I agree with the “everything flows together” and “no blender logo” being problems…
And the gray should be darker, and the white should be light gray.
Damn, I sound, as BgDM so eloquently put it, like an ungrateful bastard. But hey.
I agree with everything you said.
The post and replies count is a standard part of every web forum. I look at them simultaneusly with the the subject. The ‘hover mouse over last user thing’ 1) doesn’t work in Opera 8.02 and 2) is a poor design, I like to see all the post counts at once, as sort a of “barometer” of which threads are alive or dead.
If links aren’t going to be underlined, then have them in a different color.
I was quite happy with the default vBulletin design, even though many users said they preferred a darker design. This new color scheme .err or lack thereof, makes the whole site seem very “floaty”, with everything running together.
Mike
I miss Elysiun.
tedi put it well. This theme literally hurts my eyes. I think the text on the white is bad. And there aren’t enough boxes.
I don’t think you understood what I was trying to say. If the design were centered in the browser window, there wouldn’t be so much empty white space on the right hand side of the screen. Half would be on the left and half on the right. It is especially bad on a wide screen display. Attached is a screen shot of what it looks like on my screen:
I find the color scheme to be nice, myself. It’s certainly a different visual paradigm, and one that I’ve not seen before anywhere on the web. In that sense, it’s very cool. I’m almost used to it already. It’s relaxing.
OTOH, with the large vertical size of the header, plus the splash image, plus the into to thread stuff and the tall post headers, I find that if my whole browser takes up 700 pixels vertically, the text of the first post in a thread doesn’t even start until more than 2/3 of the way down the screen. It means that any post that is more than a trivial “Hi how are you?” is going to require me to scroll to read it. Likewise the main forum page with the different forum listings.
That banner image is very cool, but it eats a ton of screen real estate that I’d rather see spent on the actual content that I’m here for.
Just to reiterate, though, I find the colors/design beautiful. I’m just concerned about the longevity of my scroll wheel now.
One issue I have noticed is that while viewing a post in firefox 2, the Search and Quicklinks menus, when expanded are clipped.
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A completely white theme is a bit unpleasant when you expend ten hours a day working in front of a computer, and your eye’s pupil had to adjust from darker pages (CGtalk) & software backgrounds (Blender), etc. to sites with white schemes.
It is a pure ergonomy question. White schemes makes your vision to work harder. You are prone to notice these kind of things when you spend many hours in front of a computer & your are in your 30s.
That is the main reason that we didn’t put the advertising at the top of the forum, the posts would start too low. We are still looking into small tweaks for usability, so this thread is all good.
We are listening, it just takes us time to get things done with people on three continents and little free time.
Are we both looking at the same design? All I’m seeing is a white screen, an orange banner, some faint grey lines and some tiny arial font. Reading the past posts it seems that my fellow forum members are divided, half seem to like the design, the other half (myself included) seem to hate it. I wonder if there’s something about the design that makes it appear differently depending on the type of display you have? I know Mac’s tend to have have brighter displays so that may be washing out some of it for me, but I wonder if something like this is effecting the way it appears for others as well.
I don’t mean to “beat up” the forum dev’s, but I’m very dissappointed in how this turned out. I find it very difficult to even look at this forum now. Just too harsh and tough on the eyes.
woa. whiteness!!! I like the simplicity! I like the orange! I like the font! I like it!
I don’t understand the logic of “not enough space”.
It looks like you’ve simply deleted the replies, views columns and made the topic/thread title area wider … and created (on my monitor) a ~ 1 inch blank border on the right … for what purpose ?
Having links and bold text appear the same is a very poor design IMO, either make them underlined (like almost every other web forum) or a different color.
As for the color scheme, count me in the “hate it club”, too floaty, everything flows together
Mike
I agree, I kept looking at the “loading status” thinking that the page hadn’t finished loading yet 
Mike
My eyes hurt. I have to agree that this new design is way too bright and the lack of contrast makes it really hard for me to find where posts start or end or where different buttons are. I’m also finding it a bit annoying to look at the left side of the screen only, I’d really prefer the whole thing centered.
I have to close this browser window now, it’s just too bright for my tired eyes and I feel headache coming my way…
i don’t like it much.
posts really look like… not isolated.
also, the colour scheme is too bright for me.i think darker colours are easier on the eyes.
all the text apperars to be right-aligned. i think it should be a little more on the left… something like semi-centered.
I really hate the ads.I know money is required, but the ad could stay on the top of the page… before the header or after it, not merged with users’ posts.
what i like are the new icons and the idea to put an image, from the gallery, on the header.
I think it’d be a nice idea to add settings in the user CP to change the colour scheme.
That banner image is very cool, but it eats a ton of screen real estate that I’d rather see spent on the actual content that I’m here for.
Yep. The Blendernation approach of combining the title and navbar with a changeable banner image would be good. The brightness doesn’t bother be as such. It didn’t with the default page either. The lack of contrast bugs me because the articles kind of get a bit lost. All it would maybe take is a thin black horizontal line between threads (which would also connect the post number and date with the appropriate thread - currently it’s difficult to tell which it belongs to) instead of the invisible white bar - this wouldn’t blow the theme apart but would add some functionality. I’ve tried just changing that white separator bar into a 20% and it makes a world of difference yet remains in theme - unless the theme is not separating anything
Also, I suspect the front page will cause more “wrong thread” troubles as the pale grey headers designating the discussion, artwork and support forums are barely visible. Look for more newb/noob help posts in News and Discussion as a result. I think those headers are too important to hide.
One issue I have noticed is that while viewing a post in firefox 2, the Search and Quicklinks menus, when expanded are clipped.
Same here (FF 1.0.7 Mac). Oddly enough, the “Thread Tools” and “Search This Thread” drop downs work fine.
On my earlier issue of scroll bars surrounding posts that have ads in them: The ads are definitely the cause but I find the problem goes away if I resize the browser when the page has loaded. It does concern me that members have ads directly within their posts. It looks like spam. I might have to change my sig to “I do not necessarily support or endorse any product or products which may be advertised within this post”
okay, I have done a fast overview of some things that are really wrong webdesign, for example you should put in a lot more division lines!
(1) division lines, the content is not separated
(2) here the same, the “top” parts are not really different to the subordinary links
Looks crisp and clean, but I little too blended for blender… Its all white and kind of flows into each other, and please, can we make a thread with paypal so we might be able to get rid of those ads in the middle of the post?
ok, my eyes are hurting now… TOOO MUCH WHITE … and I now hate having a large mac screen… there is a lot of space on my right…
Either way, this is alot better than the ugly vBulletin blue crap. Thanks!
Hrm, where to start,
well first, its a horrid forum design.
Lots of wasted space inside a thread. No good distuction between individual posts.
Why make the wide of the whole thing fixed? make it take up the whole wide of the browser window, like every other forum on the face of the planet.
The reduced information in a forums overview is also a bad decision, to see the post count and last user name is standard in all other useable forums as well. why remove it?
Don’ say space problems, that is simple a lie, there is more then enough space.
sorry, but the current design makes me want not to read the forum. Simple as that.