People that do this stuff for a living. Sorry, but thems the breaks.

Users first. If you are a website, you are a servant. A butler. You aren't a salesman. If you're a salesman you're loud, bright, and annoying and no one likes you. They put up with you because they have to. If you're a butler, you stand silently off to the side and then the moment the user decides they need something you already have it for them ready and waiting... before they even knew they wanted it.

Number Two: Handicapped options are nice, but not for everyone

Here's a random post from the Bowser boards:

Here's that same post again:

You know why the second one is clearly and obviously better?

It's a butler, not a salesperson. In the first one you're saying HEY YOU WANNA QUOTE I GOT YOUR QUOTES RIGHT HERE I CAN QUOTE WHENEVER YOU WANT YOU WANNA QUOTE RIGHT NOW YOU SHOULD PROBABLY QUOTE RIGHT NOW. In the second, you're letting the user read the content without their eyes constantly being dragged to the bright, giant colorful buttons designed for this guy:

These sizes are for the visually impaired. Not blind, then they'd just be text, but visually impaired. Make them smaller and less dorky.

Large is BAD. View the website as a whole, not in pieces. You take just one aspect of the website and look at it, it'll look awesome. Put them together, they suck.

Number 3: If you don't understand the concept of color, don't use them

This banner looks much better when it isn't the size of alpha centauri, doesn't it?

But we've already talked about how much vertical space it takes up. Did I also mention no one cares about the banner? Because we don't. It isn't cool. It's useless and a waste of space and time for anyone that has to see it more than once. I know everyone likes pretty pictures and cool graphics, but...

Look, did you ever play Final Fantasy 7?

Did you ever use the summons?

What was it like the first time you used one?

What was it like the third time? The tenth? The hundredth?

What about Sephiroth's giant attack that showed it go through the entire ****ing galaxy with a bunch of mathematical equations for some reason. Did you like seeing that the first time? Weren't you immediately enraged the second time he used it?

It's because those moves were salespeople, not butlers. They were trying to sell you on how cool they were and they just tried way too hard. If there's no way to skip the animation or the animation is too long, people get pissed off.

It's the same way with pictures like this. Imagine that every time you logged onto smashboards some HTML5 code fired up and said "We're going to have bowser claw through the screen and breath fire at you, and then mario will jump on his head to knock him unconscious and then a bunch of toads will run on and fix the screen". The first time you see it? Awesome. After that it sucks.

This banner is huge.

I have to see it every time I go here.

I can't ignore it.

I have to scroll down.

It's annoying as hell. It's almost as annoying as if everyone quoted this giant freaking post over and over again which, by the way, they should do. Then when people think "man, it sure is annoying scrolling" a light bulb will click on in their head and they will suddenly realize that they don't want to scroll forever and large banners are bad.


But I digress.

It's a white freaking banner on a black background.

What do you think? It's the new color scheme for my website!

What's that? Bright, glaring opposites are hard on the eyes? That's odd. I always thought staring into a light bulb was fun.

Although, that makes the giant buttons make more sense now.

Your images must look like they belong on the same site. That banner does not belong on a grey and black smashboards.

Number 4: Always design your site for those that use it

There's always a bit of a divide between the newbies and the vets. Doesn't matter in what. This includes website usage and what those users want.

From a newbie perspective, this site doesn't do that bad of a job. If someone sat down with five hours of time and a new account, they could get to most of the information they needed to. This is good. Unfortunately, this is the worst long term design decision you can make.

When making a website, you have to ask yourself: "Are they going to use this once a year, or are they going to use this every day?"

I use Turbo Tax to use my taxes. I see its ads here. I go to its site to do my taxes. Everything is clear and open and easy to find, and it guides me automatically through everything.

You know what happens when I go back to do my taxes and I need to jump to a specific point? I am hindered by their site design. Their site design is HORRIBLE when it comes to jumping the que, and it is horrible because it is designed for those that take things one step at a time and in line.

This is a good move on their part. People will go to this website to use it once a year, forget it every year, and come back fresh. It's constantly being used by new members that want to take things a step at a time. People like me that say "Oh, I needed this form" have to put up with some irritation but it's okay because we aren't the target audience. It's not common.

Smashboards, on the other hand, is used every day by the same people. If someone comes to your site once then doesn't come back, you have failed to keep them around.

That giant bar on the side that would be so awesome for someone that didn't know what was going on? That is AWFUL for vets.

That giant banner that lets you know where you are and has giant buttons with pictures as large as our avatars inside the giant banner? Awful for vets.

Those giant buttons telling us to quote? Awful for vets.

Vets want things to be available when they want them, and out of the way when they don't.

Your job as a web designer is to design for your target audience. You are designing for vets.

Find a way to introduce new members to the site. My suggestion is good navigation, a "start here" page users that aren't logged in, or other such things.

Number 5: What you tell me isn't as important as how you tell me

Do I have a new PM?

How do I know?

