Monday, January 30, 2012

Homepage design - last call for feedback

I'm including the latest homepage revision from our dev team, that Jonathan mentioned in his email.

This is your last chance to voice any thoughts and feedback you might have; what you like and what you don't like about it. Our dev team needs to get started on coding it as soon as possible.

Please, include your feedback as comments for this post, so we can have them all in one place. Thanks.

6 comments:

  1. I like this layout much better than the ones we had previously viewed in class. Much cleaner and the bigger image works well. Still not crazy about the 585 logo but everything else looks good.

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  2. I like the concept, but my only suggestion is to flip it horizontally. So the big picture is on the left, and small ones on the right with the signature. Why?

    Poynter's eye tracking study shows that people view the page on the right side first, top to bottom, then move up to the left top corner.

    This would ensure that the first thing they see is a big, beautiful image engaging them. If they wanted more, the would move to the right for smaller photos and the signature. First impressions do count!

    Also, once we would flip it like that. I would keep logo on the left, and move the navigation text to the right to eliminate empty space hole and even the header out.

    Lastly, the parentheses around 585 are too light and you can't see them. Easy fix would be to make them the same shade of grey as the overall dark grey color. It would make them stand out, but not be separate from the design.

    =)

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  3. Ok, so does everyone agree then to use traditional left-align? R align websites are slightly more trendy and still used, although less frequently, often. I'm fine with changing it to L align but just a couple things to think about... One thing to consider is that secondary navigation is almost always on the L... flipping the layout horizontally would move our somewhat-of-a-secondary-navigation bar (smaller photos and signature links) to the R. Consider varying browser size as well: if we want big images, and someone is browsing on a small screen, these secondary elements may not be visible. A user's natural reaction to an incomplete image (which it's obvious when they are seeing 75% of an image) is to drag their browser size to make it larger... if the entire image is visible and not the secondary elements, there is no indication that they are missing other navigational elements and will never see these options. If we stay within the 1024 width limit this shouldn't be a problem for most users, but it's still something to consider as many people still browse on smaller screens. This R or L align thing could work fine either way--there are pros and cons to both--but just a couple points to consider...
    :)
    What does everyone think.

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    Replies
    1. For the logo thing i think this looks perfect instead of haviong those parentheses grayed..this is blending with the design and looks subtle... graying the parentheses will increase the contrast and it will look just weird..
      for the logo to be on left i think it is ok if it is on right its not really interrupting the content..
      i agree about eye tracking study cos even iv been doing eye tracking study and i agree that people have a tendency to read from left to right so its better to have the navigation on right side but that is just a usual case i don't think this is going to be creating any usability issue...
      our website is full of innovative and creative content and i believe this design goes with the type of content and it looks trendy and creative...something unusual yet usable...

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  4. I like this better as well. Looks much cleaner. I'm not sure which alignment would look better, I sort of see what you're saying about having the smaller stuff to the right. I think we could make either work. The 585 logo is nice, but with the circle and parentheses being nearly the same color, it is sort of confusing to the eye that it's the area code. Other than that, it looks nice and clean!

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  5. I like the look of this layout. The one thing that I dislike so far is the logo of 585 with its' parenthesis. Maybe if the parenthesis were muted to match the background, it might look better?

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