Constructively Criticizing the New Layout

Born in 1991, Andrea is (generally) 81kg and is unhealthily obsessed with the colour yellow. He reads books that contain more pictures than words. TL;DR: Graphic Designer, Animator, Illustrator; and passionate about pretty much anything design-related

Andrea Meli @BoMbLu

Age 33, Male

Graphic Designer

MCAST Institute of Art & Desig

Malta

Joined on 10/8/05

meliandrea.com

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Constructively Criticizing the New Layout

Posted by BoMbLu - February 8th, 2012

Whoa, now *this* is what a re-design's all about.

Not that i'm very keen on the 'new' look, the previous version was better in my opinion. The background images, to me, make the site feel like a 13-year-old-haven (even though that is what it was for me back when I started visiting the grounds)

If I could ask for a possible option for us users, unless it already exists and I'm missing it out [too much stuff going on >:( ], would be to allow us to 'change' the settings for the site backgrounds, maybe decided to have it change in every page (which is how it works now, at least that's what i'm experiencing atm) or to completely turn off the backgrounds in the internal pages and keep them for the main page?

I also miss the short descriptions for the front page submissions but i'll get used to the big tabs.

The things I LOVE, however, are the 'intro's' before agreeing to load a submission on the animation/game page. Those sounds make the animations and games feel more special for some reason :P Also, the post moods, they're awesome!

Here's hoping i'll get the hang of the new site quickly!

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bocodamondo 2012-02-08 06:46:40

i loved the old design more then this one...
but i guess i just have to learn to deal with this one now :C

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 06:46:40

True, i need some time to get used to it, but it's far better than no Grounds at all! D: (super long update-waiting time)

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 06:52:58

HOWEVER - now that i'm running through some of the pages:

The 'Blue' version of the site (which one can see when playing Ican'tAffordAwheelchair) is pretty interesting - it's not as bright and distracting (not cos of them egoraptor titties, but colourwise) as the front page pic.

Though, again, it's not a biggie - i'm almost certain that these pics will change according to the ng events.

Mr.Fulp, this just crossed my mind, what if the pics had to change to complement the NG calendar?!

ChimeraNoise 2012-02-08 07:11:27

Would be too cool if we could choose a permanent background from the ones that have been created. I would definitely go for the Audio Portal one created by KeepWalking. Not 'cause I'm a musician, but because it's not invasive and it's green, which just so happens to be my favorite color.

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 07:11:27

Indeed, the green version's pretty rad, though the blue one's my favorite till now :D

mmankt 2012-02-08 08:17:25

i agree, we should be able to choose our own backgrounds, also users should be able to add their own themes to create sort off a gallery for everyone. on user pages the owner should be also able to use his own background for everyone to see. i hate the new movies/games view stright from the art portal.. bleh.

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 08:17:25

Even though i think it'd be awesome to upload your own pics, I think the idea behind the 'big pretty pictures' on the pages was to possibly promote artists by allowing them to create a pic / use one of their artworks on the pages as 'promotion.'

TomFulp 2012-02-08 09:27:54

We'll be going through different skins over time and considering options like having a "light" skinset that doesn't have as much going on. And yes event days should be a lot of fun now that we can really decorate the site. My big hope at the moment is that we can sustain operations well enough that we don't have to go back to those skin-ads that show up over everything.

We were also thinking it would be fun if each month of the calendar was represented by the big event that month. So for example if you browse April, the calendar would take on the Pico Day theme, which would then extend to the site on Pico Day. The downside to that is it would ruin the surprise of what the skin might be, so that might not be worth doing.

If the short description came up when you rolled over submissions on the front page, would that feel like enough? Or do you prefer being able to scan without mousing over stuff? We originally had a rollover info box but it got too bulky and would have needed to be put on a slight time-delay, but we ended up yanking it for now rather than do that. I would want to revisit it with a less heavy box, although everyone has their own wishlist of info they want (description, authors, score, views, content rating, genre, tags).

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 09:27:54

I really wouldn't mind having the 'short description' scrolling out over the submission thumb on the main page - I felt that those 'persuaded' me to view content.

For instance, when I used to go through the 'Featured Games' on the front page, some of the descriptions used to say weather the game was a side-scroller shooter or a tower defense game, etc. Basically they helped me narrow down which submission i'll go to first, or since I'm not a big fan of tower defense games, weather I should even go into the game page or not before viewing the content.

Though, after an hour or so, i'm digging the new design - unless I completely missed this out on the previous design, I really like the way each section is colour coded, I find it great for 'finding what I was loading before' in between multiple Newgrounds tabs!

ryojin 2012-02-08 09:48:56

its harder to find the mature section =,((((

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 09:48:56

Oh I completely forgot about that section!! Gotta go check it out, I wonder what the background pic is...

FrostDrive 2012-02-08 10:20:55

I miss the FP descriptions too. Maybe they could make it a hover thing where a box appears over with a description.

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 10:20:55 (Updated 2012-02-08 11:02:42)

Who knows, it might help - they might test it and see user feedback ;p

ryojin 2012-02-08 12:53:49

I was just kidding you know.

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 12:53:49

Well I had a look and expected something 'different; :P But it's true, I think that section was much easier to find with the previous layout.

Step 2012-02-08 13:46:43

Hello fellow Maltese guy!

Do you by any chance know a guy called Alec Fenech? He's a friend of mine and a few weeks ago at school he was talking to me about Flash (as usual) and he mentioned that his friend's brother makes Flash and "made an awesome Great Siege flash". I asked him what this person's username was and he said "Bomblu".

So are you his friend's brother? :3

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 13:46:43

Indeed I am, i know him a bit :) Jesus i'm getting so famous :3

Step 2012-02-08 14:34:30

Haha, sure you are. Although in all fairness Malta's small so it's not hard to get known a little around here!

But yeah I do wish I had people talking about me at school too :3.

BoMbLu 2012-02-08 14:34:30

LOL - nah just playing around man ;p Just listened to your 'Sanctuary' - well done man, it's great!! I might talk to you about a project i'm trying to complete, if you're interested ;p

Step 2012-02-09 15:46:09

Haha thanks! I'm really glad you liked it.

But about the project, sorry man, I'm afraid I'm SUPER busy at the moment. I've got loads of other music-related stuff at the moment and to make things worse I took Pure Maths at sixth form and at the moment the workload is insane!

Although I'm always up for helping out with projects when I don't have such a busy schedule so it'd certainly be awesome if you could contact me in the future whenever you need some music done or something!

BoMbLu 2012-02-09 15:46:09

Sure man - i'll keep you posted ;p

Constructively Criticizing the New Layout

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