Forum OpenACS Q&A: openacs.org designs... opinion please

It has more life, simple, and I think it would last longer.

Vote +1 for design2

I think both designs are nice. If I had to choose between theese two alone, I would lean towards #1. It is awesome even though the dog looks like a devil...

But let's not count the current design out yet. After all it's not bad at all (IMHO). A lot of work has already been invested in that design.

I can't imagine any designs beside the current (i.e., the one kindly contributed by Museatech) will make it in before August 12, anyway, but I don't know how much time the others have...

I apologize for not having the existing and WORKING design posted. You can access it at Existing and Working Design

I believe the effort maybe late and the most likely scenario is that the existing design will be used for launch. That is why there is no commitment on it. But atleast we can start somewhere, or maybe just say that the existing is better than the 2 proposed designs.

How about taking Alex out of the logo altogether?  To preserve the heritage-of-the-dog, he could become a site spokesdog, a cross between Clippy the annoying paperclip and Where's Waldo. Photo of Alex with speech bubble attached: "I find the fine grained permissions model of OpenACS invaluable in my consulting...".  'Funny' (ahem..) not cutesy.

With my chat with Dave and Talli we should NOT wait for the proposed design.  Dave and the others should continue as the planned course.  This design may or may not make in during the launch.

As for voting I am ok with it.

To All,

This are proposed design by our artists.  If they are decided to be better than the current design then someone has to convert it into adp and change the all other adp stuff in the current design.  I can't commit yet to making it into adp should it be decided.  But maybe I will, any other volunteers?  Current volunteers in openacs.org site should not volunteer since I know there plates are full.

Our artists may not be able to donate additional hours so maybe the likely scenario is to take the comments here straight into adp.  These designs are late for the party but maybe it might make it... maybe not.

Design2 would be ok, but the top portion needs to be redone -- it is to heavy, this blue/cyan field seems a bit out of place with the rest of the page.  Login box is too dominant too.  Also, I like Alex as he is on the current logo -- softenning him like that -- he almost looks like a pooddle...  Then again -- tastes differ...

I found this thread yesterday and I have been looking at the two designs and I would like to make an additional independent design proposal (rather than complain I took some time to make a concrete suggestion). I really like the minimal design that we now have and I would rather see a gradual change in design that addresses some of the problems with the present site. It would like a design that gets out of the way once you have made friends with it and I would rather see energy being put into making openacs.org usable (and getting all the modules up and running that we have inherited from aD).

First, I would like to address Alex. I really like our mascot the way he is... I do not feel we can change the way he looks at this point. That dog has staying power. Those fur spikes, playful look, and tongue are part of his personality and have become symbolic for OpenACS. It would be a major mistake to make any changes to that fur ball (especially now).

Next, here is the first iteration of this proposal (46K gif):

Finally, some background information:

1. I think it is important that the banner area be as small as possible and be served with every page. I know a few in this thread have mentioned that they do not like the idea of having a toolbar... yet I feel that the option to jump to any of the main branches of the site any time is important. I tried to reduce the space the banner and toolbar takes up to a minimum (content should be the emphasis on this site). If needed I think I could squeeze it all together a little more. Alex sticking his head out over the toolbar saves more space and gives the feeling that a powerful dog is in the woodwork interested in what you are going to do with this powerful toolkit.
2. I reduced the login/logout space to the words themselves, which would require a separate login page (I felt the login area being on this page would take up too much valuable space). Being in the corner of the screen gives the login/logout a lot of weight. I also moved the search form and Workspace link up top to save space. Workspace and search should also always be in the same spot at all times (another reason to keep them up in the corner)
3. I changed the blue -> #336699. One of the original complaints when the logo was introduced was the light blue color of the word "OPEN" (for a couple of good reasons - legibility being one of them). I too have problems with that color blue since I first saw "Open" in the logo (my main problem with it is pure contempt of that shade of blue, which to be honest is one of the main motivations behind this exercise ;). I went for a deeper blue and changed the text in the toolbars to white (white on blue has VERY high legibility)
4. The content area should be independent of any tables related to design that might steal space. When on the net I want to use all of my monitor to look at documents, forums, and other content (which reminds me: I would love to see some more randomly beautiful pictures on our site. I know of one or two that where pulled into the whole ACS thing as a result photo.net and photography. Don, when are we going to get to see some random birds of prey here on openacs.org?).
5. The minor design change I propose would be very easy to add to every page (now). It would also fit very well into the new version of the site with little if any changes to individual pages (I started this design today based on the working prototype up at openacs.museatech.net). If this design gets picked it should be easy to get it into adp within a couple of hours so that we can make the August 13th deadline (obviously I would be willing to help 😉.

