Choose the AGS Website of the future!

[Sylpher]

Darth's new one. Cept with the green circles and seperation between the navigation menu or at least some other color somewhere. Too much blue on all the designs. Smurf lovers.

[m0ds]

If Darth's is chosen, I reckon it could do with a community thing too.

[Pumaman]

Right, well I've counted the votes, and we have the leaders as:

Klaus: 19 votes
Darth A: 16 votes
Darth New : 8 votes

This is a difficult one to call, especially as the new entry may have distorted the vote totals.

It seems like we're split between Klaus' new look, and Darth's adaptation of the current style. If anyone has a particularly convincing argument either way, now's the time to make it.

[Darth Mandarb]

The idea that I originally had, and would work on any of these designs really, would be a different banner up top everytime you load the page (or hit refresh).  When the page loads, it selects a random number (say 1-10) and we have 10 different banners (or whatever number we want) and then the call for the graphic would be "banner#RandRange(1,10)#.gif" (that's in ColdFusion).  

Doing it this way we could even have individual game banners.  And everytime you come to the site a different game would be pulled up there.  Heck, we could even have the banners link to that game in the game's section.

Just a thought.

~ d

[Privateer Puddin']

I voted Klaus because it will bring AGS into the future, it having the biggest change from the current design.

And ive had enough with that bloody bit down the right with the games

[remixor]

I don't know if this is particularly convincing, but I really don't think iframes are the way to go.  There's always the (slight) possibility of compatibility issues, and they make things harder to navigate by not having a way to universally scroll the page.  Everything is all sectioned up for no good reason, sacrificing utility for a pretty much unnecessarily compact design.  If the other pages (most notably the Games page) use this same iframes design, it would just make browsing games more difficult than it has to sbe, and if they don't use that design you don't have thematic cohesion between the pages.  I also feel that Darth's first design is more clear in the navigation department.  All of the things you need to click on are right up at the top of the page.  Klaus' may look more high-tech, but there really isn't any need to have the buttons scattered around the page.  Speaking of high-tech, this next point is completely subjective, but I just think Darth's design looks more "friendly".  If I were a first time visitor to the page, I get the feeling I'd be more likely to spend more time on Darth's page.  You can see more of the text without having to scroll several separate windows, and Klaus' looks more like a corporate website rather than Darth's which emanates the feeling of an internet project (that doesn't mean it's not well-designed, it just doesn't look as sterilized).  Anyway, none of this is meant to reflect poorly on Klaus' design or his design skills, which are excellent, I just don't think it's really suited to AGS.

[Mage]

my vote for darth a

[Ryukage]

I'd like to change my vote from Darth A to Darth New.

Also I agree with remixor, klaus's design is too sterilized, which I said before.  I hadn't realized it used iframes, that's another strike against it.  Not only are frames of any sort a minus-100 on both the usability and compatibility scorecards, the W3C has begun the process of removing them from the HTML specs entirely.  The specs already consider them nothing but a legacy feature retained only for backwards-compatibility; in a few more years browsers should follow in that thinking and they'll disappear completely (from the specs, at least).

[Timosity]

I like Darth's New one, although I did like the green dots instead of just standard like links, but that's not too important.

I also Think that having Iframes can get quite annoying and also may not be compatible on some browsers. That detracts a bit from Klaus's.

I don't mind either way as they're both great, but Darth's new one for me

[Rincewind]

Aye, well, consider my vote changed to Darths new one as well - Didn't notice it until now.
I do agree with remixor, I would feel more welcome with that one than Klaus'. And with the added "news"-section it's as good as it can get, in my opinion.  

[Esseb]

Remixor mentioned all the points I would give CJ so read his post twice and I'll save some typing.

I also prefer the old green dots of Darth's design and I preferred the two panel layout of his old designs if we've come so far as to discuss minor design issues already.

Oh yeah, and you mentioned you wanted a design that's simple to implement. That's another point for Darth's design over Klaus' which I believe would require various design variants on the various subsections like the games page etc.

[Klaus]

Perhaps this is something to think about: It seems as if it was a mistake to already set up my entry as a working html page. Noone would have taken care about things like "iframes" if I only presented it as a screenshot with content that perfectly fits the boxes... Just from a screenshot you can't see how the page will look on other screen resolutions: Will the other submissions be placed on the upper left side and offer a lot of space at the bottem then? What happens for example if the news section in these screenshots gets more messages or simply counts another number of lines? I don't know...

For the iframe discussion: I really wonder who had troubles here to see the content of the iframes when browsing with his/her standard browser (not after trying this thing out with all browsers just for checking it. And even then...) Talking of W3C and its future is nice but probably only without taking into account some few people that are still using Internet Explorer or even developing it...

The scrollbars could also be set up with dhtml causing even more compatibility problems. That's why noone uses dhtml No, of course this layout can also be created with fix content and without iframes. So the website's pages would probably all be different in length - but only have one scrollbar. Also every tab needs to load a whole new page then and not just switches between the content in the iframe.

