Design Feedback please...

[dsnhouse]

Hello to all readers of Neowin.net and Merry Christmas !

I have a little issue with one design i'm working on. There's a mockup that can be seen there : http://66.110.170.186/test_design/ (note. my IP is dynamic. so it may change anytime. If it changes i'll go back here and edit the post to reflect the change of IP address.

My client asked me to make this design looking Professionnal, Clean, with a fair amount of style, but yet has to be user friendly, and as i'm quite out of ideas at the moment, I was wondering if there was some users on the forums who might have some ideas on how to improve the current design ?

Thanks in advance for your comments, either positive or negative. anything goes on here. And again, Merry Christmas to all.

[Morphos]

so do you prefer compliments first, or second? The site is truly good. @1024x768, it's balanced in the middle, as per your design as I'm sure you did on purpose. IE6 displayed it fine. I dunno about anyone else, but "eThings" bugs the heck out of me, if a customer requests it, it's fine, and your headings featuring things like "eServices" looks nice, but to anyone using something more user-savvy than AOL, it's beyond it's prime and past passe. Other than a request for more changing information to make the site more interesting, (like company events, or something more specific and engaging) the site should be worth every cent they're paying you. It's quality. If you do any differing designs btw, you might want to try left aligned menus. They're all the rage. That would completely change your centered branching theme here, but it does require that you have content to fill the center pane, which can be a pain :) if the customer doesn't give you good enough info to put there. I've been through that before. Good luck!

Morphos

[dsnhouse]

Well, that page is going to be a front page with summaries of all the sections of the website. And seing that the website will be an IT Services website, handling e-Commerce and all sort of things the client sugested these names.

What was to be done is that you have the main sections (The headers are links to each individual sections) And in the lower cells you got the most recent content of the section that provides a summary of what you're expected to find on the section.

There will be another design (same for all sections, but changing color scheme depending of the section that was selected). But for now i'm focusing on this one and making it good enough, then i'll jump on the other one.

[Guybrush T]

page not found - could you repost with the new and correct url?

merry xmas,

guybrush t

[dsnhouse]

http://66.110.170.138/test_design/

indeed having a correct URL should help. thanks for pointing this to me Guybrush T.

[Steven P. Administrators]

you might want to try left aligned menus. They're all the rage

which is why Neowin has its menu on the right ;)

Dare to be different :D

PS: Design looks cool, but try to minimize the colors to a primary of no more than 3, I feel that works best. 5 or more prime colors can be too busy and confusing for the visitor.

My ?0.02c

(That was ALT-0128 btw)

[Guybrush T]

oohh yer, nice sh*t right there.. neat!

[dsnhouse]

Thank you for your input neobond.

But if you look at the current Neowin.net design, you have your links on the right yes, and the whole content on the same page.

The design you currently see is going to be a sort of "menu" of the whole site. The user comes to that page, sees the main sections along with the most recent content being displayed as summary. He then chooses a specific section (by clicking on the head cell). He will then go to another page that have a different design (will be using the same for design for all pages, just changing the color scheme depending of the section it belongs to.

Like for eNews, the main color would be blue, for eProducts, the main color in the section would be orange, and so forth. The big amount of colors will probably only be used on the main page that you see now. The other pages will probably have no more than 3-4 colors on them. But i'm not in that stage yet.

BTW. Merry Christmas to all!

[dsnhouse]

http://66.110.170.185/test_design/

ok, so here are the points that would need a revision...

1 ) The number of primary colors (altough that the current page is a summary for all the sections where the user can choose to hop in a specific section. And each section will have it's own primary color represented by the color of it's section inside the splash page.

2 ) The eThings logos they are too much the same from that i gathered from the opinions inside this thread.

I've read the post about the left aligned menu (and right aligned menu from Neobond). And yes, that will probably be implemented in the other designs (the one for the other pages that host the content for all sections). What you see right now is meant to be a splash page for all the main sections of the website to be featured, along with the most recent content and events. Then, when the user choose a section (the top header cell will eventually be a link), He will not only be able to see the content featured on the splash page, but also all the other stuff.

[dsnhouse]

http://66.110.170.185/test_design/

i've slightly re-worked the design layout as you will see.

i did also reduced the number of visible colors. The buttons are now all in grey. but they get mouse-overs with different color when you want to click them (so far they link to dummy # link).

For those who are wondering why there are so big gaps at the top and bottom (as there are borders), these cells will contain the section's most recent content (sort of summary).

I didn't gave too much tought on the names for the section yet, if someone has an idea, feel free to post, i'm open to all suggestions.

Also feel free to ask questions about anything you may stumble on the page design.

best regards.