The content in the proposal is just filler and the different blocks can be moved around at will (although we must leave space for the trail of breadcrumbs... I left space for them here). Which reminds me: someone should think about the Home/Your Workspace usability problem in the breadcrumbs... the way the site is set up now sometimes "Your Workspace" appears as the root of the site and sometimes it doesn't. Keeping the "Your Workspace" as a standard part of the header and removing it from the breadcrumbs might be one solution, but this is probably not the time to talk about this problem.

Looking forward to feedback.

~CRB

there is a reason why most of the sites are blue... I read a study on Levi's jeans and a psychologist said that around 80 percent of males name some shades of blue as their favorite color! Females are much less streamlined I guess 😉

On the other hand there are many pleasent things that people associate with blue, like sky, sea etc.

I like Jun's designers' idea of a big, graphical "Download OpenACS" link.

I'd like to add a similar "Try OpenACS" link to a running demo site, where people can immediately jump in and play with it.

/Lars

(Paul, I think this is because Carl's working on a Mac. This is what buttons look like on a Mac.)

And on the subject of dogs, I guess yes we English are a little more 'conservative' but don't misunderstand. I don't mind the dog, its just the original logo was a little bit 'Hello Kitty -ish'... I think its worth finding a derivative of the original logo that is more universally appealing....

The other comment that keep popping up is 'its looks great for a developer site'.

Whilst I accept that is true, I'm not prepared to accept that OpenACS is merely a melting pot for enthusiastic developers. I think we should accept that the community is more than just a development one (significant portion though that is), and the design should reflect that to some degree..

My thinking here is (and I just *know* this is going to cause waves) that in particular the main areas of the site are possibly more important to non-developers than developers. After all, if your an OACS developer, chances are you aren't paying much attention to thedesign after a while anyway. However the more commercially or speculatively visting folks are likely to place more emphasis on it.

I realise everyone can throw the 'simple is best, its what Philip prescribed, techies know better' and all that.... but human nature is what it is, and giving off a more 'professional' or 'slick' look is part an parcel of appealing to that. The website is probably the most visible and significant marketing tool the community has, so please forgive my cautious approach. Without wishing to be unkind, what I definately don't want to see is a 'site for geeks' style approach, it alienates non-techies, and also gives off a sort of inverted snobbery.. i.e. 'we wouldn't lower ourselves to do something a bit marketing-oriented..and this site is too techie for you...'
. Hope that makes sense.
I still think Design #1 was the nearest, and if the header bar was just shrunk a little, it'd probably fit quite sweetly..

Cheers

Simon

Nice one ;)!

talli

With much discussion on IRC we have agreed to go with design #3.  The aim of design #3 is to keep non technical people and technical people happy or just acceptable.  And it seem to have achieved its aim.

Here are the facts:

1. We have a working design for the launch and the priority is still the site up and running and not the design.

2. There is no big objections on design #3 from both ends of the spectrum (marketing and techy people).  All seems to boil into personal preferance.

3. We will take into the account of the revisions... but that will be made on the adp it self.  Like Til's suggestion of removing the download link.  A couple of people like to toy around to reduce the yellow bar.

4. We are looking for volunteers to get the design into adp.  I might do it but I still have to check... no commitments.

5. We are still happy to get new designs but it must be in adp form already.

6. Sorry for not offering any poll... I just want to get this moving.  Anyway if anybody objects just go for #5.

The end result hopefully will produce a site that will make us happy if not acceptable to us.  Lets move on forward.

I agree with Peter on this one! Every time I check out a new toolkit, especially the *CMS* systems out there, I look at

• does the site make good use of it's own toolkit?
  • is the site pleasing to the eye?
  • is it useable?
• are there any other sites out there that have made good use of the app?
  • do they look substantially different (aka if I see another phpnuke or postnuk site I will go ape-s*it)
• is there a demo I can play with and get a feel for the toolkit?
  • I really like the dotLRN demo btw

one more thing.... please no flash on the homepage. I think the only time flash should be used is on a frontpage for a graphic designer's portfolio sites. Flash tends to detract from the substance of the site.

I agree with you, that went suddently a bit too fast. Your design looks now very, very good.

I also like some sort of a poll, maybe on a separate thread just for 3 days ...

"This site is about a toolkit and it needs to cater to the people that are willing to roll up their sleeves a make cool things. "

That may be your persecptive, but it is certainly not everyones. Just because people are working on things other than the code, does not make what they do less significant.

The site should cater (as far as possible) to everyone who uses/benefits and contributes to the project.. not just techs...

