New Phex Website - design draft
 

Hi,

I created a draft for a new design of the Phex website, and I'd like to hear your opinions.

At the moment it displays correctly in

* Firefox
* Konqueror
* Safari and
* Opera

but not in IE. If you only use IE, please be patient until the design is finished, then the site will get a compatibility version for IE users.

Phex - take back p2p

Please tell me what you think of it!

Besides: It is w3c validated html 4.01 and CSS, and the design will be published as free design including all necessary files, along with a complete history of the design-process which allows you to see every step of the design.

it's ugly!
I prefer a million times the old one! :)

I hope I smell irony... or a trace of IE.

Could you give constructive criticism?

I use opera...
I hate the color scheme and looks like a blog from blogspot.

The old one seems to be more organized, and the reading area it's widescreen (isn't stuck in the middle of the screen)

I know that it is maybe not fair to make comment if the new site is not really complete as of now, but I prefer the 'old one'.
Sorry !

You don't need to be sorry, I'm grateful to get honest criticism!

What I now want to know is: Why?

Besides: I updated the site based on (some of the) input I got from Gregor by mail (in german).

Phex - take back p2p

Do you like this one better than the previous draft?

The colors are still subject to change...

Both Netscape & Safari show it ok. Um ... I'd tend to agree with Ursula. ;)

I'd probably use a softer less pointy font or/& colour. But that also depends on the page design. I won't comment any more than that.

Edit: Reasons ... the text sticks out like a sore thumb ... it gives impression of reading a long page of hard copy print. There could be more mellowing & fade between side & text. Also hightlight sections/topics so people can catch them quickly. Just some quick thoughts. ;)

The original site had gradients & fades of colour ... made it more interesting to view.

PS: The reading Area is 60% of the screen. This should make it easier on the eyes of readers (they need "resting space" justa s they do in books - that's why most books have rather big margins).

If you know goods fonts to use, please suggest them. That's an area where my knowledge is lacking...

Fonts for print & internet are usually different. Softer fonts such as arial, geneva, etc. have a much softer feel on the eyes. And are thus more appropriate for web design. Most browsers support a certain number of default fonts. You can choose one of those. The later the version of browser, the more fonts they support. The much earlier ones only supported a handful.

@LotR: With Highlighting you mean changing the background color?
Or using a different color?

I did yet another update. I think it's too bright, now, but I'd like to know if you think I'm moving into the right direction.

IN the right direction yes. :)

Besides: You can have a look at the development process in the Changelog: http://new-design.phex.org/Changelog

I will make the whole history avaible for all who are interested :)
(It's a Mercurial repository - like subversion but more versatile and faster - so it would be possible to have many people working with the code)

I added gradients and did quite a lot detail fiddling and experiments.

Could you tell me, what still seems not to fit for you?

As a lady once sang,

"It ain't the meat,
It's the motion..."

Well, that's not really what I mean, but I sure got your attention, uh ?

My point is simple...

Too me, Phex is it as far as respecting the intelligence of the user... as BS was before...
The old page was a lot more down that lane, if you get my meaning...
What was needed to be known was presented on the first screen...

This IS important... The basic initial questions covered on page 1...

Now, when the hell is LotR going to move Phex to the top of the client forum display list here ??? Just above BS, (old), of course !!!

And that LW thing of yore ?
Bottom, please ?

There are some reasones for the redesign. A few of them:

1. The Phex Website is mostly visited by new users. Their questions need to be answered as quickly as possible.
2. We want to switch to a new content management system.
3. We want a description of Phex on the first page.
4. I like doing webdesign, and I think I can make the website more accessible and interesting with a redesign.


But as you write it:

The basic initial questions I see:
* Screenshots (almost always the first click)
* What does it do?
* Where can I get it?
* What's New?
* Where can I find out more?

And what's important for us: "Where can I join?".

What are the basic initial questions for you?

I updated the draft:
- Phex - take back p2p

Better?

Please have a look at it and tell me what you think...

If it's OK, I'd like to go to drupal and produce the content as soon as possible.

For things which need improvement I think I also need a bit of advice, since I'm kinda stuck. I know that there are things which need improvements, but I don't "see" how they would look better, so I don't manage to get the website to look better.

...er, sorry, a_b...
My same comments apply.
To me, the existing pages are still superior.
And, the narrow column look just means a lot more scrolling for nada !
Please believe that I am NOT being 'negative'... To the contrary... I think the 'old' version is of a very high standard. Very high !!!

Do you think it would be better then to just recreate the old layout in the new content management system?

