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welovetxp.com
Hey,
I recently redesigned the We Love Textpattern site and would love to hear your thoughts.
This is phase one of two of the redesign, mostly the visual. I plan to work on making it easier for people to submit sites, perhaps an automated process from submission to publishing.
Feel free to submit your masterpieces! :)
Cheers,
-Sam
Sam Brown
sambrown.me | welovetxp.com
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Re: welovetxp.com
Smooth! Lookin’ mighty good there.
Love the homepage rollover :-)
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Re: welovetxp.com
Sam wrote:
I recently redesigned the We Love Textpattern site and would love to hear your thoughts.
Reminded me of the TXP Magazine’s site collection page.
Looks good Sam.
We Love TXP . TXP Themes . TXP Tags . TXP Planet . TXP Make
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Re: welovetxp.com
Thanks Sam for maintaining this project !
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Re: welovetxp.com
May not care but in IE6 I think there’s something amiss.
Pardon the lousy browser and the lousy screen shot. Work…
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Re: welovetxp.com
Thanks guys.
@MattD: I don’t do IE6 browser testing anymore, I figured it would look a little something like that. The 2% of WLTXP IE6 users will just have to suffer! :)
Sam Brown
sambrown.me | welovetxp.com
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Re: welovetxp.com
Very horizontal scroll is very unusual to use… I’d prefer general vertical…
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Re: welovetxp.com
Sam wrote:
@MattD: I don’t do IE6 browser testing anymore, I figured it would look a little something like that. The 2% of WLTXP IE6 users will just have to suffer! :)
That’s what I suspected. Some day I’ll be rid of it!
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Re: welovetxp.com
the_ghost wrote:
Very horizontal scroll is very unusual to use… I’d prefer general vertical…
Really nice design Sam, but before reading the_ghost’s comment I hadn’t noticed the horizontal scroll!
WeLoveTXP is a fantastic way of exhibiting many of the great site’s that are making use of Textpattern; I’ve been a fan of the site for a while now. Keep up the good work.
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Re: welovetxp.com
really nice design!
3 comments
-i also missed the horizontal scroll until i read about it, maybe some arrow
-i’d like to have site names on always, not only on hover
-I love the non.scrolling background!
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Re: welovetxp.com
Sam, first off, thank you for putting together WeLoveTXP in the first place. Before its inception, there was no source to show the possibilities that Txp provides. It’s been a treasure for the community. Plus, I get a decent amount of traffic from it :)
As for the re-design. Branding-wise, I give it a thumbs up. The yellow emphasizes its TXP and strikes well against the charcoal/black. Fun use of the Rockwell Scribble font. It’s fun and exciting and makes me proud to be a TXP person.
As for usability, I have to give it bad marks.
Horizontal scrolling is a bit like walking on my hands, I can do it for a little bit if I try hard, but I wonder if its worth the innovation. For some users, they only way they can scroll left and right is by dragging the scroll-bar on the bottom. Since that behavior is so uncommon, I don’t think a lot of people will even notice that there’s more content on the right—like monkeyninja. On top of that, the thumbnails have a wide proportion. Their shape lends for them to be organized vertically, not side-by-side. Maybe a good compromise would be adding a jQuery scroller, to keep everything within the 1000px. (yeah, I realize those scrollers are getting more play than a Kanye West single at the moment)
Some of the content on the far right is “outside the fold.” Not just more sites, but the top links “ Submit a Site, Contact Us, RSS Feed” and the Ad on bottom.
As neat as they are, I’m not a fan of hover-overs revealing more information. I could live without seeing the “Comment” link immediately, but I think that the site title is pretty essential. Minor detail: consider increasing the hover target to include the 20px margin below the thumbnail. When I scroll from the bottom up, the links pop up when I’m over the thumbnail, after i hovered over their actual positions.
Sorry to be nag, but since you asked, I figured I’d give it to you straight. The aesthetic and emotional presentation is top notch, but usability could be improved. Again, thanks so much for keeping WLTXP going.
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Re: welovetxp.com
I have to agree with nemoorange on all counts – praise on style and the site in general (I liked the last one too) and his criticism.
That said, I think there is sometimes a place for horizontal scroll sites but a) it usually it’s for providing deeper information that’s not essential for the function so if you miss it, the site still works, you just don’t see the 2nd/3rd/4th photo/detail shot or b) the execution makes it workable without having to scroll too much (e.g. spin’s site) or c) the nature of the design or content merits it naturally by being very horizontal and extensive, e.g. for a long timeline.
In the end it boils down to convention a bit – whether the fold is on the right or below and the more link at the far-right or the very bottom is theoretically irrelevant as something is always off the page. It’s just that people are expecting to find it at the bottom.
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Re: welovetxp.com
Thanks for your thoughts everyone, keep the comments coming. Site is definitely a Work in Progress.
kemie wrote:
-i’d like to have site names on always, not only on hover
Agreed, I will be putting these back.
nemoorange wrote:
Horizontal scrolling is a bit like walking on my hands
I think horizontal scrolling is personal preference. Your right in that it isn’t common but I disagree that people will find it hard to use, the audience for We Love Textpattern are likely tech-savy designers and developers who have probably come across horizontal scrolling at least a few times previously. While it is unconventional I’d like to think We Love TXP is a bit of a playground as well as a showcase of other sites. A visual cue may well aid people.
nemoorange wrote:
Some of the content on the far right is “outside the fold.” Not just more sites, but the top links “ Submit a Site, Contact Us, RSS Feed” and the Ad on bottom.
Fold? There is no fold. Vertical or horizontal it’s irrelevant. You might not be able to see them, but 77% of the visitors can. ;)
Joking aside I realise that the top navigation links do not scroll and this may be an issue for skinny browser windows. The bottom items do, once you get going these all get displayed on the page. I don’t think this is a massive issue, other than perhaps the top nav links which I do plan on fixing/moving.
Appreciate everyones thoughts, positive and negative. I know that not everyone is going to like, especially those in older browsers (get with the program!). :P
Thanks again.
Last edited by Sam (2008-12-18 22:53:58)
Sam Brown
sambrown.me | welovetxp.com
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Re: welovetxp.com
Sam wrote:
those in older browsers (get with the program!). :P
I promise I don’t use IE6 at home. I checked the site out a bit on my phone which, oddly enough, has a better browser than my developer workstation at work and I like it. Not sure if I like it better than the old version but I understand what you mean by it being a playground.
Keep up the good work.
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Re: welovetxp.com
Damn, the new welovetxp looks nice :)
Sam wrote:
Joking aside I realise that the top navigation links do not scroll and this may be an issue for skinny browser windows. The bottom items do, once you get going these all get displayed on the page. I don’t think this is a massive issue, other than perhaps the top nav links which I do plan on fixing/moving.
They go off the whole window. Maybe those could be positioned with “fixed”, so menu hollows, but not positioning masthead with absolute. That way it stays there but with in body, and not the width of the head.
One other thing might be to define min-height for the background element or body, or adding some padding tricks to the content container that the overlapping content/more links don’t look so odd when the love is behind’em. Screenie (click to get bigger – bigger is always better ;D):
Last edited by Gocom (2008-12-19 02:39:54)
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