notes4class.co.uk redesign

[fini]

I'm in the process of redesigning www.notes4class.co.uk and have come up with three new beta's and would be interested in which one you thought was best:

a) old look
b) look b
c) basic look
d) blue look

Which one do you prefer and why? Could you also tell me how I could make any of them better even if its not your favourite because it might end up winning in the poll!

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[BipolarBill]

What does this have to do with networking?

[fini]

Nothing, but as the forum was called networking and INTERNET I presumed this would be the best place to put it. Feel free to move it to whichever forum you thinks best though bill.

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[BipolarBill]

Moved to Web Development.

[Bigjakkstaffa]

Zee blue look

--Jakk

[fini]

woops, sorry about that bipolar completly forgot about this forum!

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[AllGamer]

Blue or Art

[Jay7779]

Definatly the blue one.

[DocEvi1]

I like the layout of the blue one, but the colours & logo of the yellow.

There would be a couple of improvements to the blue layout in my opinion, for instance
- a retractable or customisable link bar (i.e. the bar with all the subjects). I only studied 3 subjects at A'Level (1 more at AS) so most of the links would be wasted for me.
- the news ticker - pay for a better one without their advertising or goto the bbc or something - it doesn't look proffessional at all.
- Site news, only have that in one place, maybe as an off-shoot somewhere. I don't care that Bussiness Studies has been updated or that your site has some content now.
- don't have it centered, it looks disjointed on my screen (19" running 1152*something)
- Might be an idea to consider a white background. I think that would look neat and tidy.
- NEVER HAVE AN ENTRY SCREEN. No body likes them and I often leave sites while waiting for the entry screen (slow dialup like most of your pupil users)

Nice idea btw, if you change it from a personal site (it is obvious at present that your site is done by a teacher or parent rather than a company) it will be a go-er! I am also impressed that you have managed to come up with 5 different designs - I struggle with one or two Don't take the above comments as nasty critism, they are just one or two things that I would personally prefer to see.

Stefan

[fini]

Thanks for your comments doc:

1. is this a comment for the basic layout rather than the blue one as the blue one doesn't have a bar at all right now, or are you saying that the blue one should have one? Either way its a good idea and I'll look into it.
2. I didn't think the BBC did a web one (the only one I could find is for your desktop), could you supply a link to it. If the BBC doesn't do one and you think it really does look bad I might just remove it as I'm far too cheapskate to pay for one!
3. 'or that your site has some content now' lol. Anyway, I'll probably put it under a seperate link then.
4. By the looks of what your saying I run exactly the same screen setup as you, but it doesn't appear disjointed on mine. Could you explain quite what you mean or maybe provide a screenshot? I'll try putting it top right, but right now I think it probably looks better centered (sorry!).
5. Tried a white background and it looked awful. I do agree that the background needs changing though and it's only as it currently is cause I was doing it late at night and never got back to doing it properly.
6. I like entry screens! What do the rest of you guys think? I think the entry screen might well stay unless everyone says they hate it,,,,,


A half thank-you for the 'it is obvious at present that your site is done by a teacher or parent rather than a company' because I'm actually a pupil (wondered why there was no A2 section yet?) so I guess thats actually quite a bit of a compliment. How would you suggest I made it look more like it was run by a company? I realise thats one of those hard questions where the answer's usually ' well i know when it feels proffesional and it just doesn't yet', but any titbit of help would be greatly appreciated.

Fully realised they weren't nasty critism, in fact it was exactly the type of responce I was looking for. I mean how helpful is a 'wow your sites great!!!' responce REALLY (except for the ego)?

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[DocEvi1]

you are a pupil Congratulations, not so much for the design but the initiative for thinking this content up. Make sure you do well with it

http://www.notes4class.co.uk/mirage/sleek2.htm and www.notes4class.co.uk that I like.

- What I meant is I like the yellow and green colours (with the logo at the top) but the layout of the blue one (i.e. I like the bar of subjects across the top and the colour changes of the blue, but the more neutral colours and logo of the yellow).
- I don't know about newstickers to be honest, I mentioned BBC because I respect the company and news they provide - an ad from them would be an advantage. CNet doesn't do it for me, maybe try CNN or similar, if you can't get a TV station scrap it in my opinion.
- Best idea, make a "Site" link where you can put in info about yourself (a c.v., site story, what you're doing now, favourite links, whats happened in the site). You can give it a personal edge without taking away the proffesionalism of the main site.
- It's hard to describe, there is just far too much blank space either side of the screen and it doesn't look quite right. It's pretty much a given that everyone is running 800*600 minimum now so you can safely make sites 750 wide (remember scroll bars and what not).
- White backgrounds tend to be more neutral, which company website sites (big) have you seen with a coloured background? I can't think of any straight away... Your best idea to make it look "proper" is to frame your site content by putting another bar down the right hand side, possibly with links to similar sites, then have a white background. For an example of what I mean have a look at www.dabs.com, www.itv-f1.com, www.jameskalyn.com - there are hundreds I could list.
- What you like isn't what is best. I like small sites with scroll bars added manually in the middle but it isn't best. My problem with entry screens is that they rarely interest me (a picture???), they take ages to load (generally pictures are huge) and anything selections should be implemented into the main site...

Hmm, making a site seem as the creator isn't a non-proffesional without making it too proffesional. What I mean is if you make a site that looks like a teacher has made it I doubt you will get traffic, if you make it poorly you won't get the traffic - see what I'm getting at - you need the balance.

Yellow layout:
If you get a sponsor (make sure it is a suitable sponsor not some "click the monkey" and is relevant to the age group, i.e. a HMV or Music Zone banner) but fill the space.

Blue:
- You need a space between the text and the background, there is too little gap there at the minute.
- Take the combo box away and put the links in, maybe as pictures - you have the space


There a loads of little touches you could add such as members (contributions counted), simple (educational) games (gets round the school tech's), quizzes, tests of subjects...

Stefan

[Spardan]

Blue... nice job on them all, though... I will get some notes to you soon, I promise!!!

[fini]

lol, thanks spardan. Not that I'm advertising or anything, but:

remember anyone can send in their notes and they will appear, with a shout out, on the site. So even if you think your notes are rubbish you can all still send them in. You don't even need to type them, just scan them in, send me the image and I'll (read OCR here) do the job for you!


thanks for reminding me to type up some notes spardan!

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[Spardan]

Wish I could scan stuff...but my uni charges about 50p to scan a side of A4...so I refuse on principle...b*stdz...

[fini]

Cost in electricity £0.0001
Cost in man hours £0.01
cost in equipment divided by uses £0.01
total 2p
profit 48p

I know unis are begging for more money, but thats just stupid.

In reply to doc, if you check the links the one you are calling blue (sleek2.htm) is in fact the basic layout. Thats why I got confused.

I'll look into the news thing, but I doubt I'll find one so its probably the tickers demise.

Will start making the site link tommorow - hows that for service!

The dimensions for each of the sites is actually a width of 750, just checked the source code again. Its just that on higher resolutions it will shrink - not much I can do about that because if I use % the pictures would start deforming.

I'll have a fiddle with white backgrounds,, see what I can do. I might make another design layout completly which is a mix of the two you like instead though.

Argument for front page taken into consideration - again depending on whether I make another template I'll have a fiddle round with it.


As to the last list of things I could add, right now I just want to get what I consider to be the backbone of the site, the actual notes, completed before I add 'frills' like that. So yes I'd like to add things like that in the future, but people wont want to go to a site with no content either.

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