Finally: To make it clear I also like compatibility and think it's one of the most important things in webdesign. But I can't see the iframe problem at the moment (so please tell me what standard browser doesn't show the content as I only know about NS4 - see some posts before).

[Timosity]

Klaus, I just checked out your site with a few browsers, IE, MyIE2, Mozilla Firefox and Opera.

The only one that really screws it up was Opera, The Iframes were really small, making the whole page really short, they didn't adjust sizes like the other browsers.

I use Opera a lot so that's why I noticed that particular fault with Iframes.

I've done pleanty of web design myself and I know it's hard to get everything to work on every system, I do like using percentages rather than set widths as you've done, but sometimes certain little things don't translate well across browsers.


Just on the Iframes issue, Is it necessary?, I know It probably makes the outside design static and it just scrolls in the little bits, but you still have to scroll anyway.

I think I'm just picky about these things but I like to be able to see a bit more text rather than it being in a little box without being able to make it bigger.

Also if you use a mouse wheel you have to put the mouse in the box to scroll, rather than just scrolling anywhere (that's also picky but how I prefer to browse)

It's still a good layout (except the banner but I know it's just an example)

anyway, that's just my opinion

[Klaus]

The only one that really screws it up was Opera, The Iframes were really small, making the whole page really short, they didn't adjust sizes like the other browsers.

Yes, I already knew about this one (see some posts above) but I think it can be solved. What about "all the other browsers" that everyone is talking about..?

I know it's hard to get everything to work on every system.

Actually I didn't yet really check this layout for compatibility in detail. Of course I would do so if it comes to the point of setting it up for real. On the other hand I think Opera (nothing against it) is no longer that popular than it was 2 years ago - Mozilla is on its way up now.  Perhaps Chris can show us a statistic about the browsers used by the visitors of this site!?

Just on the Iframes issue, Is it necessary?, I know It probably makes the outside design static and it just scrolls in the little bits, but you still have to scroll anyway.

As the navigation icons are set at the bottom it is better to have them always reachable. If the length of the content field goes longer they might leave the visible screen. So you see it's part of the concept. But as I wrote we can also make the iframes go nonscrolling areas and so end in a layout with different length on probably every page.

Also if you use a mouse wheel you have to put the mouse in the box to scroll, rather than just scrolling anywhere (that's also picky but how I prefer to browse)

That really is picky

[cpage]

if not too late I vote for darths new one aswell

[loominous]

Darths old or new. Whichever is closest to win.

[OverWind]

I Chose Darth A - It's the most userfriendly.

Not to offend anyone but Klaus suggestion is NOT suited for a site of this type, also it's of a design which is "so 90'ies" - everyone and their dog had that kind of design around 2001 and it's just overused and should be left to die in a cellar with locks on the outside.

IF Klaus suggestion were to be used, it would need templates for subpages too, I can't even imagine wanting to read a longer piece of text in a 150 pixel height window, that's just too annoying.

I really like the screenshots of Loominous though, more professional, it gives the feeling that with this engine  I can make professional games. - And that's also a good message to send. So my choice would be to take Darth A's usability friendly design and merge it with Loominous professional approach.

Regards,
Martin.

[TheDude]

I vote Darth A

I think the news panel in Klaus would be strange since it'd probably never be updated and leave new users feeling like it's abandoned and i'm not sure about the pictures used. At first glance you can't tell what the site is about. Darth's is the most fun looking and i think that's what drew me to it and it's what AGS is all about! Fun! If i hadn't been away i would've entered :(

All of the designs are worthy winners in the end since they are all good :)

[RickJ]

lease note, we're only voting on the overall design of the websites featured - details such as what the links are called, rewording of buttons, etc can be dealt with afterwards.

It seems to me that th only submission that oferes any improvement in the "overall design"  over the current website is Klaus'.  IMHO, the main problem with the current site is navigation.  There are a number of pages that I have no idea how to get to from the main page.  The only reason I know about them is that someone posted a link to them at one time or another in the forum.  

With all due respect I don't see how Darth's or Loomis' designs address this issue.   Although I like their graphical themes better than Klaus' they really haven't addressed the current website's weaknesses.      

I think the optimal  solution is to  incorporate Darth's and/orLoomis' graphics in to Klaus' navigational system.  Maybe scrap the iframes in favor of a "more.." link at the bottom of the box.  

In any case it makes little sense to not use some kind of portal or content management system to render the site.   Static websites are just that "static"; they are  burdensome to change and keep updated.   Using this methododolgy Klaus was able to deliver a working model in the same time frame the others were able to deliver only screenies.  

Why don't you guys, Darth, Klaus, and Loomis,  get together and come up with a solution that incorporates the best features of each of your submissions?   Let this discussion be your guide.   8)

[remixor]

Er, what exactly about Klaus' design is so great, navigationally?  I personally think that Darth's, with all it's navigational links right at the top, makes more sense than Klaus', whose links are not centralized.