[theforum] Design Contest Entry

Richard Bennett richard.bennett at skynet.be
Mon May 1 10:07:39 CDT 2006


On Monday 01 May 2006 03:14, Martin Burns wrote:
> I thought it would be churlish to be whipping everyone else and not
> knock together
> something myself. 
I'm guilty of that I'm afraid. I was intending to do something, and maybe 
still will - as an alternative theme or something, but haven't been able to 
free up a day or two yet.

How did you get all that content in there? Had a database-dump been released 
for the contest, that I missed, or did you just screenscrape the pages, ?
I suppose it is royally late now, but a zip of the current drupal install, and 
some database content would make it easier to do a redesign...

As general comments on your design:
I really like the top toolbar!
I find the high-contrast backgrounds rather jarring.
Shame about the fixed-width - i prefer the current liquid layout.
I like the overall clean look, and light feel.

>
> Stuff I'm particularly happy about:
> 1) The Evolter Map: http://weo.easyweb.co.uk/users/map
>      although it may be interesting to see how it scales if every member
>     puts on a location.
>
> 2) The nicely unobtrusive scripting used when you click on the 'Lists'
>     and 'Directory' links.
>
Now not having made an entry myself, I really have no right to criticize, and 
this isn't meant personally - it is more a general observation - , you do 
have a lot of positive things in there, a lot of accessibility tweaks added 
in and so, but these are the bits that spoiled it for me.
Web2.0 is the Flash of 2005+. It is a bandwagon people jump on, they think 
this is the way to go, but it is already passe. it is already in repeat 
mode... everyone thinks hey, that looks cool - I'm gonna do that too, and the 
web is full of redundant Google-maps that offer an unusably clumsy 
interfaces, and fading boxes that we were doing in 1997, and have since 
realized offer nothing to the user. i mean, if you can show the content in 1 
second, why fade it in over 3? It just slows the process down without any 
added value. (remember those transitions MS had that faded every page into 
each other? They are gone for the same reason.)
If I do get a chance, I'll submit a late entry and try to showcase my idea of 
Web3.0, which basically takes the best of what we have learned over the last 
10 - 15 years, and doesn't let the 'cool' or 'wow' factor get in the way of 
commonsense. 
Evolt should be about leading the way, not jumping on bandwagons.

All meant in the most constructive way, I assure you.

Richard







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