I may be misreading but you comment sort of reads like

" this site is for tech-hobbiests who want to play with the toolkit'...

Given that its quite often commercial activities that help feed into the toolkit, I don;t see how such a staement stands up.

Many many people in this community do not want a website that is graphic oriented. Many of these people are contributing money and work to this community and have at least as much voice as you do.

Carl has contributed work, and it's very good. Quite a few people in the community have said that. I do believe that a poll is in order. That would be a fair and respectful way to Jun and InfiniteInfo, Carl and the people in the community.

talli

I would argue that the balance at present is wrong.

No one is talking about graphic-oriented... graphics has little to do with it, its just a question of presenting the community as the summation of its parts.

I would also like to point out that there are also many people who;ve like jun's design #2...

My objection to a poll is not that I don't beleive in democracy, but I don't beleive in 'populist democracy'..

As this community grows it is acquiring more and more members who have diverse (and not just tech related) interests.. we need to attract more of them and we also need to retain them....

But these are old arguments, and to be honest I think you understand my position quite well as we've discussed this before,

But what is really puzzling me is why, when a few people have suggested a more 'all-encompassing' look and feel, this has met with such objection.. after all, the regular tech guys here are hardly ever likely to pay much attention to the 'design' in their day-to-day usage of the site.. its the more casual, passing users it needs to attract.

Just because the site might end up looking a little more comercially savvy is not an inherent evil... after all if my company didn't make money I;d have no time to contribute...

Let me be brutally honest.. and I apologise as I'm not normally one for harsh tones or flaming but....

There is a distinct 'anti-corporate' sort of feeling within this community and my suspicions are that this debate has more to do with that than it does good design...

But, the reality is that this toolkit *is* now part of the commercial environment, and it needs to appreciate that.

Otherwise the alternative is that you drive away the kind of commercial interest that can help the toolkit grow.

Apologies for any offence...

Oh... I don't think peoples opinions necessarily need labelling as 'bullshit' ;)

There's *no* reason to not take a poll, except if there isn't interest in seeing what people prefer. We're *not* limited by time, since the next design isn't goign to be part of the first launch.

Carl and Jun have done good work. They both deserve having a fair chance.

talli

The question how the website looks like is critical for the project and does not lend itself to a "let's move forward as quick as possible" approach, IMHO. Especially since it is clear that it is not necessary to come up with a new design before the new 4.x site can launch.

I am a bit concerned about the way in that Carl's contribution was ignored previously by proclaiming that there was already an agreement on #3, which in my opinion is not the fact just because a few people on IRC who happen to be there on the same time agree on it and because it gets repeated on the bboard by the same persons over and over.

On the topic of targeted visitors: although the site may get visited less often by regulars of this community, that does not mean that the site design should not reflect their personal taste, since the site is  there to _represent_ the community to visitors. Just as it's said a picture says more than a thousand words, the graphic design of a website can communicate or lie about the organization that is behind it. The design of openacs.org should thus somehow correlate to the views of the members of the community, and not *only* be targeted at attracting new members. I am not saying that the #3 proposal is not a balance of several interests, just trying to emphasize that the design should also please those of the community who don't actually visit the site often.

Side note: has there been talk on doing a commercially targeted site at openacs.com (I see that Ben Adida owns the domain, so it should be possible)?

Simon,

Here are some responses to your posts:

1. Please do not be surprised that my design is not very different from the present design. Like others in the community, I kind of like the design the way it is (although it obviously has its problems). It is also important to remember that changing the design of the site and the OpenACS Logo are two very different things. Just because a few people do not like the logo now does not mean we can ignore decisions that have been made in the past.

2. I am not going to fight for a poll Simon... I just want the process to be controlled, open, and fair. I do not want a couple of people going off to a corner somewhere to make decisions while the main discussion is taking place somewhere else.

3. Having a poll is not what I would call design by committee. There are a few people making proposals, these proposals are being openly discussed, and comments are being integrated. Placing the completed designs up for a final decision should work (it has worked in the past).

3. At this point I can not classify myself as a developer, I was drawn to the community by what might be one of the biggest projects OpenACS has seen up to this point (dotLRN). I am not interested in making a "tech- hobbiest" site. I would just like to see usability as one of the guiding principles behind the design. The content on the site now is mainly catered to the people that use the toolkit (look at the first paragraph of the index page and the forums). I argue that making the site appealing to a wider audience has more to do with case studies, demos, and content than anything else.

4. Obviously a lot of what the toolkit is has been funded by commercial interests (which is by no means unhealthy), yet OpenACS does have some roots in one of the finest academic institutions in the United States (this should not forgotten). In fact I would be willing to bet you that over the next year the largest contributions to the toolkit will be coming from academic institutions.