Sorry for my slow response. I tend to agree with Ursula. The old design certainly had its own character & attractiveness. Perhaps some kind of a compromise between the two (with more emphasis on the original design) if you feel it needs to be changed. ;)

Then I'll rather just copy all of the old design (where I can - the navigation bar to the left might be a bit harder to copy).

It's far less work then merging.

Maybe we can use the new design for Phex Weblogs or similar.

looking at the site :

new site have an fresher look , i like that
For me i wanna see a site where i dont have to scroll down too much .

New menu on the new site should have an download button also .

The home page : i would like to see there the news pageand home page in one page .

Because the lack of news : i advice you to create an download option for an svn version of phex every week .an new one ......

The New home page have a lot of information new users probally wont read , so in a few words write down the benefits of phex or : Why should we use phex and not another client ....write down the strong points....

just some things i think of when i read and look at the new site......

Would you like to create the weekly Phex?

I finally found one of the main problems.

My Konqueror by default uses "URW Palladio L" as font, and I didn't translate this into the CSS (where I had a typo which kept teh font-family tag from being used). Firefox instead uses a font which just doesn't look as well at the given size.

So I now changed the font to "URW Palladio L". Could you please check, if it is avaible for your platform?

Mostly this means: Could you test the font on firefox in Windows?

Phex - take back p2p

Please attach screenshots
 

Please attach screenshots how the new design looks in your browser.

This one is taken in Konqueror (quality somewhat reduced by jpeg compression).

Besides: If the site doesn't look like my screenshot in your browser, could you check if you can find a font on your system which resembles the one in the screenshot?

The snapshot doesn't do it justice. The font looks a lot better & easier to read now. :)
Looks like you retained the same font for the Welcome to Phex. I know it's only a draft but check your spelling. ... available

Please design the webpage with the generic font families in mind...
"serif", "sans-serif", "cursive", "fantasy", "monospace"

sans-serif which often will result in Arial or Helvetica is in my eyes the way to go...

Later on when the design is finished I don't mind if more special fonts are used. But that makes only sense when they are available on close to 90% of the systems.
This page might help to find out which will be most commonly available and its generic matches:
Code Style: Font code sampler for CSS font-family properties and Web fonts

Oke let me see : i download the complete source on my pc with svn .

i use ant to build phex , and iam able to start the new version ...........

so for your question , afcourse give me details on what to do and how to do it , and i have the time to create and upload new svn versions to the site or server ............let say once a week .

@king2: That sounds great!

@Gregor: Could you create a short description of the release process?
Is there a way to create special version numbers for weekly builds - i.e. using the date (2007-12-03 - yyyy-mm-dd)?

About the website:
I tested the website with the fonts, and serif seems to look good for me while sans-serif looks a bit too clumsy.

The for family I use is:
font-family: "URW Palladio L", Sylfaen, Verdana, "Lucida Sans", serif

- URW Palladio L 75.15% - comes from GNU/Linux
- Sylfaen 94.08% - Comes from Windows
- Verdana 93.04% - Comes from Apple/MacOS
- Lucida Sans 88.37%
- Lucida Sans Unicode 91.24%
- serif

-> I know that Lucida Sans is a sans-serif font, but it looks and feels right.

URW Palladio L looks best and is avaible on 75% of the systems, the others are good substitutes.

I hope that this improves the fonts quite a bit for all users.

My opinion is you spend way to much time with strange and complex font definitions.
I have really seen many great designed web sites, they are all based on very basic font definitions and I have never seen a single one with such strange font definitions...
But in the end I don't care if the page looks good ;)

There is no way yet to create special version numbers for weekly builds.

@king2: Though we can't do weekly builds at the moment, there's one very important thing you could do for Phex:

Set up a blog and write about the changes.

This is something Phex is seriously lacking: A source of up-to-date information for other people.

For example you could get information about changes from the subversion commit messages.

(links:
- Phex - CIA.vc
- Phex - P2P Gnutella filesharing program - Ohloh )

Also you could write about your experiences with Phex (but be careful not to do any illegal downloads or uploads (and even less write about them)).

What do you think?

Could you give the new design a glance, again?

I redid the transitions in the tab-bar and worked on the texts (i.e.: How to place the links, etc.).

The site isn't an "any user come in" page like LW (I can't beat them in simplicity - their website is great), but a site giving interested users information to get them to stick with Phex, going into a niche, LimeWire doesn't fill: Openness and friendlyness, along with offering people background information on everything stated there.

Phex - take back p2p

What do I still have to change to make it ready for users?