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Big Change Coming

There will be downtime early AM Tuesday, might last an hour or so. In the morning, things will be a bit different. :)

I don't mean to be stupid but...

Are things done?
Where did my ArtTools go?
Do the tab-buttons remaining have to be on the left?

The changes to the forums are less odd to me, though still odd...

If it helps, I'm using Netscape 7.2 and things look very odd and clunky. I guess I can try to login in Firefox when I get home from work. :/

Things are still mildly in flux. I think Netscape might have slipped through the browsers we tested on, although I will prod someone to do that and see if things are drastically different, and if so, try to fix them.

ArtTools are still there, just under Home and divided into the Prints, Commissions, and Stats tabs. I know all this is a bit of a drastic reorganization, and the left-to-right thing took me a little getting used to, even though I made the decision to do it, mostly because I was so used to things being on the right.

Thanks for bringing up your concerns, and I invite anyone else to do so as well.

I like it! The forum seems a bit minimalistic, but I think I'll get used to the new look quick enough.

The forums seem extremely bare and just, well feel a bit unfriendly to me now. It's just a smattering of text on a grey background. My Settings is far nicer though my gallery seems really bare at the top now without my description. Other galleries though seem a bit crowded at the top in comparsion with "watches" and "favorites" visable like that.

I do realise I am short sighted but the text is HUGE in settings so I'd be grateful for a smaller size on that front :) I am half asleep (Going to sleep) ast the moment so I'm afraid my cosntructiveness isn't at an all high currently. I'll see if I can make it make more sense in the morning.

I REEEEALLY preferred the Nav tabs on the other side, and now I can't make heads or tails of the Forum's organization--there just aren't enough visual cues for me to follow.

Eh - any reason the "ArtTools" section is called "Home"? When I think "Home" my thoughts are "Main Page of the site". Even calling it "My Prefs" or "My Startpage" would make more intuitive sense... Otherwise, the "Home" section is very useful.

I still prefer the tabs on the right, rather than the left.

The forums are more sparse-looking and barren-feeling with the new style. But the "last post made X hours ago" feature is fabulous and much appreciated.

I agree about the forums. i preferred the color coding as to which forums had new additions. now i have to check each one individually! not fun :(

Thanks for being so on the ball with addressing our issues though. it really is refreshing.

Thornwolf said: I agree about the forums. i preferred the color coding as to which forums had new additions. now i have to check each one individually! not fun :(

I second this. The color coding was a quick way for me to see if there was anything I needed to check up on.

Thirded. I like to see the timeliness of posts, and what has been added to since I have been here last. The forums have not been all that active of late, and it's a help to be able to check what has been said recently.

THe other problem is that there is too much negative space, and it takes up too much screen real estate. Not good for casual browsing at work among multiple windows and apps.

However the other changes to art tools I do approve of, they look nice.

Scott

Scott Ruggels said: Thirded. I like to see the timeliness of posts, and what has been added to since I have been here last. The forums have not been all that active of late, and it's a help to be able to check what has been said recently.

THe other problem is that there is too much negative space, and it takes up too much screen real estate. Not good for casual browsing at work among multiple windows and apps.

However the other changes to art tools I do approve of, they look nice.

Scott

I agree to this as well, it takes a lot more scrolling to see all of the forums. Even a smaller font would help IMO.

Klawzie said:
If it helps, I'm using Netscape 7.2 and things look very odd and clunky. I guess I can try to login in Firefox when I get home from work. :/

I checked the site out under Netscape 7.2, and everything worked like it shoud... except the tabs. For some reason they are compressed together. I will look into it at some point, once we get a few other issues ironed out. Like, apparently, the forums. :)

Nocte said: I like it! The forum seems a bit minimalistic, but I think I'll get used to the new look quick enough.

We were going for that. We actually stole the idea from another forum, and they used a term to describe what many forum packages suffer from: chartjunk.

In a nutshell, what information really needs to be displayed and what is extraneous? Are visual elements extraneous too? And what elements on a page are the most important? So we simplified. It is a bit of an experiment, sure, since many forums are of the box-within-box-within-box model, but it also seems to be where the future of easily-readable web design is going.

Danielle Williams said: I REEEEALLY preferred the Nav tabs on the other side, and now I can't make heads or tails of the Forum's organization--there just aren't enough visual cues for me to follow.

The nav tabs do take a little getting used to, and that is to be expected since everyone using the site was accustomed to them being on the right. However, there is some data that backs up the reasoning we went from left-to-right in the long run: http://www.useit.com/alertbox/reading_pattern.html

Regarding the forums, they are pretty much the same design as before, just without so many boxes. The topic and message pages are laid out the same, but the main Forum list was the most drastically changed. I just added a small (but obvious) visual cue to show which groups have new posts in them, though. :) Regarding topics and messages, what visual cues do you think are missing that we could add?

Karu Dragon said: The forums seem extremely bare and just, well feel a bit unfriendly to me now. It's just a smattering of text on a grey background. My Settings is far nicer though my gallery seems really bare at the top now without my description. Other galleries though seem a bit crowded at the top in comparsion with "watches" and "favorites" visable like that.

Scott Ruggels said:THe other problem is that there is too much negative space, and it takes up too much screen real estate. Not good for casual browsing at work among multiple windows and apps.

Hopefully the negative space problem is somewhat fixed now. I made the main forum list the same width as the rest of the topics and messages. They're a little closer together, a bit easier to read (you guys were right) and also as I mentioned added a 'New Posts' in bright green to show a group with new posts. On the other hand, this now leaves a 'sidebar' space on the right which is blank, but I'm sure we can fill that up with fun stuff to make the forums seem more friendly. :)

Thornwolf said:I agree to this as well, it takes a lot more scrolling to see all of the forums. Even a smaller font would help IMO.

