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Reinsnitz
Snitz Forums Admin
USA
3545 Posts |
 Posted - 09 March 2001 : 22:08:27
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white stays ;) I've done my fair share of black sites... and pull it off very well :)
but we do want that extera proffessional edge that a white site gives.
Reinsnitz (Mike)
><)))'> Need a Mod?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,..." Matthew 28:19a |
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tomasalsbro
Average Member
Sweden
818 Posts |
Posted - 10 March 2001 : 01:12:25
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Well, about the designing the front page.
My personly opionen is that the front page has to be fairly neutral. It must appiel to a large group and be adaptable in background and banner color.
My target group are ordinary people who seeks info about trafik injuries, age between 15 to 80. Many of them are women who surf for info about their illness.
In my special case I need to translate the forum to Swedish.
Sum up:
Who's the end users? Age, computer habits and skills and so on.
What design are "timeless" and most eye-friendly for the major group of end users (visitors)?
Is their any design thats more adapteble-friendly?
In my personal opinion dark is young, assosiated with games, and in the long run depressive.
The purpose with a well deigned front page is of course to have the visitors longing for more.
Every cultur differens from each others. If the purpose with the forum is to be a world wide spread forum you have to make it easy to adapt and friendly changeble. You must not be a "professional" to change and adapt the front page to suite your target group and your own cultur.
I'm sorry for my poor English!
Tomas Alsbro
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Reinsnitz
Snitz Forums Admin
USA
3545 Posts |
Posted - 11 March 2001 : 15:28:17
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quote:
Well, about the designing the front page.
My personly opionen is that the front page has to be fairly neutral. It must appiel to a large group and be adaptable in background and banner color.
My target group are ordinary people who seeks info about trafik injuries, age between 15 to 80. Many of them are women who surf for info about their illness.
In my special case I need to translate the forum to Swedish.
Sum up:
Who's the end users? Age, computer habits and skills and so on.
What design are "timeless" and most eye-friendly for the major group of end users (visitors)?
Is their any design thats more adapteble-friendly?
In my personal opinion dark is young, assosiated with games, and in the long run depressive.
The purpose with a well deigned front page is of course to have the visitors longing for more.
Every cultur differens from each others. If the purpose with the forum is to be a world wide spread forum you have to make it easy to adapt and friendly changeble. You must not be a "professional" to change and adapt the front page to suite your target group and your own cultur.
I'm sorry for my poor English!
Tomas Alsbro
Tomas,
All great points... I couldn't agree more... hence the simple and easily configurable nature of the forums... and the front page today... however... do you have any specific suggestions? 
Reinsnitz (Mike)
><)))'> Need a Mod?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,..." Matthew 28:19a |
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Da_Stimulator
DEV Team Forum Moderator
USA
3373 Posts |
Posted - 11 March 2001 : 15:34:32
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I've got one! just popped into my head. on AznKnights entire site, he has three or four color sets which can be chosen from. My fav is blue... but thats besides the point. This might somehow be incorperated into the snitz site in a way, setting a cookie for each user. This way each individual gets their own little taste of what they want.
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Da_Stimulator
Need a Mod?
My Snitz Test Center
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Reinsnitz
Snitz Forums Admin
USA
3545 Posts |
Posted - 11 March 2001 : 20:02:37
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interesting :) Is there a non-server intensive way to do this?
Reinsnitz (Mike)
><)))'> Need a Mod?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,..." Matthew 28:19a |
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Da_Stimulator
DEV Team Forum Moderator
USA
3373 Posts |
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Da_Stimulator
DEV Team Forum Moderator
USA
3373 Posts |
Posted - 11 March 2001 : 20:17:40
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Well... of course have a script to set the cookie for the color set, but instead of switching variables left and right within the site iteself, just have something like the following in the top template file.
I am just talking about the main page, no need to use database to store all these.
strColorSet = request.cookies("colorset")
if strColorSet = "" then
strcolorSet = "default"
end if
Select Case strColorSet
Case "default"
strTextColor = "color"
etc.......
Case "blue
strTextColor = "color"
etc.......
