On 14-Nov-09, at 8:16 PM, Burka Daniel wrote:
Hey guys, sorry for the hiatus – vacation then first couple weeks with my new job conspired against me. Glad to see things continuing to move. I've caught up on my reading and I've got a few notes:
The latest mocks that Stewart posted look like nice adaptations of the earlier work.
Reference: http://ambitious.ca/php/alt-header-4a.png
The white header is fresh, simple, and clean. This could work very nicely. It would indicate a nice break from the previous heavier-looking design. One simple idea would be to break the line a bit by overlaying the logo over the edge... it's a simple visual trick but could look nice. (Note: I've altered the logo's color just to indicate that the bar should match the logo probably... either change the bar color or the logo color... we can deal with that later)
http://www.whitelands.com/daniel/php/alt-header-4a-daniel.png
I agree with Richard about the search form looking disabled. It can't be light grey. In fact, forms could have a nice purple border to make them extra apparent and active looking. The basic shape looks good Stewart... I like the box within a box.
For the mega-drop: One of the key design pieces has to be that the user feels like the hover-able area is rock solid. Having a gap between the menu item and the mega-drop (like in the Apple tooltip) makes it less apparent that you're safe moving your mouse down. Erring on the side of solidity over complexity is probably smart. My drops were a bit clunky... but I'm sure we can find a nice middle ground.
It sounds like there's some consensus forming around the header. That'd be great to be able to move on to the next challenge?
Thanks for you patience with my feedback. Daniel
Hi Daniel,
Thanks for the email. I am glad that you like the white header. That's great! I have updated the wiki with your latest mockup (http://wiki.php.net/web/redesign/mockups). The overlapped logo looks a bit awkward to me - that logo is a real challenge to work with IMO. I will make some adjustments to the search box and post a revised mock-up.
I hear what you are saying about the mega-drop and that makes a lot of sense to me. I can take a crack at styling your original drop to be less clunky, but still "solid".
What would you suggest we tackle next? Some of aspects of the design that are outstanding:
- The mega-drop menus
Stewart, when you're thinking about styling/formatting the mega-dropdowns, consider this article which has quite a few useful example screenshots. Amazon, Slate, and others use them as well.
http://www.useit.com/alertbox/mega-dropdown-menus.html
- The larger "home page" header.
- The footer.
- The "live" search.
This would be a great one to start into, especially from the technical side. We should determine what kind of weighting/grouping/faceting would be necessary and start roughing it in.
- Content related tasks...
Stew
