Website Review and Suggestions

**NBF** · 10-23-2006, 05:45 PM

Hi all,

This seems like a good place to ask this:

We launched a new design this weekend. Months in the making, weeks in beta (both private and open), and then Saturday it went live. Having lanuched redesigns, I somewhat knew what to expect as far as member reaction (forums are much different in that regard - change is hard!), but I just wanted to also gather some non-member (read: not used to the OLD design we had) feedback to balance what we are hearing.

Site: www.NotebookForums.com

But before you comment, 3 things:

1. I am particularly interested in white space, contrast, post page, and navigational comments. (sample post: http://www.notebookforums.com/thread178792.html - but you can look at any)

2. I am not too proud to make changes to the design (we have been tweaking forever), so please don't say things for the heck of it - I take all feedback very seriously.

3. Please don't try to be nice for the sake of being nice. I really want to know what you think. I can handle it.

This isn't a "look what I did! Isn't it great? Go easy!" kind of post.

Thanks all!

Laura

**64 bit** · 10-23-2006, 07:34 PM

Your site looks great. Farily easy to navigate and it's aesthetically appealing.
The only part I dislike would be the drop-down menus -- they look bad and dont match the rest of the site.

Otherwise it's an awsome site.:thumbup1:

**jakerz** · 10-23-2006, 09:09 PM

Nice! The text is a bit small though

**NBF** · 10-23-2006, 09:24 PM

Thanks guys... I appreciate the feedback.

64 bit - are you saying they don't seem to match because of the color? Or style?

jakerz - We are for sure going to try some different text sizes. That seems to be a common issue.

Thanks!

Laura

**motheninja** · 10-24-2006, 03:23 AM

I'm using Firefox 1.5 so my comments are directed towards what I'm seeing with this browser.

for http://www.notebookforums.com/thread178792.html#top:

1. The yellow 'Register now' section on top goes off the page to the right. The 'Off Topic' div towards the middle looks off around the left and right edges.

2. The three sections at the top, 'Notebook Research', 'Ready to Purchase?', 'Our Community', all have an individual minimize button, however when I click the button for any single box all 3 get minimized. is this expected behaviour?

for http://www.notebookforums.com/homepage.php:

1. Towards the bottom following the 'Latest Laptop Discussions' section there is a lot of blank white space that I think could be used better. Maybe adding two more rows to 'Latest Laptop Reviews' would solve this issue?

2. The navigation drop downs seem too dark for me. maybe a shade of gray for the background would do them better justice? I like the background color of the rows on http://www.notebookforums.com/thread178792.html#top in the 'Similar Threads' section at the bottom.

**paladine** · 10-24-2006, 04:43 AM

that bright blue at the back must go! aswel as the bright yellow at the bottom.

Try changing that Bright blue to the dark grey on the top.

And at the bottom replace that bright yellow with a softer yellow, like the "sponsors box" to the right

**BamaStangGuy** · 10-24-2006, 04:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by motheninja

I'm using Firefox 1.5 so my comments are directed towards what I'm seeing with this browser.

for http://www.notebookforums.com/thread178792.html#top:

1. The yellow 'Register now' section on top goes off the page to the right. The 'Off Topic' div towards the middle looks off around the left and right edges.

She intends it to do that. That is part of the design

**NBF** · 10-24-2006, 10:36 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by BamaStangGuy

She intends it to do that. That is part of the design

LOL And clearly people notice it (which was the point), but they think it's not supposed to be like that.

Thank you for the feedback, guys. I really appreciate it! This process has been really fun (though long!) and I look forward to making some tweaks to improve the experience.

Any more? :1eye:

Laura

**Mike** · 10-24-2006, 12:40 PM

I think it all looks really good.

Two things that I am not a big fan of.

User info/post seperation - The way the userinfo (avatar area) is seperated in a box on the left from the post looks a little odd to me. Mainly due to the different sizes of each. At times, the username/avatar area is actually a larger box than the posts, on short posts, other times you got a user with very little information abotu themselves creating a very small box, along with huge posts. Would look better to me if the border for each of those areas were the same height.
Forumdisplay - Altermating colors for each thread would look very good. I think that area needs to be broken up a bit, somehow.

Both of those are very minor issues though. Overall, that is a very nice design.:thumbup:

**64 bit** · 10-24-2006, 04:14 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by NBF

Thanks guys... I appreciate the feedback.

64 bit - are you saying they don't seem to match because of the color? Or style?

jakerz - We are for sure going to try some different text sizes. That seems to be a common issue.

Thanks!

Laura

Style, they look very...1998.

**NBF** · 10-24-2006, 05:08 PM

Thank you.

**imported_Switch** · 11-02-2006, 12:07 PM

Hmm, I use Opera, an alternative browser, whilst not as popular as FF, it is growing increasingly popular, imo, it's the best browser. Anyway, your site does not display correctly in Opera.

Just thought you might want to know this.

I don't meet the minimum post count, but below is a screenie of the error:
img200.imageshack.us/img200/6686/errorxl1.th.png