By prameya on
Hey guys, I have shown this site a couple of times. It was a lot of work, however I get a varied opinion on the site's design.
Somesay its good looking where-as somesay its dull.
I dunno why its dull, there is more than 30 images on the frontpage and more than 5 color shades.
They say the section pages look ok but the front page looks really boaring and so people dont want to come back.
I really needy your expert advice.
Site, http://cjnepal.org
Comments
Nice.
I wouldn't call myself a pro, but I have looked at a lot of Drupal themes and know what I like, and whoever made these criticisms either had radically different standards or was smoking that happy crack. Getting a clean, newspaper-like appearance AND coming up with a design that is not an obvious adaptation of another theme is an accomplishment. I also salute your integration of images and how this compliments the news magazine motif.
This site looks good -
The site looks good - I'd love to see some of the corners rounded and an off-white background (which would create a more visually appealing egde to your frames).
That said, I think you've done a great job on the site!
Not bad at all
Hi its good that you are open for comments and since it is a newssite everyone is some sort of expert because I guesse you want to have people come back over and over.
To mee the design is not that bad but it is sort of crowded with text. You have to explore the frontpage in order to get familiar with the content and what is being offered.
Some improvements in my eyes are:
Less text and more focus on categories. Make headings of certain categories with under them no more than two lines of teasers. Give the headings a more outstanding design as it comes to background/text color and in size. The two lines of teasers should have a good noticable smaller size then the rest of the site.
Create more room/white space around the content. Ask yourself, when I am a busy person looking for certain information would I love to visit the site I just designed or would I be turned off because of all the text screaming for attention.
Some examples with a different appraoch:
http://www.nu.nl
this is dutch news site and very basic which is its strong point in my opinion. You can click a categorie on the left which will bring you to that categorie page showing you a few stories with larg teasers and under them you can click links to older content.
http://www.cnn.com
Not my favoured but they also focus on a few stories and then just put there categories underneath which you can explore if you wish.
Dont forget that there are different tastes out there. It is your goal to see what fits best for your visitors. www.nu.nl is very basic which is beautifull for quick news searching, cnn is more leaning towards the appraoch, we deliver all news out there without consessions. Nevertheless both news sites are making lots and lots of money.
Hope this post is of any help.
thanks buds!! i really
thanks buds!!
i really appritiate all your inputs.. i will try to make some chanegs to the site on this weekend... but the semester is coming to an end.. and i have lots of homework.. that sucks... :p
thanks again... emm.. keep it coming?
CJNepal.org | Nepal News and Blogs - The Community!
Just my two pennies
It is obvious to me that you have put a lot of work into this site; it shows.
I think when people say boring they mean corporate. The site looks a lot like The New York Times but to stand out you need your own TIME Magazine look - but without all the extraneous content passed the Q&A section; it's too much.
Notice also that TIME uses the colors red, black, grey and white. Not multiple colors. The colors used draws the eye to certain section easily but it doesn't say "unprofessional design" either. Understand? And, imo, people convey an appealing design to mean interesting content and an uncluttered layout to mean professional news coverage/content -- at least that will be their first impression until otherwise proven wrong. So keep the color basic but use them to draw focus to different sections of content.
Sometimes it's very difficult, but I think you stand a better chance if you can come up with colors and a layout that is uniquely Citizen Journal. Your visitors will have greater interest and remember your site more easily. We do see with our eyes. That's why "identity" works.
Designing your site to not look like Drupal is not terribly difficult, and you show that with CJ. So I think your main focus needs to be on your identity. Think of colleges and their colors, pro sports teams, etc. Make CJ look like it's its own team - and a winning team at that.
Hope this helps.
- Carey
[Edit: Fixed your link... You pointed to NYTimes twice]
Update: Thanks :)
Comments
While I'm no professional, I would like to comment on the site: very nice. I prefer the white background/black text on new sites to lots of colour. The colour you use is sparing and appropriate. My two critisism would be:
More padding/white space. The articles are very close to their margins. More white space would be easier on the eyes and not so overwhelming. It would also make the content stand out more.
