beta.Photoblogs.org

Update on the Beta Site

Mon, January 2nd, 2006 by Miles

The photoblogs.org beta has a fresh redesign. Have a look, any constructive comments or suggestions are welcome!

27 Responses to "Update on the Beta Site"

  1. luke said:

    nice, a big improvement on the older beta design. I still don't like 3 columns though, it makes the clean design cluttered and hard to know where to look. Just noticed the new logo... very nice.

  2. alex said:

    I must say that I really like it -- I find it clean and easier to navigate than the old beta design.

  3. Jason Dunsmore said:

    Sorry for the negative feedback, but I really prefer the current design. The polished look just isn't for me.

    It looks like the backend is pretty much the same. I have a small suggestion on that. Let each blog's tags be determined by people who mark them as favorites. No, blogs that aren't in anyones favorites wouldn't have any tags, but I think it's a small price to pay. I think the tags would be *much* more accurate that way.

  4. AJ said:

    I like the design, easy to navigate.

    Something that I found maybe a bug or maybe not. if i edited the tags from my bookmark sometime, all word connected together with "underscore" and became one word. I don't know why. or maybe it's just me :)
    Everything else are great. Thanks Brandon for making my life easier.

  5. Josh said:

    Yah, it doesn't quite make me say "wow". I think the polished look is a bit played out. It's not horrible but definitely not remarkable.

  6. Mute said:

    Jason, sites that haven't been bookmarked and had tags added to them won't have any tags, that is the way it works now as far as I can see. There's no way for a site to have tags unless they have been added by someone who has bookmarked the site.

  7. Brandon Stone said:

    Jason said:
    > I have a small suggestion on that. Let each blog's
    > tags be determined by people who mark them as
    > favorites.

    Yeah, that's actually how the new beta site works. (Except favorites are now known as bookmarks.)

  8. Brandon Stone said:

    AJ said:
    > Something that I found maybe a bug or maybe not. if
    > i edited the tags from my bookmark sometime, all word
    > connected together with "underscore" and became one
    > word. I don't know why. or maybe it's just me

    If you put commas between your tags, then it will turn spaces into underscores for you. That must have been what you did.

  9. Brandon Stone said:

    Josh said:
    > It's not horrible but definitely not remarkable.

    Feel free to share some links to sites that you think are remarkable. I'd like to know what you have in mind.

  10. Matt said:

    I like it. I also like the bookmark idea for the new version of photoblogs. How long until it goes live?

  11. mikhail said:

    the design is great really like it!

  12. Brandon Stone said:

    Matt said:
    > How long until it goes live?

    March! :)

  13. Tom said:

    I think I agree with a lot of folks about the overall design. I think it's nice but not remarkable. However, I love the logo. Very clever!

  14. Tom said:

    There are a lot of links and navigation which seem not to work right now, so I don't know whether somewhere in there is the answer to the following issue.

    But right now, it seems that the search function is limited to bookmarks. On the old site, the search function could also be used to search on the name of a photoblog or even part of a name. That's an important feature I wouldn't want to lose, or even have buried elsewhere in the site.

  15. Susan B. said:

    Looks great. :)

    Love the logo.

    My only small, nitpicky comment is that so much green type feels a bit overwhelming. This is a subjective thing and thought to mention it only because the green type seems to take the focus from everything else on the screen. In effect, I'm straining to read the rest on my monitor.
    I'm sure it's just me. Besides that, looks terrific. Great job, guys. :)

  16. Brandon Stone said:

    Tom said:
    > But right now, it seems that the search
    > function is limited to bookmarks.

    Yeah, I'm still working on the search. Right now it's only for bookmarks, but eventually it will be more than that. The old functionality won't be lost.

  17. Brandon Stone said:

    Hey Susan, what parts are you having trouble reading? Is it the smaller light gray text that is difficult? Or something else?

  18. ben said:

    Love the logo, noticed the favicon a while ago, very nice.

    Miles better than it's previous design but I think a 2 column design would work better? The sponsor column grabs my attention too easily ;-)

    Love the tag cloud.

  19. Brandon Stone said:

    I'm going to use the sponsors area to also show image thumbnails (taken from each photoblog's image feed), so we'll need that space later on. I'm not really sure how to accomplish this without a 3 column design.

  20. bob said:

    I look at the logo and see a swastika.

  21. jyoseph said:

    I think it's wicked fresh and super clean. Nice going!

    3 column designs are the mullet of the internet, just let it flow!

  22. Susan B. said:

    Hey Brandon,

    I'm not having trouble reading it really...It's just the green type seems to take the stage and overpower the rest. In effect, my eyes go right to the green type, rather than anything else on the page. Of course, the type turns gray once clicked on--so it's not a huge deal.

    Again--just one of those subjective things that probably just effects me, since I'm forever living in a monochrome world.

    Amazing job guys.

  23. Josh said:

    I'm sorry if my remark was a bit vague. It just struck me as a bit bland. The polished navigation look seems to be a bit played out to me. I guess you can say I was looking for something a bit more unique. Something with a bit more flavor to it if you know what I mean :)

  24. Brandon Stone said:

    Thanks All,

    Lots of feedback here. I'm taking it all in. There's quite a bit to think about.

    At this point I've got a ton of work to accomplish if I'm going to finish the beta before March, so now I'm going to focus on adding more features to the beta (i.e. getting rid of all those 404 errors.) Once I've got that done, I'll come back and revisit the design. This blog post will still be here, so it will be easy to reference your comments at that point in time.

  25. Tobbe said:

    And with the new photoblogs.org template will be "change url" function included? Or, possibility to delete old useraccount?

    In my opinion is usable function more important than eyecandy!

  26. Brandon Stone said:

    Yes, it will be. I agree with you Tobbe.

  27. Realtek AC97 said:

    And with the new photoblogs.org template will be "change url" function included? Or, possibility to delete old useraccount?

    In my opinion is usable function more important than eyecandy!

Leave a Reply

New server!