Site Redesign and Goals for the Future

[dawn_felagund]

Hi, everyone,

My comods and I have been talking for some time now about some big plans for the group. I hope that we can start working on them this summer, and we would greatly appreciate any input from our members that they care to give! :)

First and foremost, we hope to redesign the site this summer. Our current design, while functional, represents my very first foray into the wild and woolly world of CSS layouts. I can do much better these days. Besides, the current design is getting rather old and tired. By the time I cleaned up the current code, I might as well make a new design.

Before I explain in greater detail what our plans for the redesign are, I want to make a few points clear:

• Whatever redesign we undertake will continue to be motivated by the goals I had when making our current design: accessibility and ease-of-use for as many users as possible. That means that we will continue to keep graphics to a minimum, and all design will be done only with W3C-compliant XHTML and CSS. So no worries that you'll be waiting half of forever for multiple large images to download or that your browser will crash because of the weird scripts we're using. We will always choose functionality over flashiness.


• The current layout will continue to be available on the archive portion of the site for members who wish to use it.


• The redesign will not affect how the archive functions in any way. This is strictly an aesthetic undertaking.

We are hoping to redesign the site in conjunction with a new section to the site: a gallery for members to share and comment on Silmarillion-related artwork. We've always tried to welcome artists to our group, but they have been left in the cold much of the time, without a place to share their work on our website aside from participating in special projects. We hope that a gallery will begin to remedy this.

As part of the opening of the gallery, we will be featuring an Artist of the Quarter. The Artist of the Quarter will have their work featured as part of the banner on our website, where currently we have the group logo. This will be the single graphic on our main pages.

As my comods and I begin knuckling in for some serious discussion and planning for the redesign, we want very much to hear what you all want to see on the new site design. After all, you all are the ones who use the site regularly to post your work and enjoy the work of others. We want the site to be something most everyone finds easy and pleasant to use.

If there is anything about the appearance or organization of the current site that you love, please do share it, so that we know to keep it! If there is anything that you dislike or find difficult to use, we also want to hear from you. If you have preferences or peeves in general where websites are concerned, feel free to share them. Whether you visit the site once a month, once a year, or every day, we want to hear from you! We are a small community, so even a single voice has the power to sway the decisions we make.

Please comment here with feedback or suggestions or email us at moderator@silmarillionwritersguild.org.

Thank you and best regards,

Dawn

Comments

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I just remembered another legibility and readability thing which many lovely sites ignore. Textured background on web pages dramatically reduces legibility. Punctuation and accent marks are lost in speckles or waves of the background. These textured backgrounds can be lovely from a distance, but very hard to read.

I tried to find backup of the concept that pale, but warm backgrounds are supposedly easier on the eyes than cool backgrounds, which I was taught early in my publishing years for print publications, but I could not find anything addressing that online. (Having computer issues at the moment.) But keep that in mind. Since some people want not a white page surface, but a color, so I was taught that tan or pale yellow is supposedly easier on the eyes than stark white or a pale blue or lavender for example (guys still think pink is girlie and unfortunately think apricot is pink!).

A graphically striking header which does not meet these standards could be the place for artistic creativity, but not blocks of text or instructions on how to get from one place to another.

[dawn_felagund]

No worries--a textured/patterned background wouldn't even be under consideration! :) In addition to the reading challenges they pose, that would be another image to slow down page load times, and I'm really serious about having no more than one image (the banner) on our main pages, as we do currently.

I intend to research background color and readability, as well as talk privately with members who have mentioned that they have vision issues that prevent comfortable reading on certain backgrounds. My first priority will be keeping the site comfortable and accessible to them. If you find those links, please do let me know--that's just what I'm looking for! :)

I had to laugh about apricot being viewed as pink. Someone once told me that they didn't like our blue and pink color scheme on the current site. I never would have mistaken our light orange highlights for pink, but clearly some people do! :)

[heartofoshun.livejournal.com]

I think that is so funny! I do not like pink, but I do like apricot.

I'm really serious about having no more than one image (the banner) on our main pages, as we do currently.

That really does reassure me!! I get so upset with too many bells and whistles on webpages. I feel like people who have reactions to strobe lights! (I know I am quite nuts!)