The Org Redesign - Design...

[Zarxrax]

Here is a rough concept of how I envision a future org, with a full redesign.
Forgive the ugliness.



The basic concept is to have community and viewer oriented features available right in the front page from a tab interface. All other pages are accessed through a top menu.

The new videos page would list the 10 or so most recently uploaded videos. Donators would get some options to tweak this, filtering by star count and star rating (so you can avoid the crap videos)
Subscriptions would basically be like the alerts.

The feedback area would be a page that displays all incoming and outgoing feedback from opionions, and comments left on videos, and replies to your comments. There would be options to filter by certain types.

The journal section shows your journal buddies, or if you like, all recent journals, and also lets you view/write your own.

Then the forum tab can show you the most recent posts, so you can quickly see if anything interesting is being posted.

I was also considering some tabs like "top videos" (based on top star scale with more options) or "recommended videos" (using the recommendation engine), but i think these probably dont belong front and center. They could be in the menus somewhere instead.

[Enigma]

If the redesign ever happens, would there be an optional feature to use the old design ?

[Corran]

If the redesign ever happens, would there be an optional feature to use the old design ?

One of the reasons for a re-write is to make it easier to write code because it is currently a pain. Maintaining multiple layouts would be a headache, not only because you have to update two sets of code simultaneously, but you also need to make sure both versions work in all browsers. For the sanity of those working on the site I would strongly urge that focus be on a single layout/theme.

If feasible, user-submitted style sheets may be doable, but care would need to be taken so that users can easily revert to the main theme if the custom theme ever breaks due to site changes.

[Fall_Child42]

Here is a rough concept of how I envision a future org, with a full redesign.
Forgive the ugliness.

Quoted Image converted to link:
http://oi52.tinypic.com/33dicgn.jpg

The basic concept is to have community and viewer oriented features available right in the front page from a tab interface. All other pages are accessed through a top menu.

The new videos page would list the 10 or so most recently uploaded videos. Donators would get some options to tweak this, filtering by star count and star rating (so you can avoid the crap videos)
Subscriptions would basically be like the alerts.

The feedback area would be a page that displays all incoming and outgoing feedback from opionions, and comments left on videos, and replies to your comments. There would be options to filter by certain types.

The journal section shows your journal buddies, or if you like, all recent journals, and also lets you view/write your own.

Then the forum tab can show you the most recent posts, so you can quickly see if anything interesting is being posted.

I was also considering some tabs like "top videos" (based on top star scale with more options) or "recommended videos" (using the recommendation engine), but i think these probably dont belong front and center. They could be in the menus somewhere instead.

I actually really like that, it looks very similar to the web page i linked to in some other thread but meant to link to here.
http://www.kongregate.com/

I also hope there is an option to keep it exactly as you drew it.

[Qyot27]

I could live with that as well, except for the fact that it's too wide and goes off the right side of my browser window.

The width is 950 pixels... which is less than the 960 defacto standard used by sites such as yahoo, msn, facebook, youtube, amazon, etc.

What about percentage-based layout rather than pixel-based? The only problem I can see with that is needing to make sure things don't get squashed if the viewing resolution is under a certain width. I only remember the % vs. px distinction being part of the courses I took on Web Design, can't remember how it reacted on non-expected rezzes. The normal site (not the proposed) did look rather odd when I had one of my CRTs set on 1280x1024 as it had a bunch of free space off to either side of the site's main content. 1920x1200 would be even worse. A percentage-based layout would be able to expand as needed on higher rez displays so the information isn't so concentrated into a small area on the screen.

If percentage-based layout and squishing on lower resolutions occurs, is there anything on the PHP side to automatically adjust to a pixel format? Me not knowing how PHP works, mind you, could it take the %-based layout when displayed at the 950px current standard and simply solidify that for lower resolutions...so that there's not an actual second layout to maintain?

[Corran]

I could live with that as well, except for the fact that it's too wide and goes off the right side of my browser window.

The width is 950 pixels... which is less than the 960 defacto standard used by sites such as yahoo, msn, facebook, youtube, amazon, etc.

What about percentage-based layout rather than pixel-based? The only problem I can see with that is needing to make sure things don't get squashed if the viewing resolution is under a certain width. I only remember the % vs. px distinction being part of the courses I took on Web Design, can't remember how it reacted on non-expected rezzes. The normal site (not the proposed) did look rather odd when I had one of my CRTs set on 1280x1024 as it had a bunch of free space off to either side of the site's main content. 1920x1200 would be even worse. A percentage-based layout would be able to expand as needed on higher rez displays so the information isn't so concentrated into a small area on the screen.

If percentage-based layout and squishing on lower resolutions occurs, is there anything on the PHP side to automatically adjust to a pixel format? Me not knowing how PHP works, mind you, could it take the %-based layout when displayed at the 950px current standard and simply solidify that for lower resolutions...so that there's not an actual second layout to maintain?

When I made that mockup I used Compass which in turn uses Blueprint, a grid based CSS "framework". This, along with the fact that I don't know how to make the horizontal menu scale appropriately in a liquid layout are the reasons for using the grid-based layout.

While I don't really see a problem with using a common grid-based implementation, if someone can successfully design a liquid layout that is not overly restrictive then that is a possibility too... There should be a max-width and min-width constraint or else content will be too sparse on large screens or a jumbled mess on small screens.

[godix]

I like Corrans layout. Visually similar to what we currently have, organized well, I like the drop down menu instead of the collapsible menus we have now (which are still far better than non-collapsible menus though). Only suggestion I'd have is replace that 'Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur...' stuff with a couple of those preview thingies that Corran did.

[Elcalavero]

[Knowname]

Donate should be changed to "Dough"nate and Forum should be changed to Phorum....

[Knowname]

Corran mentioned personalized style sheets and, I don't know what that is :3 but it really sounds cool we can be like myspace/ facebook (to a degree)/ youtube (to the same degree... but kinda' inverse... as in you have little to no control over the structure, but you CAN mess with the b/g color ) and have one basic template and just let everybody customize their own home page however they want. I personally don't really care, but I wish it would just keep with one, one basic templates without unnecisary updates .

Actually I hate when ppl mess with their b/g color, as (especially in myspace) they usually mess it up. I've not seen a youtube or livejournal messed up so bad I couldn't even read it. Facebook updates their 'customizable' structure a lot thus I don't really think it's all that customizable... but it is somewhat (w/ the banners and what not you get and even the ads that get blocked), I guess. I just am VERY resistant to change if you get my drift ^_^