Post by Spike on Dec 2, 2007 12:40:41 GMT -5
Quoted from G101 Design
TRu Visions v1
From top to bottom:
Header:
I like the banner image, but at the same time it seems as if it's missing something. Perhaps the blur effect is too much for me, but I almost want to see a bit more detail in it. Also, it is slightly off when compared to the rest of the color scheme, but perhaps that's just to draw attention to it. Overall, it could use just a bit of extra attention, though.
Menu Bar:
I like what you've done with this; it's a creative way to present the information needed for navigation. However, the drop down menu is bland and feels completely out of place. Perhaps you could make the menu itself graphical? My main concern is the fact that the menu that comes down has square corners, which is clearly NOT the theme of this template. Perhaps you could make the drop down have rounded edges much like the button that triggers it, and if you really want to make it seem incredibly polished, make the links that drop down imaged with rollovers as well. That would just give it another level of professionalism.
Footer Image:
The reflection... I don't know what I think of it. It may be too subtle for me, but I'm not entirely sure. I do know that I don't like it as is.
Background:
Looks familiar... perhaps a different look would be nice, so as to not make it seem overdone.
Boards:
What are the columns? How is someone supposed to tell? There's nothing in there that shows the user what each column is showing. The news board, for example, has a third column with just a username in it. Is this the moderator of the board, the highest moderator of this board, the last staff member that posted, or what? My guess would be that it is the moderator, but spell it out, don't have your user guess.
The topics and posts columns at the moment are just cells with numbers in them. Which comes first? Which comes second? Are they total topics, topics since "x" date, or what? Label them.
Last post column. Label it.
Unlabeled stuff makes me twitch.
Cell Highlight: not necessary, but may make a nice finishing touch.
Info Center:
Default isn't necessarily the problem here, yay for you not bogging down the design with code. However, the user legend is nice but feels just tacked on there. Perhaps have your coder play with it to make it fit in better than it currently does; it just feels like it doesn't belong as is.
Forms:
The highlight for the input fields is a bit too much. Perhaps lighten the color just a bit.
Board View:
Stickies are separated with the header and footer image. Why is there not a header and footer image for the normal threads table?
"Search" button is difficult to read, so I would assume the other buttons have the same issue.
There is a cell highlight within the boards. If you're going to use it, include it on the main page and in the boards, or don't include it at all. Consistency is key.
Thread View:
First reaction is load time. Try to optimize code, or remove things that aren't needed (I know this is hard, I was a coder at one point myself and this was one of my weak areas).
Buttons are, again, hard to read.
"Status online"
You need a colon after "Status", and perhaps you could benefit from capitalizing the "online" or "offline." Adding a color for the two different statuses would be a neat touch as well.
The personal text seems to be floating in the middle of nowhere. (or, whatever the "frogdude.proboards104.com" is in frogdude's miniprofile) Perhaps play with its positioning.
Same thing for avatar.
Reflection of head/foot images seems REALLY out of place in the miniprofile.
Final Thoughts:
A very good theme, and in general the load times are good, but consider revising the thread view code as it takes a while to load. On less-high-end systems, this will take much longer than it did on mine. To give you an idea of the speed, clear your cache completely and load up a thread view; you will likely see what I mean. The rest of the design is very snappy, but the thread view (the view that is perhaps the most important as it is used as frequently if not more frequently than the index) is very slow compared to the other load times.
Minor graphical issues bothered me here and there, and wouldn't take much time to fix, but would make a huge impact on the theme as a whole.
Overall a good job, but there are a few things you could do to improve it and make it a fantastic theme.
(and feel blessed, I felt like randomly critiquing something)
From top to bottom:
Header:
I like the banner image, but at the same time it seems as if it's missing something. Perhaps the blur effect is too much for me, but I almost want to see a bit more detail in it. Also, it is slightly off when compared to the rest of the color scheme, but perhaps that's just to draw attention to it. Overall, it could use just a bit of extra attention, though.
Menu Bar:
I like what you've done with this; it's a creative way to present the information needed for navigation. However, the drop down menu is bland and feels completely out of place. Perhaps you could make the menu itself graphical? My main concern is the fact that the menu that comes down has square corners, which is clearly NOT the theme of this template. Perhaps you could make the drop down have rounded edges much like the button that triggers it, and if you really want to make it seem incredibly polished, make the links that drop down imaged with rollovers as well. That would just give it another level of professionalism.
Footer Image:
The reflection... I don't know what I think of it. It may be too subtle for me, but I'm not entirely sure. I do know that I don't like it as is.
Background:
Looks familiar... perhaps a different look would be nice, so as to not make it seem overdone.
Boards:
What are the columns? How is someone supposed to tell? There's nothing in there that shows the user what each column is showing. The news board, for example, has a third column with just a username in it. Is this the moderator of the board, the highest moderator of this board, the last staff member that posted, or what? My guess would be that it is the moderator, but spell it out, don't have your user guess.
The topics and posts columns at the moment are just cells with numbers in them. Which comes first? Which comes second? Are they total topics, topics since "x" date, or what? Label them.
Last post column. Label it.
Unlabeled stuff makes me twitch.
Cell Highlight: not necessary, but may make a nice finishing touch.
Info Center:
Default isn't necessarily the problem here, yay for you not bogging down the design with code. However, the user legend is nice but feels just tacked on there. Perhaps have your coder play with it to make it fit in better than it currently does; it just feels like it doesn't belong as is.
Forms:
The highlight for the input fields is a bit too much. Perhaps lighten the color just a bit.
Board View:
Stickies are separated with the header and footer image. Why is there not a header and footer image for the normal threads table?
"Search" button is difficult to read, so I would assume the other buttons have the same issue.
There is a cell highlight within the boards. If you're going to use it, include it on the main page and in the boards, or don't include it at all. Consistency is key.
Thread View:
First reaction is load time. Try to optimize code, or remove things that aren't needed (I know this is hard, I was a coder at one point myself and this was one of my weak areas).
Buttons are, again, hard to read.
"Status online"
You need a colon after "Status", and perhaps you could benefit from capitalizing the "online" or "offline." Adding a color for the two different statuses would be a neat touch as well.
The personal text seems to be floating in the middle of nowhere. (or, whatever the "frogdude.proboards104.com" is in frogdude's miniprofile) Perhaps play with its positioning.
Same thing for avatar.
Reflection of head/foot images seems REALLY out of place in the miniprofile.
Final Thoughts:
A very good theme, and in general the load times are good, but consider revising the thread view code as it takes a while to load. On less-high-end systems, this will take much longer than it did on mine. To give you an idea of the speed, clear your cache completely and load up a thread view; you will likely see what I mean. The rest of the design is very snappy, but the thread view (the view that is perhaps the most important as it is used as frequently if not more frequently than the index) is very slow compared to the other load times.
Minor graphical issues bothered me here and there, and wouldn't take much time to fix, but would make a huge impact on the theme as a whole.
Overall a good job, but there are a few things you could do to improve it and make it a fantastic theme.
(and feel blessed, I felt like randomly critiquing something)
...Im a fan of some of these suggestions but others are not neccesary
