[thelist] design critique (or whatever you wanna do, really)

[aardvark]

> From: "A. Erickson" <amanda at gawow.com>
> 
> I didn't even see the keyboard key at all. I couldn't figure out what
> the heck everyone was talking about. It even took me a few seconds of
> looking to see it just now. Dunno what that says if anything at all.

on the homepage it's a but darker than internally, but internally, 
your window has to be greater than 800px to see it... thinking 
about ratcheting that down...

> > *if* i did change it, though, i think i'd have to face the screen
> > cap back the other way so it still looks into the page...
> 
> Fer shure.

see my comments to isaac about facing back instead of forward, 
though... i'm still not comfortable with that...

> Going back to look at that cap, I want to make another suggestion.
> Your text on that front page needs a little polishing. I don't know
> what my problem is with the right-aligned text but it is bugging me on
> readability. That aside, however, and I notice that you have some odd
> breaks which hurt the readability further. Something about that first
> sentence with the semi colon is just hard to grok for me. The followup
> sentence starting with a numeral? Bugs. Bugs. Bugs me. I think you all
> should just polish it a tad more. Maybe make it even punchier and look
> at how its being presented. Or, you know, just shoot me.

the right align is a design thing, and yeah, it does impact 
readability... with *that* design, it's the best way, changing that 
design would certainly adjust the reasons for right-aligning... but 
the copy doesn't seem to be helping too much...

> > ok, i see that... oddly, i wasn't trying to anchor the nav onto
> > anything... but i guess that doesn't feel that way....
> 
> Yeah. It feels like it's in the middle either something that has come
> untethered or something which is trying to hang on.

hmmm.... might have to try it with the nav non-liquid...

[snip]
> > the perspective felt too overused there... i wanted it to be more
> > matter-of-fact... i think a headline might be good, but i fear that
> > will remove the exploration/discovery effect i wanted...
> 
> Well, to take this a little further. You are treating the left side
> area in clients much differently then you are treating it in other
> areas. In clients, it illustrates what is on the right, in other areas
> it is not associated with right-side content but with content
> elsewhere. Depending on where they first go in the site, your audience
> will learn one way or the other but may have trouble switching back
> and forth with you. I'm not sure what I would advise here other than
> you may want to brainstorm that a little bit.

yeah, think i'll play... part of the plan *was* to keep people a little 
off-balance, again, with the plan to make them want to explore... 
dunno if it's working that way yet, tho...

> If you do make changes, I'd love to see it again. It's a really nice
> site and you did a good job.

thanks... for the input, too...