13 May 2004 | matthew said...

nice and clean. great colors. i like the green arrows on the left once inside a selected section. i'm still not convinced about the css tab thing, though. rollovers feel clunky.

13 May 2004 | Mike said...

The fluid layout doesn't really do it for me. If I'm browsing with my window maxed-out (which I do a lot), then there are over 50 words per line; decreasing readability and usability of the site for everyone. But other than that, Didier did a freakin' awesome job, as usual :)

13 May 2004 | dusty said...

There is this phrase I gleaned off Steven Garrity - "strong esthetic". I think Hilhorst has a very "strong esthetic", but his rant about black text for copy a few days ago seemed rooted in personal esthetic as opposed to readiblity.

Digital Web does not have near enough contrast. The "What's New" text is practically illegible for me, unless I doubly increase my text size, then the google ads are quite overwhelming. This might be better if the text was darker, but the a:link would still be illegible too due to some really, really light coloring. I think there are a few readibility issues on the site. The layout seems strong, but it's overpowered by all of the weak coloring and/or too small text.

13 May 2004 | a said...

Well it looks better than the last version of DW. Damn that thing was ass.

13 May 2004 | Nick Finck said...

Thats for the comments and constructive critisim. I do agree with your points about the font size and contrast. As for the liquid web design, we are working to fix that problem... it should have content fixed at about 600px and GUI liquid.

14 May 2004 | Mike said...

Didier's post a few days ago about the black/white contrast was a joke, but I think the humor didn't translate well to the web :)

The fixed content section would be sweet Nick, I'm looking forward to it.

14 May 2004 | dmr said...

I'm very attracted to the feel of the site, but I don't really see that as a good thing. I agree with the comment about contrast, as it helps to emphasize, create focus and articulate direction. The new site, while very attractive, doesn't hold my hand or direct my attentionit leaves me to be a bit more attentive and in a literal mindset (read all the headings, etc). The pullquote on the homepage helps add some really nice context to the article, but it got lost on me until the 3rd time I looked at the homepageI completely missed it twice!

I like the three columns, although the first column seems to be a bit lost; core navigation and ads, perhaps something else could ride inbewteen those items? Hot topics, a few other articles on the web (ALA, svn, an interesting NYT article, etc). I love the tie-in with istock photo, I hope we will see some really compelling imagery being used and not use of the typical guy in a suit or modern architecture photo (it's played and unchallenging).

I like the categories, the breakdown of topics, the short context about each article. The what's new section is great, but doesn't have the emphasis it should. The participation faction would be interesting and be great if some of the comments could be brought into the actual content (homepage context statement, something similar to the pullquote on the homepage for the top article). Some really nice ideas and thoughtful execution overall. A nice step forward from the previous version. Bring back a large illustration for a new issue tho! There isn't enough original content like this on sites like these!!

14 May 2004 | Tom said...

We have a contract designer who consistently uses pale grey text on a white background and fights his corner tooth and claw when we suggest darkening it up. I think there's an imbalance with designers who consider the stand-back-and-squint aesthetic balance of the page structure more important than the fact that some poor sod has to lean in and squint to glean anything from the content.

I remember seeing a side by side comparison of grey and black text that won me over in an instant; but I don't remember where it was. I recall that the grey looked "nicer" but when you actually tried to read the content the black text kicked its little pasty arse.

I wonder if anyone has done a test on a variety of different screen types and typical brightness/contrast settings to find the definitive best range of tones for readability. Any ideas?

14 May 2004 | Phil Baines said...

It is a shame that they didn't use a sliding doors technique to style the tabs and the headings with graphic background. For a site promoting how to do it, I would have thought they would do it right. Considering that the font-size is quite small, the first thing I did was try to resize it.

Not that I can talk. I have only just started worrying about text re-sizing in my designs.

14 May 2004 | Gordon said...

Nice, but needs punch.

I find my eye wandering, not really sure where to start or look. I wouldn't dramatically change the contrast of everything, just use bolder colours to pull out the new or important info.

15 May 2004 | horseless said...

The design's css layout doesn't even begin to function in Mac IE 5.whatever running on Mac OS 9.whatever - very borked.

17 May 2004 | Al Abut said...

I like the fluid layout and not just out of general principle - the one thing that I couldn't get my eyes to adjust to about the old design was the fixed width super-narrow columns of the articles, which is the meat of the site and really frustrating when unreadable. There wasn't a printer-friendly version or a print stylesheet, so I have to admit, it really affected my reading habits of the site and I would pretty much bail after the intro paragraph most times, no matter the author or topic. I was felt bad about it but couldn't bring myself to cram my eyes into the newspaper-style column, it was just not appropriate for screen media.

The new layout for the articles is refreshing and a huge relief - good job!