Thanks to everyone who wrote constructive criticism and feedback (http://www.ehmac.ca/info-centre/75204-ehmac-macworld-canada-integration.html) on the recent design changes.

Once again I am encouraged to see how passionately the membership cares about our community here. The folks at Macworld Canada definitely recognize that! :)

Based on the majority of user feedback, we are going to be back to the previous design of ehMac.

Going forward, I would like to innovate the site and take advantage of the great content that Macworld has to offer. I am also very proud of the Macworld brand, and would like that to be a part of the site as well.

What we are going to do is have ehMac members a lot more involved with the direction and innovation of the site. Look for a thread very shortly where you'll be able to voice your thoughts and ideas for the direction of ehMac. To make it fun, your thoughtful suggestions might win you a cool prize as well. :cool:

Thanks again for your passion and commitment to the ehMac community!

That's great to hear! I know there's some very talented designers that frequent the site. Maybe a site design contest as well?

Great news, very reassuring. :clap:

I second the idea of a design contest - there are a lot of very talented and creative designers on ehMac.

That's great to hear! I know there's some very talented designers that frequent the site. Maybe a site design contest as well?

Power to the people! :) ;)

Awesome:

Some main things to highlight in the changes:

1) I don't know of anyone who is crazy about the blue gradient at the top.

2) The navbar should go underneath the ads or at least not in between the ad blocks.

3) A lot of people would like to see a bigger ehMac logo again.

4) simplify the clutter.


I think that overall the feedback has been great and I want to remind users that they can switch between themes via the style chooser in the botttom left corner.

Another thing we learned is that it might be best to add the new templates as an option in the style chooser and get users feedback before making it the default theme.

Also GratuitousApplesauce I really liked your design and ideas and I'd like to add that in a corporate setting it's often only the designers that are saying everythigns too cluttered or jumpy but both sales and managers want everything to STAND OUT and are very hesitant to simplify things.

Having immediate feedback form an active community on these aspects is quite refreshing.

Thanks for listening.:)

It's nice to belong to a community that people really care about. Well, more than nice.

.

What we are going to do is have ehMac members a lot more involved with the direction and innovation of the site.

Thanks again for your passion and commitment to the ehMac community!
This is why I love ehMac. This kind of homegrown, grassroots, true community feel is pretty rare on the 'net and that's why ehMac is special. :love2:

Going forward, I would like to innovate the site and take advantage of the great content that Macworld has to offer. I am also very proud of the Macworld brand, and would like that to be a part of the site as well.
Agreed. The challenge is how to incorporate that and keep the ehMac homestyle feel, to which I'll defer to better minds.

Yay!

I really like the old site feel and look.

I didn't want to be too critical because I know John and the Macworld people probably put a lot of work into it.

As I said though, the original was very clean and community like.
:D

Thanks to everyone who wrote constructive criticism and feedback (http://www.ehmac.ca/info-centre/75204-ehmac-macworld-canada-integration.html) on the recent design changes.

Once again I am encouraged to see how passionately the membership cares about our community here. The folks at Macworld Canada definitely recognize that! :)

Based on the majority of user feedback, we are going to be back to the previous design of ehMac.

Going forward, I would like to innovate the site and take advantage of the great content that Macworld has to offer. I am also very proud of the Macworld brand, and would like that to be a part of the site as well.

What we are going to do is have ehMac members a lot more involved with the direction and innovation of the site. Look for a thread very shortly where you'll be able to voice your thoughts and ideas for the direction of ehMac. To make it fun, your thoughtful suggestions might win you a cool prize as well. :cool:

Thanks again for your passion and commitment to the ehMac community!

Thank you for listening. Much appreciated!

Also GratuitousApplesauce I really liked your design and ideas and I'd like to add that in a corporate setting it's often only the designers that are saying everythigns too cluttered or jumpy but both sales and managers want everything to STAND OUT and are very hesitant to simplify things.

Having immediate feedback form an active community on these aspects is quite refreshing.

Yes that's true. But it's the designer's job to convince the clients that what they are asking for doesn't ultimately serve their interests. If you have 10 items on a page all screaming out at the viewer, the viewer sees little or nothing and quickly looks elsewhere. On a web page, if they are looking to do something or for specific information, all the clutter hinders them doing that.

Simplifying design is really difficult and involves making some hard choices. I know from doing print design that a little ad, or even a full page can't effectively communicate a bunch of different messages. The designer and the client have to determine what is the main message and what are the subordinate messages are and try and organize them while simplifying as much as possible. This sometimes means that some subordinate messages have to be dropped to strengthen the main messages and make them more effective.

Although it goes against the common sense of the client, who wants to fill every little bit of his expensive ad space with stuff, having "white space" or negative space is absolutely essential. It gives the eye somewhere to rest as it scans, it simply makes the design look better and it allows for easier transmission of the main messages.

A web page is a little different than an ad, but the basic design principles still apply. The focus is more on helping the viewer find what they need to find on the page, which is where simplifying the design always helps.

Having banner ads, that will vary in their design and will naturally often looked cluttered, right up top is going to interfere with the main design, but if the masthead is simple and strong enough, it will allow the viewer to see clearly what is going on and separate the differnet messages. "Here's the web page, ehMac.ca, here's the banner ad for X company, here's the forum navigation and here's the comments." The hierarchy that a few have spoke about is very important.

Anyway that's my $0.02, thanks for listening.

Any way to increase anti-spam measures? Our "new neighbour" opqr741 posted a couple of dozen spam messages all over the place in just a few minutes.

Thanks to everyone who wrote constructive criticism and feedback (http://www.ehmac.ca/info-centre/75204-ehmac-macworld-canada-integration.html) on the recent design changes.

Once again I am encouraged to see how passionately the membership cares about our community here. The folks at Macworld Canada definitely recognize that! :)

Based on the majority of user feedback, we are going to be back to the previous design of ehMac.

Going forward, I would like to innovate the site and take advantage of the great content that Macworld has to offer. I am also very proud of the Macworld brand, and would like that to be a part of the site as well.

What we are going to do is have ehMac members a lot more involved with the direction and innovation of the site. Look for a thread very shortly where you'll be able to voice your thoughts and ideas for the direction of ehMac. To make it fun, your thoughtful suggestions might win you a cool prize as well. :cool:

Thanks again for your passion and commitment to the ehMac community!

I like the ehMac site, Mr. Mayor, but to be honest, it feels like it was designed on a PC. Is there any way to add some of the cool Apple design elements, like on the Apple.com home pages? The Search function is a little clunky. Can we make it more intuitive somehow? If not, no problem.

Thanks Mayor. Much happier now. ehMac FOR THE F***ing WIN!

Morgan

It's all been summed up. All I can really say is thank you! I mean it.

Thank you for listening. Much appreciated!

+1. Thx fir listening!

I think it's great that you're taking the users thought and opinions in to consderation. I like the idea of a design contest.

I think you should pick 3 final designs, as a reference, and do it via a user vote... Just a thought...