I should see a button change from 0 to another number.

I should see a PM come up when I go to User CP.


Simple, right? Unobtrusive, but visible, unless I'm actively looking for it.

How about getting a new post in something you've subscribed in?

Oh.


Well, that's just stupid. Why do you need a giant alert? I understand if the way it is set up that you'll see that in your User CP (even though only new posts show up there anyway), but... those are freaking huge. Like they were designed for another site and just tacked onto this one.

What does it look like when you look at all your posts?

Oh come the **** on.

WHY DO THINGS HAVE TO BE SO LARGE AND OBTRUSIVE?

I just... what?

Wait, why are some of those orange? Why are some red?

Is there a difference? There's no alt text for some reason, which should be around for EVERY IMAGE ON YOUR SITE that needs to explain anything at all.

Your job is simple when making a website. Hard, but simple. This isn't a result of lack of skill or lack of ability; the ability is obviously there. This is a result of a complete and total disregard of purpose, which makes more sense when you realize JV posts "I have decided for you that you shouldn't like something and have taken it away from you for no reason other than I don't think you should like it. Other people might not like it too, and then where would we be?!"

When making a website, you want to do everything softly. Your users are a bunch of spontaneous people with a wide range of desires. You know the saying "You can't please everyone"? That's bull****. You can please everyone. You just don't piss them off and they are happy as a clam.

You guys obviously didn't take a hint from Gizmodo... or Digg... or anywhere else with their "redesign" that ends up killing their website and opening it up to competitors.

DO NOT FORCE YOUR CHANGE UPON PEOPLE.

It's that simple.

You know what approach you should have? The approach of someone who doesn't know exactly what thousands of people want.

The idea that you can take something accepted and successful and decide to change it is nothing new. Improvements can ALWAYS be made. There were broken buttons in lots of places and, since some were removed, gaps that weren't exactly aesthetically pleasing. Change is possible and can be good.

But what you CAN'T do is change the entire website and say "THIS IS HOW YOU WILL USE IT" when it is based on user-driven content. Why you would be so arrogant and shortsighted to think that you know what your users would like is, quite frankly, idiotic. It'd be one thing if you were coming from scratch or had a brand new purpose to the site.

If smashboards suddenly changed from a forum to a community site (they are very different), I could see doing that. You've had to have everything change to make the site work, and you couldn't have the old one around.

But you just changed how this one looked. You didn't do anything else, you just made it look worse. Then took away the most popular option and left the crappy options no one uses.

Here's some common sense web design info I found in 10 seconds with a google search:



I understand it can be difficult to make a website and people probably worked really hard on this. But I'm not the teacher forced to give you compliments for mediocre work. I'm a guy who knows what he's talking about and knows the audience you're pandering to.

This site looks like a prototype. If you cut the image sizes down to 1/3rd or maybe 1/4th their size, it would be a lot more manageable.

You need to test this site on multiple browsers, multiple resolutions, and multiple window sizes. You need to lower the screen width so the browser doesn't have to be full screen to make the site useable. You need to fix the colors of the buttons, banners, and make that banner not bright blue.

Be a butler, not a salesperson.

*applause*

as he says, everyone should quote this post in full.

 

[Nidtendofreak]

Exactly, Shanus! Even though I still want rev back, vibrant can be easy to fix.

Sure, it's fixable: nearly anything is fixable. But it shouldn't have to be fixable in the first place. It's not as if everybody was pressuring them to hurry up and make the thing; and yet they missed out on basic things like colour coordinating and sizing.

It's also a large disappointment that whoever arrived of the forced site wide change of removing revolution for vibrant did not point out the glaring flaws and go "Fix that". Bright is not good. Awkward sizing is not good. Oversized banners and meaningless sidebars are not good. Missing obvious features like the ability to collapse things is not good. It's an obvious rush job, shown in the poor quality of the product. They made an eyesore out of something that did not need to be changed.

 

[Overswarm]

Hey guys, hope you aren't part of the 43.55% of people that use internet explorer. I've gotta use it at work a lot and have discovered you can't even scroll to see the rest of the text. You have to resize the window.

Sloppy sloppy.

 

[clowsui]

It's not as if everybody was pressuring them to hurry up and make the thing; and yet they missed out on basic things like colour coordinating and sizing.

I don't think this is a fair statement to make unless you're part of top level decision making at smashboards

 

[Nidtendofreak]

I don't think this is a fair statement to make unless you're part of top level decision making at smashboards

I said "Everybody". That includes people not in the top level, but just basic members like us. I have no clue what was going on at the top level: they could have been pressuring the two of them for sure, though it would have been a very stupid decision to make. A stupidity showing in spades now. I mean, if it really doesn't work for well for anybody using IE...I cannot help but laugh rather loudly. It's not like IE is something rarely used like Opera.

 

[GwJ]

I like the new theme.....but where's my quick reply button on each post?

 

[Deleted member]

bottom right.


...oh