Layout suggestion

[Roönaän]

Not sure wether or not this is the right place to be, but I wanted to suggest a layout.

It's hasn't been worked out fuly, because I'm not that skilled, but I especially like the somewhat medieval look of the content boxes.

Personally I don't find the layout at home.shtml and the preview site very appealing, but I am uncertain as to how this could be improved.
It could be that I missed some discussion on the feel this site has to be, but the preview layout doesn't feel professional.

[Roönaän]

Better to add a url of my attempt: http://www.roonaan.nl/testcase/ert/

 :oops:

[keneso]

I like it, though I would get away from the medieval feel.
I specially like the tasteful hover-image (naturally changing it with something else.

[Huntress]

I really like it too.  Roy should be back in a couple of days and the rest of the Layout/Graphics team should be here later today and tomorrow.  This really might be something to work with.  Thanks Roönaän!  And may I extend an invitation to join the Graphics/Layout team?

[Daydreams]

Roönaän, very nice! Maybe a different background-image but nice layout! I wonder if the content can wrap under the menu on the left as there's so much space there.

[Roönaän]

Personally I think the left space could be used for users rss feed and other user tools.  (Or banners?)

At current stage the both menus are positioned (in terms of html/text) below the content, and are positioned upwards using css.
This however could be changed to create the effect you suggest.

[nicholassolutions]

Very nice Roönaän. I agree about the background images and the medieval feel, but the *layout* I like very much and I think it leaves room for a lot of possibilities in the future as well. Very good work!

[muso]

I really like that design Roönaän.  Tasteful, simple and professional, and it leaves the focus entirely where it should be: on the content.

Nice job  :D

[COBOLdinosaur]

There are some things I like about that design and some that I really don't like.  I am just back from hunting, but i will post in detail tomorrow.  I think there are some good elements that fit for ERT, and some of the things I don't like maybe we can work on to be able to incorporate them as well.

[coral1]

Interesting.
You might think about taking the text font up a notch though.

[COBOLdinosaur]

Thanks for doing the work involved in coming up with that alternate layout.  One of the things I have been trying to communicate is that not all page need to look the same on the content side.  A certain amount of variety is desirable.  That is especially true when it come to content submitted by members where we need to respect the original design; but still need to brand it as being delivered from ERT.

The tough ones will be the content developed by extracting and editing from the discussion threads, and we will need to have several flexible templates that we can tweak to present the information well, and give the Mentors who are involved in the discussion some options on presentation.  In some cases we may use parts of more then one template in a new combination, so submissions like this that add to the tools are always a good thing to have.

Now to the particular design.  I also like the medieval look.  I think that background for the way it is used for framing is great. It would not work as a page background for ERT because the logo would not look good on it, but that is the case for any background that is not very light colored. It has very nice resizing capabilities; and I will agree with the "clean, profession" description posted already.  I want to come back to that term "clean professional" and other such descriptions of pages a little further on in this comment.

Of course, everyone here knows me well enough that you know I am also going to present what I see as negatives as well.  Before I do that let me say there is nothing that cannot be worked with in the context of building a variety of presentation formats for the site; but some things need to be pointed out, and improved as we go.  I have been doing that with the home page and the few content pages already added --- sort of tweak on the fly to improve.

The h1 tag is used to hold an image.  That is going to hurt SEO.  One of the most heavy weighted elements for search engines is the keywords in the first h1 on the page, where the keywords are also repeated in the text, and especially the links.  Look at the h1 tag on the home page, and you see keyword loading.

You are using some absolute positioning.  My experience with absolute positioning is that it creates maintenance problems and makes code much less re-usable.  You are using it well here but pages with absolute positioning over time end up requiring more as additional things get added.  I generally treat absolute positioning as a desperate last resort rather than a normal tool.

Highlight of Experts Round Table is overdone IMO; I am not even sure that the bolding used in the home page is not overkill, so using a graphic and extra padding is probably too much.

3-column layouts... I hate them. No matter how well done they are, they look like the code was copied out of a book.  They make every site look like every other site.  In a niche where we are trying to standout; looking like everybody else does not sound like a way to do it. IMO three column formats have the look of the 20th century. The argument is made that we are not used to reading the wide blocks of text, and I agree that margin to margin unbroken text it not good design. Look at the home page.  It is not margin to margin, and it is broken up with inserts in the text. Look at W3C, they similarly present textual documents as single column, pages with a lot of side bar information are three column, and they even use 2-column: http://www.w3.org/2006/appformats/

Three column format is most appropriate for sites and pages that need a lot of room for ads, but even ad rich sites like Yahoo use a lot of two column format. Take a look at what else users are looking at on their computer.  I have both Outlook and Lotus notes on mycomputer I am using ...  hmmm  two column and the sidebar is optional. Word? Word Perfect. hmmmm... where is the right column on all my desk top applications.  Three column is only widely used on the web.  The reason it is widely used on the web is that it allows more advertising space; just like the print media use columns so they can taylor ad sizes.  ERT does not carry ads, so what is going to go in all the empty space created by using three columns?  How much of what goes in those sidebars is going to detract and/or distract from the content.

