Take action
polycounter lvl 19
We cannot sit back and let this happen fellas,
Polycount is being redesigned and in a good spirit, but why infest it with this horrendous looking smiley logo?
seriously what is this shit..
Vote now, before it's too late.
Polycount is being redesigned and in a good spirit, but why infest it with this horrendous looking smiley logo?
seriously what is this shit..
Vote now, before it's too late.
This discussion has been closed.
Replies
So let me just cover a few things:
a) Huge fonts, a green background, and barely any content just doesn't work. I expect there will eventually be content, but I just can't see it improving this ... thing.
b) Menus like "news | something | etc" are ugly. I used to use them, I regret this greatly. If you're going to make a menu, try to do more than seperating the sections with a pipe.
c) Layout. I'm sure everyone here knows how important this is -- if not, trust me on this. The old Polycount design, while it may have been rusty and in need of an update, had a semi-decent layout. It had a menu on the left, models on the right, and news in the center. It was a simple 3-column structure that anyone could navigate.
That being said, I think this layout can be made to work with some changes. For one, I'd move the menu to be in line with the "polycount" text (obviously it would not share the same height and would have to be seperated in an obvious way).
Given the width of the banner ad at the top, with a smaller size and/or decreasing the spacing between the menu items, it would probably fit nicely.
The images have no real seperation from the other content -- that is, currently, just the news. I think this is a problem because it should be evident that the images at the top are not part of the immediate news entry. I honestly have to say I couldn't tell upon viewing for the first time.
The news entries, as well, should have some clear indication of being seperate from other portions. You could use something as simple as a horizontal rule for this, it really isn't hard and you can probably find some convenient way to do this.
d) Colors. Polycount is green, nobody is going to forget this and removing that would be bad. However, the inclusion of other colors that compliment the green would probably be a good idea. Reds and blues for small pieces to break it up. Nothing large and attention drawing, just to break up the monotony of the green and black.
Sorry for the long post, I should hope the fellow designing the new site will read it though. Take it as you will, I'm going back to my schoolwork now that I've sufficiently shared my feelings about the new design (perhaps not in the most elegant way, but bear with me).
i have to agree with some of the comments.. the front page could use some more, um, visually attractive features.
i'm sure this solution would please everyone
just don't put those black teeth on her
i'm sure this solution would please everyone
picture here
just don't put those black teeth on her
[/ QUOTE ]
I bet something less androgynous ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Androgynous ) would please us all a lot more
edit: ah its gauss doing it
Hawken is one of the few people on polycount being civil and offering up design ideas. Not cool to have a thread to bash him even if you don't like the smiley.
If you're not willing to put in the hours to build a site then shut the hell up. You will eat your gruel and you will like it. The new design is cleaner and easier to maintain for the people that do. They maintain this site with no pay and for your benefit. So shut your fithy mouths until you have something to offer!
This thread would be entirely useless if it weren't for the Per jokes.
Only suggestions. I don't visit the front page anyway.
No harm to anyone, the new design will bring radial changes,but it is ultra nasty.
This would have been further on, but Erik and I went on a wee pub crawl (home for chips an pro evo).
> "I think there are more polite ways of saying its not what we'd like, someone worked on this design everyones bashing. I will say this though- it doesn't scream 'professional' and it doesn't seem to resemble the hub of a community."
I think I accomplished this. I at least tried to provide criticism that would help to improve the design instead of just saying "zomg it sux."
> "If you're not willing to put in the hours to build a site then shut the hell up."
Already built my site.
> "The new design is cleaner and easier to maintain for the people that do."
If you do things right, it'll be a breeze to maintain any site. If polycount's functionality is crippled by its design, then they've already done something wrong.
Anyway I like the smiley, if for nothing else that it makes the shirts from the dom war more polycount shirts than "this one event that happend in 2006 [long explanation]"-shirts.
However I do think that some red or blue in there, perhaps as news dividers or some such, like here on the forums, would serve the overall look well, as well as tie the forums to the main site better.
Noel, maybe do a quick photoshop mockup to show how it might be improved. Maybe offer your skills in putting sites together to see the design through to the finish?
Your site is very nice. Well done, you. Polycount has very different needs, however, and nothing from your site but general design priniciples can be applied. Calling the design 'shit' is not recognizing what's probably the most important bit at this point - the designer's goals. As I see them:
1-Refocusing the design on the community and removing legacy clutter
2-Usability
3-Pretty
IMO, they're doing well so far.