I tightened up the forum group spacing on the main list. Hopefully this helps some. (Shrinking the font size of the title didn't work, because the info on the left kept the space relatively the same height.)

Indeed, we are hitting a few bumps. :) We'll work on what we can.

Klawzie said: Eh - any reason the "ArtTools" section is called "Home"? When I think "Home" my thoughts are "Main Page of the site". Even calling it "My Prefs" or "My Startpage" would make more intuitive sense... Otherwise, the "Home" section is very useful.

Home is going to be more than just ArtTools. That section isn't quite completed. You're right about the name, and it may change before we are done, even if it's only to "My Home" or somesuch. Eventually, it is going to be the your site in a nutshell. Uploads from favorite artists, new comments, commissions that are coming up to be due, etc. Sort of like an 'information panel' page. We moved a lot of tabs under there because the top level was getting too cluttered, and it was hard to find the pages on managing watched artists and such.

The main forum page does look a bit better bit on my half asleep point prior, it however still feels a bit of a smattering of text on a grey background :S It just feels so bare now, it's gonna take me a lot to get used to but it is nice the sections feel like sections again 'sted of this random floaty text everywhere.

I do seem to however been blocked from clicking Home to get to my own gallery which is solely on Jax. I tend to go via Artspots purely as I check out the recents on here more mind. I'm also still a bit dwarved by WE BE GIANTS settings text. Yes I see new options and I get tempted to click, I admit it. But on that note, would you consider adding MSN to that list? It's the only one I use since the others either crashed or tried to take the computer down for my install trouble.

My final (yet again half asleep) point, would it be possible on that mini profile dealie thats now there to show the country you're in? Anybody who sees Beckingham on mine will have no clue what the heck it is, heck most people here in the UK don't.

Thanks for listening and adjusting things though, the little preview button is a lovely little addition :)

Karu Dragon said:My Settings is far nicer though my gallery seems really bare at the top now without my description. Other galleries though seem a bit crowded at the top in comparsion with "watches" and "favorites" visable like that.

This just gave me an idea.

First of all though, the reason we changed the gallery header page was becuase it was something a lot of people really wanted. There are several good artists who just had no interest in the site because of the lack of interconnectivity. So we added some of that. It was a challenge to come up with a way that wasn't horribly laid-out like some other gallery sites. We wanted to display all that information and still keep at least the first gallery partially, if not fully, 'above the fold.' Plus, it was hard for people to find someone's favorites, so now that's easier to find too. Simple yet functional is still what we strive for. :)

The reason watches and faves don't show up on your own gallery is because, well, we figure you already know who you are watching and what art you've faved. ;) So the focus is on tending to your gallery.

Why the gallery is so bare on top is so we can add stuff there. For example, and I don't mean to single out Thornwolf, but she was the first I clicked on to have this active:

http://thornwolf.artspots.com/

Because she has a link to her LJ, it picks up the RSS feed and displays the newest couple entries. People wanted journal features, well, why duplicate a journal and announce to two places that you're offering commissions when you can post to one and get the same result?

Now my next great challenge is to fix our commission system so that artists are actually interested in using it more instead of managing everything through a journal. ;) I'll put out a call for improvements on that once we take care of the current batch.

Anyway, the idea I had: If there is no journal link, just put the artist statement there instead, or put some sort of selection to let people choose. The artist statement still shows up on the new profile pages, as well as the blog link.

Babbage C. Cheetah said:
(...) I tightened up the forum group spacing on the main list. Hopefully this helps some. (Shrinking the font size of the title didn't work, because the info on the left kept the space relatively the same height.)

Maybe this has been considered already, but now that the right column is wider, can't you use this extra space? The "in Big Change Coming / by Babbage C. Cheetah" bit could fit on one line, for example. Combined with a smaller font for the title, this could make more rows fit on the screen.

Karu Dragon said:I do seem to however been blocked from clicking Home to get to my own gallery which is solely on Jax. I tend to go via Artspots purely as I check out the recents on here more mind. I'm also still a bit dwarved by WE BE GIANTS settings text. Yes I see new options and I get tempted to click, I admit it. But on that note, would you consider adding MSN to that list? It's the only one I use since the others either crashed or tried to take the computer down for my install trouble.

My final (yet again half asleep) point, would it be possible on that mini profile dealie thats now there to show the country you're in? Anybody who sees Beckingham on mine will have no clue what the heck it is, heck most people here in the UK don't.

Thanks for listening and adjusting things though, the little preview button is a lovely little addition :)

No problem! You make many good points, and I will look into addressing them.

Regarding the large text, that is something I'll have to think about. Larger equals friendlier. :) On a 1024x768 screen, many of the settings forms fit (mostly) into a single window. If it is larger than that for you, I would need some more info as in platform/browser and if you have the text enlarged already or such.

Ah so that's where the journal link popped up from, I was wondering a bit but since I never seem to use my LJ or blog (Partly from the computer problems, partly the sites themselves throwing fits about me logging in) it never clicked :) If at all possible to have my little profile dealie there insted, it would certianly "fill it out" a bit more on my case.

The new edition is gonna be popping little hidden nick nacks for days now I suspect.

Hm giant text, it seems to be about font 20 or a smidge bigger in Word on Arial glancing between the two. I'm using Firefox currently on the latest update and my monitor is the size you mentioned above. The fact I can read the text with my glasses off (I'm short sighted so my vision is very blurry and out of focus without) no problem is a testement to the size when I can only just make out say the text search in the search box without them on.

It only seems giant in personal settings and the two boxes, Display Name and Email Address. Ah and spotted another, email is also the same giant size in the Commission email address.

If they start dancing I will be worried.