Board redesign - provide your input

I will need a mulligan button to fix any faux pas I may make during the course of the year including the 2 month training session you send me to in Key West :D

GBR

 
^ To add to that, I think the countdown is still a little tacky. I like the "Next Game:" block, and if the countdown could be in smaller plain text, right under "September 4, 6:00 PM", then I think that would be an improvement. I can handle changing numbers but the flipping paper animation is a little much, IMO. Especially, if it's going to be on every page (could we keep it to just the main page?)

I sort of like the red borders on the sides and I think I liked it more when it was a little wider. I'd be interested in seeing what it looks like without any borders but I think wider borders would be a nice touch. I don't like the dark gray background for "Forums, Stats, Last Post Info" at all. Should be light with black text instead of white text on dark, IMO. Or if it must be black text, at least not so much contrast. Draws too much attention to a very insignificant area of the website. Same goes I'd say for the black horizontal rule style border at the bottom of everything. I'd also lighten up the background of the navigation bar...if not reversing the white text on dark style completely. Just not a fan of the black.

I'll add that I'm very impressed with how much this retains the look of Huskerboard currently.

 
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I agre with zoogies on one point, particularly (actually, most of them, but this one jumps out at me).

Across the top is the menu bar, if you want to call it that, with links to Forum, Members, Calendar, Pages, Schedule, etc. The "active" link is red - and very difficult to read against the black. Either the red needs to be brighter, or, preferably, the background needs to be gray.

Also, don't know that the bar needs to include links to Calendar or Pages. Not sure what use they will be.

The brighter red in the body of the board is much better, by the way, and I'm glad to see the helmets moved to the bottom.

Don't like the placement of the countdown clock or the next opponent. I think both should be at the right, just above the block for the last opponent. First, that's premium real estate; we need to use it to advertise - either third parties or HuskerNation, or both (which reminds me - if we are going to have the HuskerNation banner up with the Board logo, we need to right-justify it so that the banner is at the far left and the HuskerNation banner is the far right, and use an all-white background). Second, it's something that will be used from September through December (or early January). So, again, I'm with zoogies on this one.

I like the new grapic for the forums, and I have to say that overall I like it - just little details at this point.

 
Here's another thought.

The "A Test Category" text just doesn't look very good to be with the text shadow. I see that the gradient has been changed, but I think there's still too much bright-to-dark variance, which is what makes the text shadow necessary. I think this part should just mirror the look of the other red bar on top, at least in text style and maybe background too.

Image attached.

redheaders.png

 
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Where do we stand on this, less than 48 hours before the first game? I'm concerned that we'll try to roll this out, have an issue, and be down when everyone wants to talk about the game. Glitches happen.

Are we waiting until after the first game at this point?

 
To Lance's point, I notice that the mock-up uses a higher version of the software than the current version. Good point, then, on when we do the roll-out.

Not sure we have a "drop-dead" date; I suspect that we'll hammer away at the design until we are pleased with it, and then roll it out when we're sure it's ready. But Chad will have to confirm that. There are still enough details (particularly the scoreboard) that we all want implemented to make a roll-out for the first game practical.

 
Agreed. I dont think its best to be over aggressive with the timeline. The current version is very adequate and will be just fine for week 1. There's quite a long list of fine tuning to get done, so it's more realistic to expect it ready for week 2.

Will keep you guys posted. thanks for the feedback.

 
Guys, we had a member suggest something that I think has a lot of merit, and the redesign might be a good time to see if we can implement it. The thread is HERE, but to summarize, he suggests we do a pull from the database of a range of status updates that have scrolled off the list. For example, if the list displays 10 updates, have a pull of the previous 10. His point is that folks log in and see an update that is obviously referencing an earlier update that's rolled off the side bar - but without asking or seeing the earlier update, there's no way to be sure what's been said, and sometimes it's breaking news or some other "hot" topic.

Seems to me that here's what we'd need:

1. Determine whether the database stores all updates.

2. If so, do a SQL query that pulls the last 10 updates that are not currently displayed.

3. Have a link at the top or bottom of the current updates that opens a small pop-up that displays the last 10 updates that have rolled off the sidebar.

If I knew the database fields, I could probably do the query. But the display would take someone with pretty good PHP skills, which I certainly don't have. Any idea if it could be done? And what does everyone think of this?

 
I've found a template that controls how updates are handled in terms of posting. It's hookBoardIndexStatusUpdates. But (just don't know enough PHP), I can't tell that it writes them to the database.

We run queries against the database in the Control Panel, but to do that, of course, you have to know the fields and structure, and that's not accessible in the Control Panel. The only one of us that knows is slacker, and he knows SQL as well. Not sure if he knows PHP, but whomever is doing the Board redesign would have to, I assume. Between those two, they should be able to come up with something assuming that the updates are written to the database.

 
Okay guys things are moving along slowly but surely. I'll address the status updates idea with them later, thanks.

For now here's the updated version. I think it's looking nice.

http://dev.solidaredesign.com/huskerboard/

Some things to mention:

  •  
  • I had them add KCs logo for now b/c I liked the textured background and wanted to give the borders & menu bg more of a "football" feel. I think the bg looks good, but I'm not completely sold on how it blends with the top header area. Then again we aren't necessarily using that logo - so that can change. Perhaps we do a white border on the right side which blends with the white in the top right header.
  • I haven't provided a list of all the small requested color changes & stuff, b/c I want to get the big things finished first. This company is slow, so I dont want to overwhelm with stuff all at once.
  • I asked about the scoreboard -- it seems it may fit nicely on the right side of the black menu
  • I think the "next game" area should be at the top and always visible. If it's in the slide-out right margin area many will miss it, IMO. I agree this is prime ad space, but essentially this is an ad for us. It promotes our tickets, contest, schedule (which has more links to tickets) - and we could also add a link for "Gameday Gear". I think these are all very important elements of the board which should be highlighted.
  • I had them ad 2 Huskernation banners b/c I wanted to see what it looked like with ads in both locations. These are prime spots so the ability to sell 2 premier top spots is big. But this isn't a monarchy so Im open to your thoughts. If you guys are strongly opposed to 2 banners at the top, we could possibly put the scoreboard in the top right instead.
  • They are working on a "CMS" system to allow for easy bulletins etc. Here are their comments about that:

"The CMS part has been setup, if you click on the Pages tab you will be able to see it. On the board index you will see the Recent Articles Tab. There is a system in the Admin Area that allows you to delete the demo articles as well as customize the sidebar categories. It is a fairly simple system."

 
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Things break down considerably with the ads/scoreboard when the window or screen res is smaller...I don't know, is there a way around this?

I like the logo too, although I wish we could see some players in it.

 
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