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Page name: Redesigning ET [Logged in view] [RSS]
2012-11-11 17:26:36
Last author: Triola
Owner: windowframe
# of watchers: 38
D20: 2
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Redesigning ET. An idea page.


Goals:

- NEW ENTRANCE IMAGE
- Updated logo
- Unify graphics
- Simplify
- Remove unnecessary clutter
- Make ET more 'new user' friendly
- Redesign navigation

Technical requests from an iippo:
-all buttons to be done via stylesheet, no images living in a hrefs
-not so many tables, more CSS-based arranging
-divs/important elements to have unique ids @_@




This is the re-vamp [True, plain and simple] was working on before he left.
http://elftown.eu/_Elftown%20Mock-Up




Yncke's suggestion: Suggestion for a UI change




[Chel.] - I hate how un-unified the graphics look. There are 3 different kinds of leaves! There is the cartoony ones on the left, the realistic ones on the top and the pixel ones on the right. It's like they were rendered at different times by different people! >_>'
<img100*0:http://elftown.eu/stuff/aj/20695/1269407962.png>



[NOOOPE]
[NOOOPE] made the following and I thought it should be put up here. -[Chel.]
<img0*50:http://elftown.eu/stuff/aj/2039/1260321896.jpg>

Note: some of this has been sorted now: there's no longer a doubling of all features on Main Street, but it's still pretty long, and there are lots of (what I suspect are) barely used links. At the very least the links need to be rearranged (and probably some removed - or moved somewhere else other than Main Street). I'm still thinking about other ways to try and make it shorter - [windowframe].




[Kaimee] I am currently using my own stylesheet which reskins the existing site, which is much nicer. However it's still not enough, I would like to entirely redesign the site, simplifying it, cutting out the hundreds of extraneous links and buttons on every page, and making it more user friendly and graphically oriented.

My current stylesheet: _kaimeetest.cs

<img300*0:http://elftown.eu/stuff/aj/15586/kai_gloomdoomswamp.png>




[windowframe]
 
<img300*0:stuff/aj/15586/kai-silverfires-layout.jpg> <img300*0:stuff/5555dkgwiki.jpg> <img300*0:stuff/aj/5555/1309720959.jpg> <img300*0:stuff/aj/5555/1309720989.jpg>

Note: on the view of the wiki edit form, all the current options for password protection, forum protection, keywords, etc. would still be there. I just forgot to add them because I wasn't planning on changing them. <_<

<img300*0:stuff/5555ETvampmessagespurpledark.gif>




[Kaimee]
Re-skins of the above:


<img300*0:stuff/aj/15586/kai-greywoods.jpg>
  
Design with IE6 style to deal with transparency:
<img300*0:stuff/kai-greywoods-IE6.jpg>

Graphic application of these skins
Please note: Logo & graphic in top left corner are placeholders and screenshots. Concept calls for a monochromatic graphic combined with bright green logo. Ideally, logo would be redesigned entirely, and graphic would wrap around it.
Graphic concepts include:
- Gnarled bonsai growing around logo
- Griffin gripping logo in it's claws
- etc. This could be a contest!

<img300*0:stuff/kai-greywoods-green-v2.jpg>

Previous concepts for graphic application:
1. I first went for grey and golden tones, as that's what I already use.
<img300*0:stuff/aj/15586/kai-greywoods-gold.jpg>
  
2. Then moved on to dark grey, green tones, more in the elfwood tradition.
<img300*0:stuff/aj/15586/kai-greywoods-green.jpg>
  
3. Then a desaturated brown and green theme, which everyone seems to like.
<img300*0:stuff/aj/15586/kai-greywoods-greentan.jpg>





Suggestion for top nav and what should appear in drop-down menu:

Main Street
- News
- Main Street Poll
- Daily Poem
- Featured Story
- Featured Art
- Featured Member
- Featured Wiki
Your House
-profile
-diary/blog/journal
-guestbook
-poll
-statistics
Messages
-Wheeee! x new messages!
-inbox
-outbox
- view unread messages
Notes
- Friend list?
- the list of wikis you're watching/owning, etc.
- List of houses you're watching
- List of forums you'rer a member of (should take you to the page where you can edit forum prios, etc.)
- possibly a link to help page?
Forums
- Forum replies
- list of forums
- more stuff... need to think more about this part.
Wiki
- Index
- Wiki Help
- Community (community index page)
- Competitions? (maybe would go somewhere else better?)