Fixed header for all pages. The header for the front page has 2 adds in title section, one on either side of the site title. On the section main pages, these are removed in and a new banner is shown beneath the title section. I think you should stick to one or the other, simply because it moves the navigation menu and search field around. Personally, I prefer the slimmer header. I also am not a fan of banners near the top of the page as I find they seriously detract from the content. If possible, I'd suggest moving it to the bottom of the page.
But really, these are minor. I'm very impressed with the overall look and feel of the site. I would not call it dull. I believe news sites should not be flashy as it detracts from the presentation of your content - which is should be the focus. My comments are mostly based on the news sites I read most: CBC and Globe and Mail.
My opinion is that white is
My opinion is that white is good these days, whitespace rules the web. I would lower the amount of text on your website, it's really screaming now (I have the tendency to do the same myself, so it's not criticism)
Implement the suggestions given above, I'd recommend doing the same:
so:
- less text
- make headings bigger, with small teasers
- create some space... not all content
- work with clear categories
for the rest, keep up the good work, your site will turn out just fine if you do the above!
Pakfriet.be
wow!! really nice
wow!! really nice comments... please dont be mad at me for not doing what you guys said already... i am at the last few weeks of my semester.. its really killing...
your comments really means a lot to me.. i will use them as soon as i can :)
CJNepal.org | Nepal News and Blogs - The Community!
Very nice site!
Looks like a newspaper and packs in a bunch of info. I really like how you have a short summary and small picture for each article. There is not a lot of contrast in the theme itself, but that is fine, since it is emulating a newspaper and has lots of photos. One thing that caught my eye is that you could add a few pixels of padding to the text on the right so that the text doesn't touch the column dividers.
A bit off topic, how is the political situation in Nepal? I was over there in 1997, and in 2001. I've been wanting to fly over again soon, but it is so expensive to fly right now and I was unsure about the safety. I'd mostly be staying in Boudha and also maybe visiting Pharping.
Keep up the good work!
A bit too
A bit too broadsheet/newspapery for me.
It's ambitious to use so many columns, and due to the size of the text, many lines are only three or four words across. I find that hard to scan. Granted it's all just teasers, but still...
Everything being serif is also a bit hard to pull off and not look unimaginative. If you are not keen on using sans-serif for the headlines, perhaps just a light shade (or even a background gradient) behind the headings would define them a bit more.
Our local, least flashy real newsfeed site is http://scoop.co.nz/ - they have a similar aim as I believe your site does, but have smoothed it out just an extra 20% with the font choices. See if you can see a few small tips - like blending the headlin into the article rather than floating it above it - that may help your layout cohere a bit better.
.dan.
How to troubleshoot Drupal | http://www.coders.co.nz/
.dan. is the New Zealand Drupal Developer working on Government Web Standards
Hi prameya, It's been
Hi prameya, It's been mentioned before. It needs more whitespace in-between the stories. Especially in the upper sections. Also, when so many stories have to compete for the front page then it should be prioritized and placed accordingly.
For example, you could have the top section limited to 2 or 3 columns with a bit more margin. It's like looking at white noise since my eyes have trouble differentiating what is what. I really like the category columns on the lower side since it's easy to identify the context. You can get away with white space there since it's easily identifiable what your looking at. If you must have more than 4 columns of categories then make another row of them with any remaining column containing more white space for some other group of info so the viewer sees the break into something different.
The biggest thing is to experiment when you have time. Don't get too caught up in trying to make it so news-paper-like. Think more about the essence of the format and go inline with that. did that make sense? ..Narrow columns, less color with spot colors, Strong header, etc.. In other words, the layout doesn't have to copy traditional print media in order to give the impression that your site is a news site. Well, that's what I think at the moment anyways. --Good luck!
–joon