End Select
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Da_Stimulator
Need a Mod?
My Snitz Test Center
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Da_Stimulator
DEV Team Forum Moderator
USA
3373 Posts |
Posted - 12 March 2001 : 18:06:52
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http://stormwhispers.com/test_colorchanger.asp
See, easy :)
Code is below
<%
if request.querystring("setcookie") = "true" then
Call setcookie(request.querystring("color"))
end if
strColorSet = request.cookies("ColorSet")
Select Case strColorSet
Case "blue"
strBGColor = "blue"
strTextColor = "white"
Case "red"
strBGColor = "red"
strTextColor = "yellow"
Case "black"
strBGColor = "black"
strTextColor = "white"
Case "white"
strBGColor = "white"
strTextColor = "black"
Case else
strBGColor = "white"
strTextColor = "black"
End Select
%>
<html>
<!-- creation date: 3/12/01 -->
<head>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1">
<title></title>
<meta name="Description" content="">
<meta name="Keywords" content="">
<meta name="Author" content="Eric Johnson">
<meta name="Generator" content="AceHTML 4 Pro">
</head>
<body bgcolor="<%=strBGColor%>" text="<%=strTextColor%>">
<b>Choose a colorset:</b>
<form method="get" action="<%=request.servervariables("script_name")%>">
<input type="hidden" name="setcookie" value="true">
<Select name="color">
<option value="blue"<%if strColorSet = "blue" then response.write(" SELECTED")%>>Blue
<option value="red"<%if strColorSet = "red" then response.write(" SELECTED")%>>Red
<option value="black"<%if strColorSet = "black" then response.write(" SELECTED")%>>Black
<option value="white"<%if strColorSet = "white" then response.write(" SELECTED")%>>White
</select>
<br><input type="submit" value=" Change ColorSet ">
</form>
</body>
</html>
<%
Sub setcookie(strColortoSet)
response.cookies("ColorSet") = strColortoSet
End Sub
%>
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Da_Stimulator
Need a Mod?
My Snitz Test Center
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tomasalsbro
Average Member
Sweden
818 Posts |
Posted - 13 March 2001 : 12:03:32
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quote:
quote:
Well, about the designing the front page.
My personly opionen is that the front page has to be fairly neutral. It must appiel to a large group and be adaptable in background and banner color.
My target group are ordinary people who seeks info about trafik injuries, age between 15 to 80. Many of them are women who surf for info about their illness.
In my special case I need to translate the forum to Swedish.
Sum up:
Who's the end users? Age, computer habits and skills and so on.
What design are "timeless" and most eye-friendly for the major group of end users (visitors)?
Is their any design thats more adapteble-friendly?
In my personal opinion dark is young, assosiated with games, and in the long run depressive.
The purpose with a well deigned front page is of course to have the visitors longing for more.
Every cultur differens from each others. If the purpose with the forum is to be a world wide spread forum you have to make it easy to adapt and friendly changeble. You must not be a "professional" to change and adapt the front page to suite your target group and your own cultur.
I'm sorry for my poor English!
Tomas Alsbro
Tomas,
All great points... I couldn't agree more... hence the simple and easily configurable nature of the forums... and the front page today... however... do you have any specific suggestions?
Reinsnitz (Mike)
><)))'> Need a Mod?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,..." Matthew 28:19a
Well Reinsnitz, about the front page of the forum
I have some ideas about how to make the forum user friendly and universal, but I’m afraid my ideas merely apply to my targets (end users).
There are however, as I se it, some important things to bear in mind when looking at this subjects:
The number one forum for me is a forum that’s so simple to use that no one ever could imagining how complex the ingoing items are, and no one would never have a reason to wonder what’s behind the good looking front. The forum really “hides its power”.
-What’s the basic aim with the forum and development of the forum?
Some about the targets (market in business language) with this forum:
The target as I see it is manly two:
1. The site owners
2. The end users
Some essential questions concerning this target groups:
-How does the site owners group look like?
-Are they homogeny as a group or not?
-What are the site owner’s purposes with the forum?
