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CS News Feed

Started by Jerry, 2005-08-24T19:47:51-05:00 (Wednesday)

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Ross Mead

Yeah, I hate to say it, but I'm not a big fan of the new layout either.  It just looks really cluttered, the polls are hidden, and I agree with a lot of Andrew's statements as well.

Brad and I are throwing around ideas regarding a site redesign.  We'll probably be requesting that the officers get together soon to discuss this more in depth.  Until then, keep up the work on the site.  We appreciate what you've done thus far! :-) Thanx! :-)

William Grim

Yeah, polls are hidden.  I don't think it's very possible to have the news feeds display on the first page without compromising something else.

I don't particularly care if the news items are on the front page or not; I like viewing the forum and polls more.

I'll keep playing around with it and see what I can do.
William Grim
IT Associate, Morgan Stanley

Jerry

Well, I didn't want to cause a bunch of problems, but I must say it has been interesting to see the different designs.

Here's an idea, what about a nav bar at the top with links to specific headlines down below.

That way, it has a presence above the fold without taking up the real estate.
"Make a Little Bird House in Your Soul" - TMBG...

Bryan

Dr. J is right.  Speaking from experience (it's so strange to say that) the proper thing to do in this case is have a top nav.  I'm looking at it on my 2nd monitor at work running 1024x768 and it's the most god awful sight I've ever seen.  By using the space on the left for a news feed and or polls we can reclaim some space for the forum which is very badly in need of it.
Bryan Grubaugh
Quickly aging alumni with too much time on his hands
Business Systems Analyst, Scripps Networks.

William Grim

Not sure a nav bar is the best thing to do.

Placing the polls next to the forums seems to be working well on all resolutions except 800x600 (in which case the headlines are to the right).  If the forums are put back at 3 columns, everything shows up well in 800x600.

QuoteI'm looking at it on my 2nd monitor at work running 1024x768 and it's the most god awful sight I've ever seen.

COOL!  I love your constructive words of criticism...
William Grim
IT Associate, Morgan Stanley

Bryan

http://www.hciunderground.com/fold.JPG

That's a link to a scrolled image snapshot of what I see on my desktop at work.  Above the red line is what shows up, below the line is what doesn't.  The concept of "the fold" is to have everything of importance ABOVE IT.  Here, we fail miserably.  Not to mention that but the clutered nature, and and multiple horizontal alignment points is hard to focus on any one area.  Looking at the menu items they could easily be itemized and turned into a dynamic drop down navigation.  Hell, even a static top nav would work.  The "Sections" link doesn't even go anywhere!  If we find a way to get everything above the fold then "Contact us" and the like can go on the bottom which is a defacto way of doing things nad one of hte prime principles behind above the fold design.

Not to mention that if our point was to get News Feeds above the fold then we still have 3 of the 4 feeds down yonder.

Bryan Grubaugh
Quickly aging alumni with too much time on his hands
Business Systems Analyst, Scripps Networks.

Ross Mead

Brad and I both previously discussed this design consideration.  If we put the used Main Menu items across the top as a navigation bar, then we could clear up a LOT of real estate on the side bar.  This may, of course, require us to go through and determine which of the menu items may need to be removed due to space.  The Downloads section is totally out of date and I'm hearing that the Gallery section has some problem where we can't post new pictures (I've been told this, but I have not verified... ).  Those are just a few suggested sections to consider, but there may be more.  Maybe we could determine sections to remove if we decide that they are no longer of use to us, or that they are becoming too hard to maintain.

Brad and I have both been tossing around the idea of a real site overhaul, but we understand that that's easier said than done.  However, a lot of these ideas we've all been tossing out are leaning more towards some of the considerations we've discussed.  Maybe this could be a major topic of discussion in the near future...

Again, we appreciate your work Mike.  Thanx! :-)

And to think, this all started because of a little CS News Feed comment.  Dr. Weinberg, you opened an evil can of worms! :-P

Bryan

I'm not sure of any free or open source logging programs.  But a common means of figuring out what is overhead on your website is a program that will review all of your logs and figure out who's using what and how often.  We use it for some of our client redesigns to figure out "is that neat little toy really worth all the effort?"  If my brain weren't so polluted iwth linear algebra at the moment I'd be able to come up with the name of it.  Anyway if there is some software out there we could use, it might automate the "should we get rid of this" debate ;-)
Bryan Grubaugh
Quickly aging alumni with too much time on his hands
Business Systems Analyst, Scripps Networks.

Peter Motyka

Webalizer is a decent FOSS web log parser.  It produces pretty graphs and such.

http://www.mrunix.net/webalizer/
SIUE CS Alumni 2002
Grad Student, Regis University
Senior Engineer, Ping Identity
http://motyka.org

William Grim

Yeah, webalizer could be used if I actually do it.  I'm getting sort of busy now.

I don't care how the website is setup.  I've just been trying people's various suggestions on this forum and seeing how they work out based on feedback I receive.  However, I think we all have a pretty clear idea of what we want now, and there are some more thought-out ideas coming from people now.  So, I think I'll just leave the site how it is until a more formal decision is made about what to do.
William Grim
IT Associate, Morgan Stanley

Jerry

I like the logo off to the side.

What about removing "views" column?
"Make a Little Bird House in Your Soul" - TMBG...

Tyler

I think it's a little too crowded having so many columns of information.  It's cluttered on 1280 x 1024, I bet it's even more crazy on an 800x600.

Just my opinion.
Retired CAOS Officer/Overachiever
SIUE Alumni Class of 2005

Jerry

Well to balance out the page - the headlines could be put under the recent topics and recent topics reduced to 15 rather than 20. This should put the top of the headlines above the fold.
"Make a Little Bird House in Your Soul" - TMBG...

R. Andrew Lamonica

I think that this is agood idea.  I understand that it will look a lot like it did before, but now that there is extra space provided by moving the logo I think that the site will look nice.  

If noone objects I can make the move.