5. I would like the design to be less of a factor and the content be main thing that catches my eye. I want to forget about the design. I would really like to see more demos and services offered (wimpy point, uptime, etc.)... these are things that should be emphasized in the new site. Getting people to use the toolkit so they can see what it can do is much more effective than anything else. I would also like to see something like the Ars Digita Systems Journal be revived... a place for developers and non-developers alike to publish things they have created using the toolkit.

6. Finally, I would like to have a fair chance on my getting my proposed design (or lack of design... as you mention above 😉 integrated into the future site.

Carl

P.S. Jun, I by no means want to put you or Infiniteinfo "on the other side of the community", nor am I in a position to do so. I consider this healthy competition (part of this web site design is its users appeal, which is why I disagree with both your and Simon's rejection to a poll). I think the most important thing to realize is that this site is for the community and regardless of the outcome I am sure everyone is happy that something is finally happening in this area.

P.S.S. I like Tilmann's openacs.com suggestion... that is the way Zope has gone (although it will be harder here because there is not a single & quot;com" behind the "openacs")

There is a distinct 'anti-corporate' sort of feeling within this community and my suspicions are that this debate has more to do with that than it does good design...

One thing that's happening, though, is that the issues of site content and navigation design are getting tossed into this thread, which started as a discussion about a graphic design.

Content and navigation issues can be discussed separately. The balance between marketing-oriented front-page content and developer-oriented front-page content can be discussed later.

As far as our hasty decision to base work on #3, this was in the context of 1) Daveb talking about presenting a modification of the banner for #3 which incorporates some of the simplicity (for lack of a better word) of Carl's banner idea 2) Jun talking about working with the artist to reduce the impact of the big yellow portion of the banner in ways that are somewhat similar to #1. Later Carl talked about adding some of the color elements of #3 to his design (several people commented that they like the thin yellow lines offsetting the blue headers in the table boxes but not the top banner).

So in practice we're talking about a convergence of ideas and two designs.

Jun's talking about getting the designs cast in ADP as a practical matter so we can look towards getting the site built with a new design. InfiniteInfo has talked about doing this piece of work based on #3. We can still fiddle with graphic elements afterwards. Jun's just saying "let's work forward from a design that's already cast into ADPs" not "let's freeze the graphic elements".

There's a difference, folks.

Lastly let's step back and try to keep this from being a "Carl wins" or "InfiniteInfo wins" scenario. As was pointed out above, we're all winning because both designs are better than the current design and both are better than the Musea design. Now I've probably pissed of Musea but the reality is that there wasn't this level of feedbac when they proposed it and if there were, they'd have responded and moved forward, too.

At the end of this I prospose we credit Musea, Infinite Info, and Carl for all having worked hard at graphic design and for all having contributed to the final result.

At some point we need to move forward, folks. Whichever design we pick can be thrown out and replaced later, too, this isn't a lifelong design freeze we're talking about. Let's keep things in perspective!

I have also no intention to go into a corner and have the decisions made there.  I have recently discovered that most of the people who do a lot of work for the community hangs out at IRC.  So I thought it was the best place to get opinions and decisions... so I maybe wrong.

Anyway I would like to move things.  Since design #3 was actually based from feedback including Carl's proposed design.  It is not true that its graphics heavy.  Its just because it has a yellow color, thicker OpenACS letters and dog its does not mean it has more graphic elements than Carls.  It has the same graphic elements with Carl's design.

Lets try to decide here in the bboards.  Here are the design elements that is different from Carl's

1. A new dog and OpenACS caption.  We will change the case if needed.

2. Rounded header to be consistent with the rounded boxes to be used on the body

3. Search, login, my workspace is integrated in the header

4. Use of yellow.  Which was suggested by Talli to use another color which turned out to be good in my opinion.

5. Logo, header, boxes and downlink are consistent.

Navigation and content is not an issue because both design will cover the same real estate and both have the same layout.

If we remove all 5 elements we will end up with Carl's design.  Now I would like to get feedback which elements you would like to be removed.  And why?

Maybe people don't like the yellow because it is too foreign... Maybe if it was another shade of blue things would have turned out different.  But I think Talli is right to make the site different from other blue boy site.

I would like to see the login box as a box, instead of part of the header. This way the header would not have to change and I never fancied typing in my login information on the top right. Furthermore we could use this position for banner ideas. This way the status information found in Carls design could be preserved.

Take the new dog. It looks more like Alex. But don't double the O in OpenACS (if you look at the logo, there is already the O around the dog, so no need to double it within OpenACS again).