Notes: at the moment I've listed 'profile' under the 'Your House' option, 'cause 'Your House' refers to all the options - your poll page diary, gb, etc. I thought it would be confusing to call both the whole lot, and just the profile page 'house', but what does anyone else think?

One potential problem is that the 'wheee, new messages' won't be immediately apparent unless people hover over that option to the ddm. The solutions I see are: either make it so that when you have unread messages, that tab in the nav bar glows to let you know - this could also work for the main street tab to let people know about new polls, features, and news. Or keep the message icon in the right hand nav bar, where it would light up on receiving a new message, and hovering over it would produce the various options (perhaps more clearly explained than they are now - e.g. people have to figure out for themselves that clicking the number part of the link takes you to a list of unread messages, rather than to your first unread message)
If we do that, should it still be listed as an option in the top nav?




Suggestions for renaming of the 'fan' button:
- Keep it as fan/stop fancy
- Fan/Unfan
- Fancy/ Stop Fancy
- Approve/Disapprove
- Yarr!/Narr!
- Yarp/Narp
- Love/Unlove
-Like/Dislike
- I hate that feature!

Feel free to suggest others in the comments!




Suggestions for the side nav: what should be in it, how should it work, how should it look like

IN IT
1. Everything incoming to you:
-New messages <URL:stuff/558MessageNotificationredeg.png> The actual layout of the bubble needs to be figured out.
-New guestbook messages (clicking the icon just takes you straight to your guestbook)
-New forum replies <URL:stuff/558forumNotificationRedeg.png>
-New friend requests <URL:stuff/558relationNotificationRedeg.png>

2. Everything you want to be notified of:
-Wiki changes
-Wiki comments
-(Possibly wikis with both changes and comments? Possibly pointlessly complicating life...)
-Diaries by people you watch
-Changes to presentation by people you watch
-(New polls by people you watch?)
-Comments on polls that you watch

3. Main street features? Or would they be better in the top nav?
-New news would be pretty useful to have in this bar, actually, even if all other main street stuff is not.

4. The bookmarks you have selected to be visible on every page.
(This is a really loved and used feature, and it needs to go somewhere, somehow!)

HOW IT WORKS
-not on hover. I don't think you can hover on phones.
-first click reveals more options, second click is the selection of where you want to go. Unless one click is enough, like in case of the guestbook



Working with what ET already looks like

 

Username (or number or email):

Password:

2015-01-08 [Nocturnaliss]: Seems also safe to say the moderator ticket system is down, because: http://www.elfwood.com/u/weaselwings/image/18d58f20-9695-11e4-bf77-4dfd77e0da6e/atmosphere-the-parrot

... what has Elfwood become ?!

2015-01-08 [Paul Doyle]: I think all the bad press about the Elfwood moderators proved to be the Achilles heel of Elfwood. I personally had a few very bad experiences with their moderators (along with some good experiences, to be fair) and stopped uploading to Elfwood several makeovers ago. The piss-poor attitude of some of the moderators, the Gestapo-like "ERB", the ridiculously long "ticket queues", and the toleration of all those Elfwood trolls, made updating Elfwood a chore.

While the circa-2004 Elfwood layout was user-unfriendly (I was new to PCs at the time!) this new version of Elfwood is barely recognizable anymore.

2015-01-08 [Paul Doyle]: I can't log in at all. Apparently my email does not exist. *headdesk*

2015-01-08 [Paul Doyle]: Finally got in. If you had multiple accounts, use the last one ("pjdoyle3" worked for me).

Part of looking at this stuff is nostalgic; the other part makes me want to get the flamethrower.

2015-01-09 [Nocturnaliss]: I deleted my gallery several years ago, because of what you mentioned: the difficulty to upload, the time it took, how nitpicky they were about what fit into the genre... plus personal reasons, and having another gallery elsewhere (that, since then, has been deleted too).