Noel, you've got the right spirit, you are trying to be constructive. . . sort of. All I'm saying is that the best thing you or any of us can do is offer to help. If that help is refused, then we're stuck with what the admins decide to do.
I, myself, am lazy and have no intention of helping, so I choose to not criticize and instead offer a pat on the back to those who have put in the hard work at no personal gain.
That doesn't mean everyone should do the same, I'm just irritated by the overwhelming volume of "SUX!" and not much accompanying community support.
> "Noel, maybe do a quick photoshop mockup to show how it might be improved."
I'm working on one, but I plan on taking my time. Rushing (mockup or not) is not something I enjoy doing for anything (mainly because I always end up going back and messing with it for a very long time -- I'd rather have something I'm satisfied with).
> "All I'm saying is that the best thing you or any of us can do is offer to help."
Really, it is in some cases. The people saying it just sucks or something similar may just not know how to elaborate on it. I don't think it's a good idea to sit back and not say anything just because you can't help. Just by saying what you think you can help.
Sitting back and watching something you don't like be constructed is worse than saying you dislike it without reason as far as I'm concerned.
I do feel that people should try very hard to elaborate on their dislike of something, but if it can't be helped then at least they've shared it. Preferably in a more civil manner than myself, but oh well.
Honestly, the entire design is shit, not just the smiley.
[/ QUOTE ]
With such a bold and defining statement such as this, including the criticism of the "smiley" that was the defining Polycount symbol during the Dominance War, I'd expect the rest of the post to be statements supporting this declaration...
Dragged in here from IRC, I just wanted to point out that as an argument, Noel's "points" don't make any sense.
[ QUOTE ]
a) Huge fonts, a green background, and barely any content just doesn't work.
[/ QUOTE ]
Huge fonts are a staple of modern web design. To say it's poor design is to criticize an entire generation of "Web 2.0" sites, or to hate entire genres of art.
The green background with black text is simply the opposite of what we had before: similar, but different enough to be "new." If you really love black backgrounds, you're welcome to go back to 1994 and take your black background with you.
"Barely any content" is not a design critique, and therefore is irrelevant to this discussion.
[ QUOTE ]
b) Menus like "news | something | etc" are ugly. I used to use them, I regret this greatly.
[/ QUOTE ]
In other words, horizontal menus? Again, a design critique that request the destruction of every Windows application with a menu bar, every Mac (with the menu bar at the top of the screen), even these boards, which have like have a dozen horizontal menus.
[ QUOTE ]
c) Layout. I'm sure everyone here knows how important this is -- if not, trust me on this. The old Polycount design, while it may have been rusty and in need of an update, had a semi-decent layout. It had a menu on the left, models on the right, and news in the center. It was a simple 3-column structure that anyone could navigate.
[/ QUOTE ]
So... no-one can navigate our new and extremely complicated layout? Let me see.
Menu of important stuff at the top so you can't miss it... No huge list of models to distract you from the news... Huge column of news taking up most of the screen so you can't miss it... Nowhere else to go and nothing else to do but read news and visit the boards...
I'm sorry, unless you're obsessive-compulsive, the new design is actually easier to navigate. Perhaps you're confusing the meanings of "new" and "different?"
[ QUOTE ]
The images have no real seperation from the other content -- that is, currently, just the news. I think this is a problem because it should be evident that the images at the top are not part of the immediate news entry. I honestly have to say I couldn't tell upon viewing for the first time.
[/ QUOTE ]
So even though there's a menu between the images and the news, and a giant "updates" headline between the images and the news, and the headline of the first news post between the images and the news, and the alt-text of the images say "POTD"... you couldn't tell that the images weren't part of the news? I just want to be clear about this.
[ QUOTE ]
The news entries, as well, should have some clear indication of being seperate from other portions. You could use something as simple as a horizontal rule for this, it really isn't hard and you can probably find some convenient way to do this.
[/ QUOTE ]
So the fact that there are giant green headlines between news entries doesn't make it clear to you that it isn't just a long run-on sentence?
[ QUOTE ]
d) Colors. Polycount is green, nobody is going to forget this and removing that would be bad. However, the inclusion of other colors that compliment the green would probably be a good idea. Reds and blues for small pieces to break it up. Nothing large and attention drawing, just to break up the monotony of the green and black.