Use Carls "Learn more about OpenACS". I really like that one, cool work. It is colorful, jumps into the eye, still slick and dynamic. Though our graphic designer is bashing my head for this comment 😊.

Round edges with a second color as a seperator. If we need this for the header as well, hm....

All in all I think Design #3 resembles more of a graphic design attitude with many elements taken from guidelines established over the years.

How to proceed? There needs to be someone to actually do the work. He can and should take a lot of guideance from this thread. But I'd leave the final decision on the differences in design (between Carl and #3) up to the person who is actually doing the work.

that's probably too cutesy, though I suspect it was by accident!  Besides, when Alex is unleashed he starts trying to eat your BBQ.

Jun,

You are really fast-tracking this one... wish I had more time to keep up with you, but I do not. So, out of respect for your stubborn determination I surrender on two conditions.

1. Leave the dog alone.

2. Less color... the content is where the color should be (both literally and figuratively). I do not want to have to look at two primary colors screaming at each other on every single page of the site. This is why shades of blue or grey would be better. Both are unobtrusive, they get out of the way and stay there.

So here is a version where I added the Alex we know (I did tone down the "spikes") and changed that orange to a light blue that I could live with (just discovered that the blue I picked is not a web color... the closest color with the same effect was this grey #CCCCCC)

modified design (blue)
modified design (grey)

The Photoshop file can be found here: mainstudy03h.psd

If you can live with this we could probably get this design into the new site before launch (I should be able to help you on some of the adp work... unless you are already finished with it 😉.

Carl

P.S. Here is an excellent resource that we should take into consideration when creating the new site: Dive Into Accessibility: 30 Days to a more accessible web site. It also has a very interesting chapter on the safe use of color. A classic on the use of color in UIs can be found in chapter 9 of the Macintosh Human Interface Guidelines.

I am glad things our going better now.  But please let me clarify, the design is not based from my personal tastes.  It based from the feedback that I get and the professional work of Mikko.

I like the dog but some people did not like the dog.  Well a compromise was made.  Make the dog less prominent.  I will ask Mikko to look at the dog again and your current latest design that removed the black spikes outline.  I know your opinion count but so are others.  I am sorry but the dog will not be left alone.  But rest assure we will revise it to make it acceptable to you and others.

As for the color scheme have you seen 3g?  Its the best that I could do I have used blue and gray too.  Then put in some maroon as some people have said that they want something else other than blue.  I hope we get feedback.  In case we don't get good color scheme feedback is the color scheme of 3g fine with you?

It would be even better if... I vote for option X and will do the adp. :)

I may do the home page that wins to start things off (but a another volunteer would be nice).  Can someone sign up on helping with hunting down the working design of musea on the smaller pages.  And probably putting in the design where it seems appropriate?

After the poll expect me to make revision "K" which is the winning design.  I will then cut it into pieces.

Carl,

I am glad the dog is acceptable to you.  My big dog version is not ready yet I may ask Mikko to clean it incase we will use this as the standard Logo.  I will email you and Ola once we get into the next step after the poll.

Its been a great wild ride!!!!!!  And it only just started.

We have time to do this in parallel to my migrating work, no problem. In practice it is my brother who will do the adp work😊.

I must have misunderstood you, though, because I thought you wanted a volunteer to do it instead of you... Sorry about that.

We still want to do it but probably won't need help besides the cutting and slashing, which of course is much appeciated! If it is Carl or you who does that part, really doesn't matter to us😊

You probably all mean to already, but may I suggest that we use grey for the "Download OpenACS" graphic (or whatever it's going to say), too? Consistency is good, as Jun pointed out earlier.

/Lars

(for you non-yanks out there, in the American Civil War the standard Army uniform of the Union was navy blue, that of the Confederacy gray, thus all sorts of "blue and gray" references run through histories and literature about the period)

I have done the slicing. Although the poll is still running. I have done it so the Hansson brothers can start working on it. We can change the color scheme to Blue and Yellow in case it wins.

Ola and Staffan,

Go grab the stuffs:

Slices (7k only)
Some notes and helpful stuff
Source PSD

Good luck guys. In case you need some help just post here or lets just chat over IRC. I better go back to programming... design stuff are just too subjective for me.

Hansson brothers... isn't that the singing... never mind :)

Neophytos told me that the post will expire tonight and to post in the results.

Blue & Gray wins.  out of 97 votes it got 51.5%

Here are the results:

https://openacs.org/poll/poll-results.tcl?poll_id=13

OpenACS volunteers starts to work as soon as the results got in... oh wow the design has been implemented at dev.openacs.org :)  Instant magic.