[Home]LayoutMockups

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June, 2006: I'm in the middle of designing new page layouts for this wiki, as well as my DesignBibliography wiki. So far, I have http://sunir.org/monkey/mockups/page7.htm (compare to previous version: http://sunir.org/monkey/mockups/page6.htm). With a discussion, http://sunir.org/monkey/mockups/page7-discussion.htm

Some things I have yet to do:

Feedback is appreciated. -- SunirShah

Fonts

I think it looks very nice, but I'm only a reliable judge of attractiveness in so far as I tend to be at odds with the general population. I was suprised that you have switched the font away for the Times Roman family and gone sansSerif. I've generally been told that serifs are significantly easier to read (by recognition). -- HansWobbe

I'm pretty certain the current site expresses no font preference. Your browser must be the one picking Times Roman. -- ChrisPurcell

Serif fonts are easier to read when printed at high resolution. On low resolution displays, such as computer screens, the sharper sans-serif fonts are easier to read. But that's a theory. It may differ for each individual. When this gets done, we can always create different skins for different people. -- SunirShah

Wouldn't it be easier to just use the default browser font? -- ChrisPurcell

Well, it might be easier, but uglier. Testing it, it's not so bad to let the page text itself be serif. http://sunir.org/monkey/mockups/page5-serif.htm -- SunirShah

Picking a font with good hinting (for each platform separately, probably) is definitely important. -- RadomirDopieralski

Ok. I've made the font the default, although 10% larger just for fun. -- SunirShah

Just for the record, I found the sans-serif font easier to read, but I can change my default font easily enough. -- StephenGilbert

Colours

I like the layout, but the colors seem... dirty. -- RadomirDopieralski

Based on our conversation on IRC, I hope this looks better. -- SunirShah

It really looks great now. The color of tabs when you hover mouse over them is also a little "dirty" -- maybe just gray, or more "clean" yellow would be better? -- RadomirDopieralski

Layout

Another point about the ease of reading -- have you considered limiting the width of text (e.g. to about 50em), I find long lines of text a little hard to read, and I'm sure I'm not alone. -- RadomirDopieralski

SydneyMercurio? also expressed a desire for margins. I've made it look more like a book now. -- SunirShah

I like the new design a lot. Fonts are good with me and I do like the margins. Two things: 1) is it possible to half the margin for the text, I think it is a tad too much white space. 2) can the header and footer match it? Regardless, this is pretty cool. Best, MarkDilley

I think the optimal margin size depends on your resolution, font and window size. I wonder to which of the three it should be relative (using pt/cm/in, px, em or %). By the way, I think the hr looks better when it's the width of block of text, not the width of text+headings. -- RadomirDopieralski

Other

I'm just starting to work with CSS a bit more since its taken me a great deal longer to master the interactions of TiddlyWiki's markup with that of usemod. One of the reasons that I am getting ready to work with this is that I have found the capabilities of Eric Schulman's TiddlyWiki adaptations to be remarkably effective and efficient to apply. If you are interested, I can send you a small test file that you can take a look at.

I'm deeply committed to TransClusion and have found that using this (a lot) is definitley affecting the sytle of the pages that I create. Again, I can send you some screen shots that may illustrate this, but only if you care enough to not consider such a message to be spam (not thast my feelings will be hurt in the least, if you decline). -- HansWobbe

If you could provide an example, I can think about fitting the ideas in. -- SunirShah

Posted to the Meatball mailing list: Although the design is understated, and I assume this is intentional, it is still at a distinctly higher production value than the page content itself. As it so often happens the frame is prettier than the picture. -- WardCunningham

I assume the next step is to style the semantic information provided by the page? (In which case we need to start differentiating between a blockquote and a reply in a conversation.) -- ChrisPurcell

Version 7 looks nice. -- ChrisPurcell

Seconded. It's really coming together. -- StephenGilbert

Discussion

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