[/ QUOTE ]
Hold up. You just said you preferred the old design... which had even more green and black than the current design, and even less color. But now you want more color? This is terribly inconsistent.
[ QUOTE ]
I'm going back to my schoolwork now
[/ QUOTE ]
As a design critique, you make points that are irrelevant the design, you are inconsistent with your application of criticism, and make assumptions and apply personal bias universally instead of providing arguments to back up your points.
If this were a class assignment, you'd fail.
I would love a well-reasoned, illustrated design argument.
The new design is UGLY. Like a mod project. Like "My-First-Website"
you must have noticed the community backlash, and that is not just because they fear change. Some people have been polite and tried to skirt around the issue, some have been as openly brutally honest as I.
No harm to Gauss - Gauss did a General concept for me that pisses over anything I could have come up with. I know I cannot conept game character, and accept that fact.
Anyway.
The design shown has casued a massive rift, and we all know that PC *NEEDS* to move on. I think everone would back a redesign that works for the site, AND still fulfills a basic asthetic need.
I can see that the new design works to propel PC into the future where web usability comes along, but as a pretty interface it fails. Badly.
Now, my ego is the size of the Antartic, but I *KNOW* that my mockup is better. I know that Hawkens mockup is better. I know that with a little work PC3.0 can be a bastard child of yours, Hawkens, mine and several others. It can be better.
Please, for your own sake, dont cover your ears to this very public criticism and ignore it.
Yours,
Rick Stirling
I'm sure Gauss has gotten the idea that the website design can be improved. In fact, I'm sure he knew it without people calling his design "shit". Maybe if we can restrain from being assholes, we can participate in the rebirth of a new Polycount. I'm sure that if we're civil, and give people time to work, each of our ideas will be considered by the folks who have invested so much of themselves into the site -- it's creators.
However, as Noel and I were discussing in IRC, saying something is "shit" isn't really a well-reasoned design critique. Because I am explicitly not a graphic or visual designer, I can't rely on "like" and "dislike" to judge a design, I have to rely on proper design critiques.
For example, a bad critique would be "The smiley is gay." A good critique would be "The smiley, while nice for a unifying theme for the Dominance War contest, doesn't represent Polycount historically. A new design should still have reflections of the past in it to make people feel comfortable, so I propose this new, low-poly wireframe 3D character, similar to the Q2 player character, wearing a Dominance War t-shirt, as a nice compromise between the history and the present."
You can do the same with the font choices, the layout, the positioning of the images, etc. "Gay" and "shit" aren't valid arguments.
I'm going to start a new thread giving you guys the design restrictions we had to work with so your mockups aren't totally wasted. Gimme a minute to do that.
Honestly, the entire design is shit, not just the smiley. Really, is this the best that could be mustered?
[/ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think I accomplished this. I at least tried to provide criticism that would help to improve the design instead of just saying "zomg it sux."
[/ QUOTE ]
AHAHAH Noel I beg to differ that you accomplished anything of the sort! Ninjas and Vito just called it. Frankly, I'm amazed at some of the attitudes about this fiasco. People need to calm the fuck down, and they seem to be forgetting some things:
1) People plough a lot of their free time into this site behind the scenes. It's a thankless task.
2) The instant anyone ever said to me of my work "It's shit" I would completely switch off to any more of their ramblings. I don't think I would have read beyond that in fact. Never in any way shape or form is the use of that phrase constructive criticism.
rick , come on man, your page is a blog, and so is Noel's. come on, its like the internet eqivilent of a chia pet, all you have to do is water that shit to make a web page.
not that there is anything wrong with that. i could find everything and navigate around fine. but every single crit i have seen thrown out at you was ignored, instantly shut down, or given some excuse why you did it that way and its ultimately better than any suggestion anyone could of ever given you. how do you expect people to take you seriously when you say "Please, for your own sake, dont cover your ears to this very public criticism and ignore it." i literally spit out my cheerios all over the monitor when i read that. the only thing that sucks now is that i have milk all in my keyboard and its a laptop so it gets rather hot under there and the milk is starting to reek something fierce. you guys might be a member on the forums, but its not your site
Yeah, I have to agree after discussing it with Vito (on IRC). I really should have put that together better.
arshlevon: Whoa, calm down.
polycount is moving forward, we're not going back. so if you want to have some constructive input into the new front page (a page you would visit as opposed to now) looks, please go to vito's new thread on the matter and post the mockups
http://boards.polycount.net/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=116456&an=0&page=0#116456