[wp-design] Minor Tweak

[Joshua Sigar]

Okay, I'll just spit out random points.

1) To tab or not to tab, let's just vote (that's all I
have to say)
2) For non-tab version, you need the divider between
items, don't you think.
Like macromedia.com has it.

3) >> With respect to the body, I'm still not 100% on
the stylings of it
all. Michael mentioned this before and it's basically
feels a little less
polished than the rest of the design.

Well probably it's because currently the controls are
displayed in classic
Windows theme, I believe. I mean that beveled
textfield, stiff-looking
buttons ("delete post", etc), etc are gonna go right?
Default XP-style
already looks spiffy (no clue about other platform); I
don't know if you
want to style those.

The "help?" links, inside the parentheses, I'd
probably replace them with
that cliché blue, question-mark symbols. Also give
some little more touch to
all those small elements: quicktags, "more >>",
"larger," "smaller."

________________________________________
From: wp-design-bounces at lists.automattic.com
[mailto:wp-design-bounces at lists.automattic.com] On
Behalf Of Khaled Abou
Alfa
Sent: Monday, July 11, 2005 2:22 PM
To: wp-design at lists.automattic.com
Subject: Re: [wp-design] Minor Tweak

Okay this is all really good, this is what I was
hoping for to be honest.
I've been throwing things trying to see what will
stick. The reason is I can
really feel how between us we've really worked this
design around. Here's a
short recap of where we've been in terms of the header
and the tabs:

Lot's of variations. I can see your ideology behind
the fact that there is
several types of buttons to click. I'm still not
convinced 100% of the dark
blue on the bottom, although I think it works better
than just having them
was shown in the
above examples (i.e grey text and blue link). I agree
there has to be a
better way, and maybe the macromedia way might be a
sensible method, and
maybe the tabbed way could be further explored.

One thing that you've got to say about the tabbed
system however is that
visually it's uninspiring. Something about the single
line gives it a bit
more of a polish. I've tried to make the tabs work
(see the curved version)
but aesthetically speaking here it really
doesn't fly for me.

With regards to the buttons, yes again you've got a
point, but those
particular functions are specific and we've chosen to
highlight them in a
different way (we didn't put them in the main
navigation for example) and
that gives them an elevated status. Maybe they should
be more connected with
the WP brand, however like I said before throwing
things to see what sticks.
Those buttons might not be the way forward, but it's a
jumping on point.

With respect to the body, I'm still not 100% on the
stylings of it all.
Michael mentioned this before and it's basically feels
a little less
polished than the rest of the design.

And here I was ready to tackle another area of the
design, thanks a lot Joen
:). Now we're back to arguing again :). Chris, Joshua,
Ryan, Matt, give us
feedback here boyos.

Joen, good points, thanks for that, I'll have a look
into the various
options, just to see where we can go from there :).

K


Joen Asmussen wrote: 
I really like how all the main content looks, with
write, collapse, etc, but
I have to be honest and state that I don't really like
the whole new header.
I'll be specific, it's only fair.

The blue colour is a good colour to brand Wordpress
with, it has all the
right qualities.

But i'm not seeing a strong brand in any of the other
elements. Basically,
we have several stylistic approaches in one. There's
gradients, glass
effects, inset shadows, rounded buttons, frames,
square buttons, highlighted
buttons. 

The problem with this is: "which style is the
identity", and "where do I
click". If it's a blue hyperlink, or a gray push
button, it's a no brainer.
But with no less than 3 new visual click styles, I'm
just not getting it. 

The Tabs
It's not that we should go back to blue hyperlinks and
push buttons. It is
only this: When something is clickable, there should
be NO doubt it's
clickable. And THAT, is one of the main reasons why
I've been voting for
tabs all along.

Tabs have the magnificent ability to be instantly
recognizable, yet able to
hold several levels of information without taking up
space. Heck, Adobe
patented it, so it must be good. 

The Identity
Visually, the problem is that several stylistic
approaches to providing the
Wordpress identity waters out the brand.

As it stands now, with the simple CURRENT wp logo (not
the one on these
mockups), and the mainly monochrome colours, Wordpress
sort of communicates
core values such as "simplicity". It doesn't do it as
well as it could do,
and it MIGHT lack some elegance. 

And hey, my own previous glassy mockups are suffering
from these same visual
problems, so I'm guilty as charged, but that's why we
do these mockups.

But this new direction, to me, communicates confusion
and complexity. The
elegance is lost in the confusion. Additionally, I
must agree with Michael
that it works well with the logo. To me, the logo
communicates wicked worn
rather than wicked elegant. The solution to having the
logo work, to me,
would be to show the entire logo, and perhaps in a
different colour. 

Concrete feedback
So the above was a rant because I felt it was
necessary. Here are some
bulletted items of advice (I might get some time to
mock with it myself):

* The navigation.
Oh damn why won't you go with tabs. But seriously,
there's got to be a
better way. Maybe the first line of navigation is a
line, while the second
one is tabs, kinda like how Wordpress does now? (or
like www.macromedia.com
does)
Maybe make the navigation a vertical sidebar tab like
the OSX one?

* The style
This is hard. I'm not really seeing a strong theme in
the style. What could
help could be to approach the "log out / view site"
links differently. The
glass from the wp logo doesn't seem like the glass on
the main line of
navigation... maybe if they were more the same ?

Well, we've come a long way. But as an old chinese
saying goes:

"The moment where you are the closest to giving up, is
when you are closest
to succeeding."

So we're really getting there... but IMHO we have to
really nail these last
things!

J





		
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