Given the overall design of the page I would like to see a two column version of it. Most of the elements in the right column belong embedded in the text as floats, but some can quite properly be put in below the menu I think.  I am not ruling out the use of three column formats, I am just saying it is wrong for this page, and when it is used it has a sameness that makes a site less distinctive.  They should not be used just because that is how a lot of other sites are done.

That brings us to the menu and at the risk of getting beat up by every one in the thread, I am going to re-iterate the position I have taken for for over two years on every site where I post. Ordered and unordered list not appropriate for menus.  The correct list form is <menu>...</menu>  unfortuntely W3C has screwed up the transition to XHTML and the <nl>...</nl> (navigation list) format. So in HTML4 and XHTML1 menu is depreciated.  In XHTML1.1 it is dropped.  It is not until XHTML2.0 that we get the nl tag.  So the standards body have created yet another opportunity for developers to take the easy way, just as they did with table layouts. Down the road we will get the same arguments that it is to difficult to make the necessary changes.

So what is the big deal?  The big deal is accessibility.  Listen to the output from a reader trying to navigate a nested menu using ul tags with links, and ask yourself if you want to continue inflicting that on the visually impaired, because it is easier for the developer?  I am tempted to advocate the continued use of depeciated menu tags, because a change will be forced when they are no longer supported; but such a bandaid hack is not the answer.  Both menu and ul are bandaid hacks.  Anyone insisting that lists should be used for menus should use the menu tag instead of ul. Of course, using depreciated tags is bad practice, but so is using the wrong tag. Best to avoid both bad practices and way for nl.

I am in the minority on that position, I have been beat up and flamed for the position i've taken on the issue. All the debate in the world is not going to change my position. I believe I have heard all the arguments. It is no different than when I started to rant against using tables for layout 3 years ago, and when I started to discourage the use of frames 5 years ago.  I was in the minority initially on those, and I am in the minority initially on this. I am also right; and you cannot change the mind of someone who knows they are right.

So now that everyone is angry at Cd&'s arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination of list based menus let's go to the final item to bring us back to "clean professional look".  The final item is thar font-size and font-family have been defined. Does that not impose the developers personal taste on the user?  Define "clean professional look".  Do this experiment: ask 10 users to give you a link to a page that has a "clean professional look".  If it is a normal grouping you will likely get back 10 different links, and there will be a wide range of different styles and presentations.  

Who is right and who is wrong.  Who has good taste and who has bad taste.  Who understnds what a professional presentation is and who does not. You will probably find the majority of the selected page have one thing in common: the page does not override user preferences.  Either no font controls are applied, or the imposed font attributes are close to what the user has set for preferences.  Each has a "clean professional look" in the opinion of the selector, because is looks the way the user would do the page; and some of them might really be ugly in your opinion.  Think about that before you apply attributes that override user defaults.

Any way I would like to see us incorporate this layout as part of our template set and play withit to see what sort of options we can make available for the presentation of content.  Anyone who wnat to take some shots at me for what I had to say please feel free, I have gotten used to people getting upset after I do a critique.

Roönaän knows I have great respect for him, and that there is nothing personal nor any questioning of skills. These are comments on a design and its components; with some design philosophy and arogant opinions thrown in for spice. So if someone wants to continue the discussion further along we can do that; but while we are doing it, there is no reason we cannot be working with the layout to see what we can do with it.

[Esopo]

Quick reply - I don't want to raise too much havoc (just a little),

>> Three column is only widely used on the web. The reason it is widely used on the web is that it allows more advertising space<<
No and no. Three and 4 column layouts are the most widely used in all forms of media, including the web. Mainly because they better serve the purpose of communicating to humans (which seems to be the ultimate goal of a layout).

>>How much of what goes in those sidebars is going to detract and/or distract from the content.<<
I don't know what the general consensus is, but to me those single column pages feel tight and information-less like hell; very uncomfortable and not enough browse-ability. It would be fantastic if I was browsing using my phone, but on my PC it feels like I'm toying around with the first attempt of a high school student who is yet to understand the basic tenants of navigation.

>>Ordered and unordered list not appropriate for menus.<<
We use what we have. I can't tell my visitors they don't get a menu until 2009 when the W3C releases a new standard and the major browsers embrace it.

