your opinion please...

DJB

Hi,

I'm doing the design/development for a new site that is promoting a software product. I've been playing with the design a bit and have thrown up a sample of what I intend doing.... well, 2 samples actually. Once is a design with a fixed width and centred on the page and the other stretches with the window size.

I'm leaning towards layout3. Just want to get peoples opinions on the two designs (although similar) as your all so good at criticism/feedback lol

http://www.teammanager.ie/layout2.asp
http://www.teammanager.ie/layout3.asp (i prefer myself)

p.s. this is just a work in progress and i have not optimised anything for a live site yet so I don't need advice on graphic size, links not working, rollovers not working, etc. Just general design features to start. Thx

Regards,

Dave

aidan_walsh

Slightly leaning towards layout2 myself... Maybe if the logo in layout3 didn't feel so empty in the middle...

DJB

doodle_sketch wrote:

Slightly leaning towards layout2 myself... Maybe if the logo in layout3 didn't feel so empty in the middle...

Cheeurs for the quick reply! Do you mean the space between the logo and the world map? If so, this is the tiling section to allow the stretch of the site. I can't drop a graphic in here, only something that will tile in the background. Any suggestions?

Thx. Dave.

aidan_walsh

Yeah, that space... I know anything else would look wrong... But maybe even if there was a pattern of somekind on it, like faint swirling lines in a slightly lighter shade of green or something... I don't know...

dangerman

layout 3 - i like the fluid layout more. On some sites fluid text wrapping can be a disaster but the 3 columns - the menu on left, the text and then the screenshots on right break it up properly and also mean that even at quite high res the text isn't just stretching into massive long lines.

Looks good.

DJB

doodle_sketch wrote:

Yeah, that space... I know anything else would look wrong... But maybe even if there was a pattern of somekind on it, like faint swirling lines in a slightly lighter shade of green or something... I don't know...

Yeah, i'll give it a try but with tiling, it can look tacky!!!

Question for ya... does the banner look green to you or is it a dark blue / navy? On my screen it looks navy but it could be because I'm on a laptop or maybe my eyes are fcuked!! I had this trouble with another site when I look at it on a normal monitor... it was dark green and not dark blue!!! Agh! Thx!

DJB

dangerman wrote:

layout 3 - i like the fluid layout more. On some sites fluid text wrapping can be a disaster but the 3 columns - the menu on left, the text and then the screenshots on right break it up properly and also mean that even at quite high res the text isn't just stretching into massive long lines.

Looks good.

Yeah the 3 column layout is nice, I think! I'm at a resolution of 1440x900 and even on my stretched screen it displays nicely. I just resized to 800x600 and 1024x768 and both look ok to me. At 800x600, it doesn't look too cramped, just nice. 1024x768 is optimal though!

oh, paranoia got the better of me and I threw some more blue into the banner so hopefully it looks like a dark blue now and not a dark green!

Cheeurs, Dave

GoneShootin

I'm for three, as I find layour two too "busy". The site doesnt warrent the extra column on the left imo. Nicely done though

DJB

Anyone else???

Zombienosh

I prefer layout 3, looks better in all fairness, seems to piece together better the 3 columns look grand better than 2 which just feels a bit empty, and 3 uses the space better i think.

JustHalf

If you're going to use the fluid-width version, you will balance the page better, visually, if you add a gutter of whitespace to the left of the left menu. Or do something else to deal with the fact that the left of the design seems cramped.

Another issue is the menu in the top-right. It's easy for someone to miss it.

Looks good.