BlueIrn 2.0 Online!

[Scott]

Hey all,

Yes, that's right, after much drama with larger resolutions on the old version of the site, Version 2 has been released! It is hoped that this will solve problems with larger resolutions and bring our larger reso'ed friends back into the mix!

Check it out today.
BlueIrn -- Bringing you complete and utter useless stuff

Scott.

[Michael]

Hey Scott,

Great job, looks a massive project, did you have a lot of issues with programming because it seems like you did a lot of custom work.

[Scott]

Hey Michael,

Thanks for the comments, we've got a small team working on the project, we divided it up evenly so we've each had a fair amount of work to do.

It's not an overly large project just yet, but we're getting there . Got some ideas lined up that we're going to get working on soon, hopefully get them done pretty quick for everyone to enjoy.

Scott.

[konquer]

As you know, I don't like the design much at all.

On the index page down in the users box when you aren't logged in it says "Click here to log in" and "Click here to register". That text isn't linked.

I said this before. I think you should use .htaccess to make the ?act=pages more SE friendly.

I like how there are some little integrated parts.
Posts in the forum are on the index page.
The users box with the users info and stuff.

Next should be the integration with the blog so that users on the site will also be members on the blog.

Other than the design I think you are doing a great job. :P

[Scott]

Links are fixed, also modified is the layout itself; some minor layout changes made.

Integration with blog is going to be hard since the blog already contains a lot of posts.

I'm not sure if I've asked you or not. But you can please explain (detailed if possible) the reasons why you don't like the design?

Scott.

[konquer]

The whole sidebar look you got going now is a little better I think.

With the blog integration I mean just to integrate the logins and such. So if someone logs into one thing they are logged into every aspect of your site.
So they can comment and such on the blog.
With the integration I meant to just integrate the users, not the blog posts (because that would be alot harder I think).

With the design...
Where do I start...?
I know, The colours. Theres alot of that 1 bright shade of blue and a very plain light grey (and white which is so close to the grey it's sorta categorized under the 'grey').
Maybe a softer shade of blue would help, but also maybe see what other colour would be nice to add.
Also, darker grey wouldn't hurt. lol

The gradients are... annoying.
The gradient should only be in the header of each uhh, news item? to draw attention to the name of that news item? and then the body of it should be simple to read. The background gradient (which you use as the border of it) isn't very nice.

Plus the gradients aren't very 'soft'. They are too different colours, so it clashes with the way you have those gradients.

That kind of gradient is better than what you have. :P

uhh, that's all I can think of right now...

[Scott]

Can I enquire as to why it is that you are hammering the colours of my design, yet nothing else?

A gradient was no doubt designed to be noticed otherwise it wouldn't really be two colours or two tones of colours merging with one another. The colours I chose were those listed on a Web 2.0 colour chart, so I see nothing inherntly wrong with my colour choice.

The white 20% opacity section running across the bottom area of the gradient makes it look how I want it to look, I don't see why there's a big problem with an all-be-it, 'slight', colour change.

Your little gradient is upside down by the way, BlueIrn runs dark-to-light going downwards rather than light-to-dark.

I should mention never to say to another designer when exampling another option...

That kind of gradient is better than what you have. :P

It makes you sound like you know what I'm after with my design, which brings to a question for you:
Do you know what I want with my design?


Don't get me wrong, I value the criticism, it's just the way you're going about your criticising that's a problem to me.

[konquer]

I am "hammering the colours" of your design because that's the main problem that I personally see with it.
The colours being that much of a problem to me means I can't accurately judge the HTML design.
But since you asked, I don't much like how theres all that space at the top of the page (the "Welcome" boxes) so that you have to scroll down a bit just to see the latest news for the site.


The gradient is too noticeable. too noticeable. The colour difference between the light colour and the dark colour is far too great.


The white 20% opacity comment, I never made any reference to your banner/header (so no reference to that white bar).


Looking at the header for each of the news items? it has a light part first, then goes to dark...


And with your comments thereafter.
I am not saying it's what you want, But something that your visitors may want.
Which, for almost every design, is exactly what the designer (ie. you) wants.


Also you should remember, the comments I make are my personal opinion so

That kind of gradient is better than what you have. :P

is more of what I want your design to look like (as a visitor to your site).

And any input from visitors to your site should be gold to you.

[Scott]

Originally Posted by konquer

I am "hammering the colours" of your design because that's the main problem that I personally see with it.

And that issue has been discussed between myself and my development team, they find the colours to be rather nice colours actually. (Two of them also have some form background in design as well, before you ask)

The colours being that much of a problem to me means I can't accurately judge the HTML design.

Again, this is a feature you're choosing to embezzel in concentrating on.

But since you asked, I don't much like how theres all that space at the top of the page (the "Welcome" boxes) so that you have to scroll down a bit just to see the latest news for the site.

The latest news is going to be posted by me on both the Blog and Forums, so both areas of interest display the latest news in corellation with one another.

The gradient is too noticeable. too noticeable. The colour difference between the light colour and the dark colour is far too great.

I like how you've emphasised "too noticeable" but I don't think it was really necessary, I heard you the first time. As mentioned before, a gradient is generally used for a reason, and this is the way I've chosen to use it.

And I've referenced it to you before, but I'll do it again. Retire At 21's gradient is highly noticeable. How are the two designs so different?

The white 20% opacity comment, I never made any reference to your banner/header (so no reference to that white bar).

You made a reference to colour variation, this one of the things I'd figured you were talking about, my apologies.

Looking at the header for each of the news items? it has a light part first, then goes to dark...

I modelled the colours based on the header colours though, therefor, the colours stem from dark-to-light.

And with your comments thereafter.
I am not saying it's what you want, But something that your visitors may want.
Which, for almost every design, is exactly what the designer (ie. you) wants.

How can I know what most of my visitors want when there's very few who are leaving feedback regarding the visual appearance of the site? I don't know things, and wont until I start recieving some other feedback from more people. Until that time, see the next paragraph.

As the designer and founder of BlueIrn I've designed and made this site the I feel it should look and appear for the visitors. If the visitors aren't happy with it's appearance (ie, more unhappy than those that are) then I'll gladly look into changing it around a bit.

Also you should remember, the comments I make are my personal opinion so is more of what I want your design to look like (as a visitor to your site).

And any input from visitors to your site should be gold to you.

And I value your opinion, but as I said above, I won't even stretch to look at changing anything until I get more negative feedback towards it, than positive. Which right now, there's daylight between.

[Shane]

I like that much better than the old version! Well Done.