>>So what is the big deal? The big deal is accessibility<<
You are going way too far. You can't serve me the same content you will serve a screen-reader, it would be like explaining to me quantum physics using kiddy language. I feel like punching something, or closing the hell out of the window.
You need to define your target users. If you must support several devices, it is your job to support everybody, not neglect a majority to support a minority.

>>I am also right; and you cannot change the mind of someone who knows they are right.<<
Ultimately everybody think they are right. Of course I think I am. I believe a conclusion can only be as good as the premises used to arrive to such conclusion. I'm not sure I appreciate your premises.

>>So now that everyone is angry at Cd&'s arbitrary and unreasonable discrimination of…<<
I am angry at you, but for very different reasons. You are one stubborn SOB, which is a good thing that keeps this project going, but from the same tree falls your inability to realize that you do not understand your target users and I would even go as far as to say you are not even sure what your target user is. I believe you are making the most classical and worst mistake in interface design: assuming you are your target. I don't mind your opinions and I respect them, but I don't see you making any effort in studying the possibility of being wrong, and that I can't respect.

>>Who is right and who is wrong. Who has good taste and who has bad taste. Who understnds what a professional presentation is and who does not.<<
In order: Everybody and everybody, everybody and everybody, and professionals and non-professionals. I can't understand how could you have build such impressive knowledge in Web languages and managed to stay disconnected from the entire wealth of information related to human communication. Tastes, colors, presentation… it is all communication. It has been studied copiously - since the main thing that separates us from animals is just that, communication.

So,

- What does a button mean?
- Why white and not black?
- Serifs or not?
- How can you say "fear" with just a circle and a triangle?
- How can you change the appeal of a picture by just moving it 100px in some direction, and why would you do such a thing?
- What is the Golden Mean and how come everybody thinks it is an axiom of beauty?
- Why is it that the theme for Chariots of Fire makes you instantly understand the journey of men?

If you can't find the answer to all of those questions within you, you are not nearly qualified to write an interface or make layout decisions.

There was a time when all you needed to know was the tool or language. When if you knew how to use a word processor you were qualified to do the company's documents and if you knew Photoshop you were assigned the banners. A time when just knowing how to use FoxPro granted you the job to design an inventory application and a time when just by knowing HTML you were a web designer.

That time is over. Amazon.com is not what it is because "Who knows?"

Point, line, shape, direction, size, texture, color, value -- balance, grade, repetition, contrast, harmony, dominance, unity. How could you discuss design without professional grip of the basic concepts?
http://www.google.com/search?q=elements+of+design

How could you discuss layout without the basic understanding of the grid? How could you discuss interface if you don't know the target users?

Your plot has a thousand holes.

------------------------------------------------

Finally,

I don't stop by that often. Partly because I don't get notifs that often and partly because I was making an issue of keeping some distance.

A month ago or so I was kicked out the PHP team. At first I thought it was an error since there were some changes being made, but then I realized I had just been kicked out without a notification.
Today I realized there must be a development team hidden from my access level.
So I come to a fork. Should I walk away quietly or should I say something?

So I say something. I came here looking to get away from the Nazis "over there" and I find a similar agenda running this show. That looks like absolute shit from where I'm sitting.

I've been sticking around to lend a hand with the layout which is the part that needs the most help, hoping that the day will come when we can let the nonsense rest and put actual working ideas on the table.

Cd&, the world is out there. For every C++ book in the library there is one about Layout, Grid, Design, Info Architecture and Communication. If you want to lead the presentation team, you need to get your reading on.

ALL, I write this so that there is a record of how I disappeared. I don't want someone thinking in the future "what ever happened to Esopo? Well, he must have forgotten about us."

I've been here backing up this project since day one, and I still want to see it surface.

So long for now,

E.

[Anonymous]

I think I've come to a conclusion with regard to all the talk about layout and accessibility.

I do NOT think I can build a layout for the blind. I do not think I can build a layout for those with severe physically difficulties.

Why?

Because I am not blind and, contrary to popular dissent amongst my local peers, I do not have any severe physically difficulties.

Sure, I can imagine what is like to be blind (I close my eyes for a bit), but to create a web site based on that would be wrong. It would be EXTREMELY patronising to do so and it would be a mess. And I'm not that arrogant to believe that closing my eyes is like being blind. Why? Because I know I can open them AND that I have experienced a different reality where colours, depth perception, edge detection, shadow projection have all played a significant amount in my building and understanding my reality. Closing my eyes and expecting me to understand a blind persons reality is  daft, stupid, disgusting (can't think of the word, but semi-naseous is getting there - something REALLY wrong).