All I really use now is Deviantart which, I must say, has been a pretty good place to be - but also because I know a few ET'ers on there (always comes back down to that, doesn't it?). Still, the community feel on there is not as strong as it is even on this dead site, which should be proof (and reason) enough to find a way to improve it, somehow, yet without losing its touch (as for what that 'touch' is, I don't know how to describe it. To me it feels like ET is a place away from time and reality, yet where you meet very real people. A place secluded from the horrors of the world, I guess).

... that got longer than anticipated. XD;

2015-01-30 [Stephen]: It's too bad we can't get Hedda on board with something.

2015-03-30 [kians mummy]: Yeah a lit of members want changes to here, look what happened to other Heddate sites, we need a more exciting welcoming look, writers this is nothing against you but we are in the modern age and this is starting to look a bit out dated and it needs to be acted upon before we start losing members.

2015-03-30 [Sunrose]: Tell Hedda, see if you can get him to do it. We have been unsuccesfull, obviously ..

2015-03-30 [Teufelsweib]: starting to look a bit out dated
start losing members

lawl

2015-03-30 [Paul Doyle]: This place looked sort of outdated in 2003, never mind 2015, but this place was jamming in 2003, and people were having a great time before the site completely lost its focus and appeal to the artistic-minded.

And this place has been continuously losing members for what, five or six years now?

2015-03-30 [kians mummy]: Yes i agree [Paul Doyle] but we need to try what we can to keep the site going, if we all went to [Hedda] maybe we would get somewhere.

2015-03-31 [Paul Doyle]: Well, shit! Good luck with that! Honest to God . . .

2015-03-31 [kians mummy]: I agree.

2015-04-03 [Stephen]: DA beats Elftown hands down when it comes to focus on art. We're more of a community, yes, but just in terms of artistic focus we have nothing on them. :P

Hedda isn't very interested in things. I don't expect that'll change anytime soon.. :P

2015-04-03 [Paul Doyle]: Talking Heads "Road to Nowhere"
--------------------------------------
Well we know where we're goin'
But we don't know where we've been
And we know what we're knowin'
But we can't say what we've seen
And we're not little children
And we know what we want
And the future is certain
Give us time to work it out

We're on a road to nowhere
Come on inside
Takin' that ride to nowhere
We'll take that ride

I'm feelin' okay this mornin'
And you know,
We're on the road to paradise
Here we go, here we go

Maybe you wonder where you are
I don't care
Here is where time is on our side
Take you there...take you there

We're on a road to nowhere
We're on a road to nowhere
We're on a road to nowhere

There's a city in my mind
Come along and take that ride
and it's all right, baby, it's all right

And it's very far away
But it's growing day by day
And it's all right, baby, it's all right

They can tell you what to do
But they'll make a fool of you
And it's all right, baby, it's all right
We're on a road to nowhere

2015-04-26 [Nocturnaliss]: So, considering I've just read Silverfire is leaving ET, does this mean the site can finally be declared dead, and buried? In all honesty, I'd like to be able to delete my house, and move on from here. I hate hanging onto the thread of futile hope that ET 2.0 will one day exist.

2015-05-01 [Teufelsweib]: Yes, it is :/ not sure if theyll be an official statement though, Ill look into that

2015-05-01 [Nocturnaliss]: Thank you.

2015-05-04 [Stephen]: If a 2.0 existed, it would be a totally different site made by people who were interested in what we have here and making it elsewhere.

However, we lack coders and funds for that. :P

2015-07-29 [Akayume]: Is there a reason Hedda doesn't want to either change it himself or let someone else do the changes?

2015-08-20 [kians mummy]: Got an idea but unsure whether to put this up or not, why not have a five star rating on your house so that people can rate your profile, RP capability, poetry writings, story tellers, talkative and stuff like that. then each month find the most popular person then they get an award as Valued Member of the Month.

I truly believe an incentive like this may make it more exciting for other members here at Elftown, if you give them A great opportunity to win something, it could even better our members, and help boost our community.

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