Regarding the above:
-Can the forum serve as entrance to a site (by it self or in combination with some other application)?
-How does the end user group look like?
-Does the end user group differ in skills?
-Does the end user group and purpose?
-Does the end user group differ from culture to culture?
-Does the end user group differ from culture to culture?
I don’t have the answer to these questions other then for my own site forum. I’m familiar with my target group and there needs, but that doesn’t necessarily apply to other site owners needs.
That’s why I find it necessary to get more knowledge how to adapt the forum.
This is also a reason to find a way to make the entrance of the forum and of course the use in the end users view as easy as possible.
I have a slight memory of that Microsoft and Apple Computer hired behavioural scientist to solve this matter.
My own ideas is that the front page would serve several purpose:
Together with an aesthetical and user-friendly navigation menu serve as the entrance to my whole site.
Gather all interactions between my ”market” and me as the site owner, i.e. my end users.
Be the ground for future expansions, for example I have been asked to start a new federation of persons with traffic injuries in Sweden. The forum serving my site would be the community centre of such a federation, and so on.
The basic forum needs to be as simple to use as ever possible. Lets assume that the end-users not are fools, but to be on the safe side of the road lets play with the thought that he or she is dumb, lazy and scare to do anything wrong. Then you will probably make an application that even your grandma could use and enjoy using. In my eyes that means working with self-explaining icons and figures as navigation instruments.
We could put up a survey to find out these questions. Let the survey be the entrance side to this forum so everyone that visits the forum is asked to answer. In that way you could quickly find out if there is a significant difference between culture, countries and so on.
In my mind there are significant difference looking at, health sites, gaming sites and developer sites! Their target groups are from different worlds so to speak even if the aim with the forums could be similar.
Sum up ideas:
Front Page should just consist of a simple looking navigation panel - why not imitate Microsofts thread-navigation menu?
This navigation menu should lead to the forum as well as other parts of the site. By doing this in a user friendly way, the forum could be the natural choice in making a start side for every ones site and gain a super forum at "the same price". In my opinion the front pages success is the key to success for the forum.
By the way – this forum project must be unique in the world! I have never heard of such worldwide cooperation’s on a idealistic base. This could be something for the UN to learn from!
Please - disregard from my lack of language variations.
Cheers / Tomas Alsbro
Edited by - tomasalsbro on 13 March 2001 12:05:19 |
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Reinsnitz
Snitz Forums Admin
USA
3545 Posts |
Posted - 13 March 2001 : 13:53:25
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Ok... thank you :) that is all great stuff to keep in mind as coming up with ideas for the front page!
Reinsnitz (Mike)
><)))'> Need a Mod?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,..." Matthew 28:19a |
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AllenAyres
Starting Member
USA
18 Posts |
Posted - 14 March 2001 : 12:37:00
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yes, a better slash-dot-than-slash-dot mod would work well no matter which design/ color scheme you go with... AznKnight's front page is a good example, tho it may be a little too busy for snitz.
- Allen
- http://ubbdev.com
- http://www.stand318.com |
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Reinsnitz
Snitz Forums Admin
USA
3545 Posts |
Posted - 14 March 2001 : 17:42:21
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I want to do one here... but havn't had the time to figure it out
Reinsnitz (Mike)
><)))'> Need a Mod?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,..." Matthew 28:19a |
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Da_Stimulator
DEV Team Forum Moderator
USA
3373 Posts |
Posted - 14 March 2001 : 21:37:01
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what is this slash mod slash dot or whatever everyone is talking about? I never heard of it, nor do I know what it does.
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Da_Stimulator
Need a Mod?
My Snitz Test Center
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Reinsnitz
Snitz Forums Admin
USA
3545 Posts |
Posted - 14 March 2001 : 22:07:52
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it's included in the current alpha release :)
lets you do a small excerpt of the latest postings in whatever forum you wish on the front page of your web site... to spur interest in content etc...
Reinsnitz (Mike)
><)))'> Need a Mod?
"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations,..." Matthew 28:19a |
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AllenAyres
Starting Member
USA
18 Posts |
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Topic Locked