Instead, I would ask a blind person what they would expect and to ask for their help and guidance in creating a site that would appeal to them. I don't think my girlfriend's grandmother of 82 going blind through diabetes would qualify in this instance.

Imagine a colour-blind person creating a site about colours. They can imagine what the colours look like, but have no real knowledge. I think a lot of site ARE created by colour blind people (my dad is colour blind - reds, greens and browns are pretty much all the same to him, which is very funny when he bought some wall paper which came in red and green shades. Most of the room was the green shade my mum picked out except for a few randomly placed red bits. All looked the same to my dad! We laughed a lot. I was 8 years old!)

So. CD* (OT: What is the reason for the punctuation after the initials - I'm just using random symbols until I get it), if you, or anyone else in the design team, can help US create the site to give users with different perceptions/experiences a better interaction with this site, then ask them to help.

Only THEIR experiences will help us, not OUR interpretation/best guesses.

And as for supporting multiple outputs, that is EXACTLY what we should do.

1 size does not, will never, and is plainly STUPID TO THINK IT WILL, fit all.

I can't get a jeans to fit my son AND me. He is nearly 7 months old. The material in his jeans would make an EXTREMELY uncomfortable pair of shorts. OUCH. And as we are no longer in the 70's, I don't want to wear them.

Content seperated from layout gives EVERYONE the capability of having the site their way. There should be an AJAX team providing the cutting edge capability. There should be straight HTML/CSS to support the older browsers. There should be straight text to simplify screen readers (or whaterver screen readers can deal with - I've no idea, but I'm sure there are PLENTY of people who do know!). For those who prefer to read things, all the articles would be available in PDF format for downloading and printing.

[Anonymous]

Hell, even PHPBB has different styles. We can install MANY and allow users to see what they want.

We can create many layouts/interfaces and provide the user with an appropriate list.

A mobile phone user would probably want an ultra simple site with little in the way of the content.

A power user would expect a COMPLETELY different layout.

The PDF would be a completely different layout.

ALL WITH THE SAME CONTENT!!!!!!!!!!!!

IDIC - Inifinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations.

or

ASADEU - All the Same, All Different, Everyone Unique

[nicholassolutions]

Poor Richard. He keeps having to make the same post regarding the separation of content and presentation. I'd be getting extremely annoyed with him by now, but for the fact that I strongly agree. If I've learned one thing from Roy's ranting, it's that the user should choose what the user wants, and *that* is point you simply cannot argue with: IMNSHO anyone who thinks they have the right to force things on a visitor is a jackass.

Why do we have to have a particular 'target user'? Why do we have to design one page that trys to please all of the users a little while pleasing none of them a lot? Why not make several layouts, and let the user choose? Surely the presentation of content for those with screen readers much be much different from that for those who don't use them. Why try to force either set of users into the other's ideal environment. I have to confess I lost patience with going through all of the theoretical opuses posted on the layout forum several weeks ago, but one thing was pretty obvious -- people disagreed about what was best. Is this site a democracy? Why not let people choose then? I confess to having very little design sense, but frankly I think in this discussion that helps.

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<offtopic>
Esposo, I was going to PM about this, but since you have chosen this thread for your announcement regarding the PHP group, I feel at least part of my response belongs here. For the record, you were not kicked off the PHP team. I specifcally remember talking with CM a few weeks ago about whether you were on it, and looking at the list and finding that you were not there, though I had added you to the htaccess file initially and you had made one or two posts in the PHP area. We probably should have contacted you; I apologize that we did not. CM made a small number of changes to the PHP team, after recruiting some people who did not seem to have the level of commitment and knowledge we needed for such an undertaking, but to my knowledge, he contacted everyone before removing them from the group, and all conversations were amicable. At any rate, I was not in charge of the group membership at that point, but I am now (CM has since left the team to pursue another project), and I have no problem with you being a member of the team (even though I have to confess that I have little knowledge of your PHP abilities or lack thereof). As for the team being hidden, that is done only for security reasons, as many of the topics we discuss perforce include sensitive details about the structure of the website and databases.

I apologize for misunderstanding and neither I nor CM meant any hurt feelings or disrespect. In the future, if you have an issue with how something is handled and there has been no discussion, I'd appreciate it if you bring it to my attention before assuming not only my actions but my motivations, and especially before calling me a Nazi. I believe I have made a repuation for myself as something of a 'peacemaker' on this site, but being called  that is something I'm willing to ignore only once before getting beligerent. I have absolutely no 'agenda' except to make ERT as special a place as we all want it to be.

I'll PM you after the holiday.
</offtopic>