[Feedback Wanted] Proposed Frontpage Changes

Which font(s) out of the five do you like? You may pick more than one.

  • Font #1

    Votes: 2 22.2%
  • Font #2

    Votes: 5 55.6%
  • Font #3

    Votes: 1 11.1%
  • Font #4

    Votes: 5 55.6%
  • Font #5

    Votes: 1 11.1%
  • None. Go back to the old font!

    Votes: 1 11.1%

  • Total voters
    9

NetRyder

Tech Junkie
Joined
19 Apr 2002
Messages
13,256
Hey all,

I posted a proposed frontpage design change in the mod section last night, and thought it would be nice to open it to the community today for thoughts, comments, and feedback.

Remember that this is an evolutionary change to the existing design, and a work in progress, in the hopes that we can make the frontpage look and feel cleaner and more consistent. :)

List of changes so far:
  • Use of the new Segoe UI font (12px) for Windows Vista and Office 2007 users; fallback to Arial for those who don't have the font installed.
  • Use of the orange Firefox/IE7 RSS button.
  • New replacements for the top buttons (Windows Vista, Folding, OSNN Mobile, and OSNN IRC) with a Glass-like blur effect.
  • New quotes image for news posts.
  • New Vista-esque "Comments" button.
  • Simpler, cleaner node headers.
  • Background color of nodes has been changed to a blueish-grey for consistency.
  • Removed extraneous lines/separators from news post nodes; replaced by softer gradients for content separation.
Here's a screenshot (and this one is a before/after comparison):

OSNN_n3xt.jpg
 
M'm M'm good.

NR, we need to get rid of the bottom portion of the article/news table. Round it off like the upper portion.
 
looks good, just need to sort out osnn logo to make it less boring, and much more snazzy/distiguishable.
 
Copy/paste:

Here are my thoughts at the moment:

- The dark blue/white bottom border. Try removing the sharp white bottom half. I think it would make the design more consistent.

- The headline area. Anyone else think its too busy? We have 4 button, 7 blobs of text, and a large graphic. Because right now we're only working on replacing the images, the only way I think we could make that area simpler is by taking away "Main News" and maybe merge Software and Security together. Then we could simply remove the "Featured Community" graphic to a more convenient location.

In the future we could implement a tab based system, ala Neowin, CNet, Digg.

- The white space for news items. There's too much space towards the left because of the quoting, and too little to the right because of the news image. Either add more to the right to take some away from the left.

- Like SPeedY_B said, we need to have a set of basic news images. Ideally I think we should have a bunch of generic icons that make it easy for the reader to know what the news story is about. For example, for Games news we could have a video game controller, for security news we could have a lock.

- The sidebar should be made wider, or the "Recent articles" section from that needs to be moved some where else. Also do we really need to show all those stats + all those affiliates? :)
 
I like it, the extra suggestion are also great ideas.

Edit: Is it possible for XP users and non Office 2007 users to get the Segoe UI font?
 
Last edited:
For everyone that doesn't have Segoe UI.

<attachment removed>
 
Last edited by a moderator:
The logo and sidebar are still the same.
Yes, they need some work, and I'll get to them soon. :)

M'm M'm good.

NR, we need to get rid of the bottom portion of the article/news table. Round it off like the upper portion.
- The dark blue/white bottom border. Try removing the sharp white bottom half. I think it would make the design more consistent.
This is done. I'll post a new screenshot once I make some more changes.
 
Font doesn't work 2 well that matt posted :eek:
 
Sadly, the font must be licensed. Therefore I cannot post it for free.
 
I just go home from work and went here and was like whoa i like it

Looks nice :)
 
Nice guys, I'm diggin the new look thus far. I'm glad to see changes starting to show. I was beginning to think that thread I made a couple months back fell on deaf ears. :(

One question, I'm not seeing all of the changes that you listed NR. I have done a hard page refresh and viewed in IE and all thats different for me is the text size and font. I don't see the new graphics.

Electronic Punk said:
Still fiddling, when you say huge thats not a bad thing right? :eek:

To answer your question from the other thread, Its a tad large, or at least it was at home. I run at 1600x1200 and it seemed a little over powering. More specifically in the news content area, the titles and links at the top seemed fine. I'm at work now on a different computer so I cant compare if you have changed it since then.
 
Last edited:
Yeah, so far only the font change is "live". Everything else is just a concept at the moment.
 
Yeah font change was actually alot of css work, but needed doing and was quite fun :)
 
Yep, as chief and GM mentioned, all the changes are not live just yet.

None of what you see in the screenshot above is a Photoshop mockup though; it's actually how the page looks on my local machine, so there will be no problem pushing out the changes once everything is complete and we're happy with it. :)
 
why the foot dragging? this should have been completed 5 minutes before you told me about it :D

*runs and hides*
 

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