Site’s Nearly Done August 14, 2008

Site’s Nearly Done

By Guest Contributor
August 14, 2008

Alright… it looks like the site is nearly finished.

Some spacing issues will be worked out, and I’d like to fix/change that picture up top.

But what do you think?

Is there anything else that needs to be changed?

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  • Lookin’ good!

  • I still think the black is a bit too unfriendly. I’d go for a dark gray if anything.

    And the picture up top definitely needs fiddling. Maybe a more gradual transition into a photo. Right now it’s too abrupt. Otherwise, looks classy.

  • Darryl

    The “recent comments” needs to include more comments, and it should have a highlighting background. I agree; the header needs some work–not as ‘friendly’ as the former. Can you expand the photo to the right so that the door of a church is shown?

  • Aerik

    Temporarily removing all my browser-side userstyling, looks pretty good.

    Google ads are relevant. Sort of. No, I don’t want to meet atheist women via a google ad. Nor discuss religion that way, either. Pretty close, though.

    Actually most of the ads are sexualized.

    Sexed-up Atheism – Dawkins

    Pantheism adds reverence for Nature, Universe, Life

    wtf. Least they’re getting names right, eh?

  • Darryl

    I want to meet an atheist woman any way I can. Atheism is sexy.

  • mike

    I use Sage-Too so doesn’t usually matter to me, but I kinda liked it better before.

  • Richard Wade

    I think overall it looks good. Yeah, the black is kind of, if you excuse the pun, “dark,” but that’s just my taste. Mine is good and everyone else’s is less so, depending on how much they agree with me. I miss the longer list of “recent comments” where I could keep track of ongoing debates. Thanks for making the text black and easier to read. It is still by far the easiest blog to use and read that I visit. Maybe you could attach the bios of your illustrious contributors to the top of the list of their posts when their avid fans click on their names in the “categories” section.

  • Richard Wade

    Wow! I just posted mentioning wanting a longer “recent posts” section, and poof! There it is!

    The search feature seems to work very well.

  • ryot

    I’d like it if the links were a different color. The red looks kinda crappy with the teal header and gray buttons up top. A bright blue seems like it would work better and still stand out. The fundies may also see red as a sign of militancy! Only militant atheists would use such an angry color!

    I think I may just have a serious aversion to red, though. I think I secretly hate my school colors.

  • Ngeli

    Well, the logo definitely needs to be redone! It wants to say 5 things at the same time, fails and says 10 different things. It looks as if you are imprisoned in the strange fence. The colors don’t make the site look friendly but emo and malserioza (how can I say it? not at all serious).

  • Since you ask…

    You should un-crop the mug shot so we can see it’s a church door in the background. That’s the whole point.

    Maybe the meshy stuff in the logo makes sense to someone, but it just looks weird and accidental to me. Is there a color scheme you could use that would let you make the big “A” (I love it!) the right shade of scarlet?

    The buttons at the very top could look prettier.

    It would be nice if the frames would spread out when I expand the window on a humongously large monitor.

    The FAQ page capitalizes the “A” on “atheist” every time. I consider that a typo.

    But those nits are barely worth picking. I really like the new setup.

  • – Links at the top of individual entry for navigating to [next entry] and [previous entry]

    I can’t speak for anyone else, but I find them useful.

  • I agree with Ngeli that the colors make it look less friendly. The logo is too busy IMO. The symbols would stand out more if the chicken wire was absent. Other than that, it’s good. :o)

  • Considering I manage a site which is way too busy (mnatheists.org), this is nothing. The information is easy to get to, and easy to search, and that should be the point. No one is going to think the site is perfect, and die hards will create their own Grease Monkey scripts to format the site in the old style. You just need to do what you feel is right.

  • Oh, and I should mention that last evening, your ISP was whining about CPU use exceeding a threshold. It may have been temporary, but I’ve noticed that when tweaking a site, and some run away process pounds the server and the site gets locked out. Just something to be aware of.

  • If it were me, I’d make the brown a lighter color, and make the background of the header graphic less busy. And I’d change the orange color for the links, because that doesn’t seem to match at all.

    But it’s probably just me, so take it with a grain of salt.

  • Korinthian

    I don’t really like the grey pixel pattern in the picture, it makes it feel compressed.

  • Me dont ,like the red headers- but then its your website… I love the content

    and thanks for the wristband
    😀

  • It’s amazing. Methinks it is well done.

  • Gullwatcher

    I just noticed that the copyright notice is at the top of the page and off to the right on IE7 (it’s at the bottom of the page in Firefox and Safari).

    Someone mentioned in another thread (and I agree) that there needs to be some more separation between “permalink” and “comments”, either more space or a slash or something so they don’t look like it’s a single item.

    At the top, the width of the button bar, the logo, and the main body are all different, and the left edge of the logo doesn’t line up. They should be spaced so they all line up in some fashion (web design 101! I loved that class…)

    I also agree that the colors are a bit severe and less inviting than they could be.

    I know how much work it is to redesign a website. I hope our comments aren’t too discouraging…

  • Could you add links to the next/previous blog entry at the bottom of each entry? That way we can red & click through to the next one when on the website.

  • Mriana

    I like the new look. 🙂

  • Same basic complaints. I’m not a huge fan of the red-on-brown color scheme, and the header is quite choppy..

  • I’m with Epistaxis, capitalizing “atheist” in the FAQ looks silly. Do we capitalize “theist”? It plays into the whole “atheism is just another religions” idea. Also I don’t think I have seen Hemant capitalize it in any of his posts.

  • Jodie

    Duh. Use your calendar photo 😉 That way when students and potential employers google you, they get a better surprise than atheism.

  • Since no one else mentioned this, I’m going to assume it’s only happening to me. Ever since the new interface was implemented, the site hangs (sometimes for as long as 4 minutes – which is how long it took at this writing to load) on something called “sharethis.com”. My browser shows that it is waiting on, or loading, this thing and proceeds to do so for what seems like an eternity. It’s something new for me (I visit your site daily, a few times per day and this never happened before).

    Sigh…

  • Polly

    I was going to suggest you do exactly what you’ve done with the recent comments section. It’s much clearer, now.

  • Richard Wade

    Spambots are showing up on various posts. There’s even one pretending to be a Christian bubbling over with joy on “90-Day Jane.”