[ott0]

First of all: I'm no designer.

I run this site called MidnightWiki as a place for people I know to communicate. I recently upgraded it to combine a forum and a wiki, and redesigned the layout. I was aiming for the minimalistic look--no frills, just the stuff you need. But people don't like it. They say it's too crowded. Do you guys have any suggestions?

MidnightWiki Homepage
Example internal page

Thanks!

[Dusteh]

Nothing has been given any priority. Everything clamours for attention. Stick the navigation bar at the top on a coloured background and see if it helps break up the nav from the content.

[pgo]

Exactly. I was going to say, I don't know where to look - all the parts of the pages are the same. It lacks...design.

[ott0]

hmm... thanks for the suggestions. I guess I was trying to avoid 'design', but I've come to realize that I really do need it.

[pgo]

All we mean by design is that people should have some sense of what's most important on the page, what's minimally important, etc.

Use headings, lists, etc.

It doesn't have to be pretty, just easy to follow. Design is about communication. Sometimes it's about being pretty, but at the most basic level, it's all about communicating efficiently.

[Brown]

Originally Posted by ott0

I guess I was trying to avoid 'design'

it is possible to avoid, but you can't avoid functional design and creating a user experience.

[ott0]

Not to imply that I wouldn't mind it being pretty too.

[stevo]

Originally Posted by pgo

All we mean by design is that people should have some sense of what's most important on the page, what's minimally important, etc.

Use headings, lists, etc.

It doesn't have to be pretty, just easy to follow. Design is about communication. Sometimes it's about being pretty, but at the most basic level, it's all about communicating efficiently.

or you could go one step further and say 'what makes it look pretty is what makes it communicate efficiently'

Form follows function and aw that

[pgo]

Yes yes yes. But then Google's stuff isn't particularly pretty, but highly functional and usable (i.e. "well designed").

[ott0]

I just added a grey bar under the title header. What do you guys think of that? Is it just stupid?

[Dusteh]

Thats actually made quite a difference for such a small change. The site feels exactly like wikipedia though, don't you want to distinguish yourself a little from that? There is nothing memorable - you're called midnight wiki - why not use deep blues, anything to add individuality.

[ott0]

Funny that you say that--the layout used to be dark gray. Then one day I talked to this girl who said she didn't register because the darkness repelled her. So I thought, oh, well, I should make it white because no one is afraid of white.

My hope is that the content will distinguish the site from wikipedia: it's indiscriminate vs. controlled and tightly monitored.

But maybe dark blue...

[Mik]

Originally Posted by stevo

Form follows function and aw that

Aaarrghghhhh

It winds me up no end when this is banded around. No fucket understands it and it is taken completely out of context.

---------

The functionalist notion of function, which begot the name of functionalism, was instrumental in creating an impression, more rampant among architects and designers than among the public, that functionalism represented and safeguarded the user's interests in the course of the design process. Our closer look at the notion of function, and the dictum form follows function, showed why this impression was mistaken. The functionalist notion of function did not refer to the world of users but to the realm of what we called the functionalist design metaphysics, where the business of forms was to express 'functions' conceived by supra-human entities. In the reality of our day-to-day world, however, where architects and designers are bound to live and act, no matter how lofty are the design philosophies they profess, the functionalist notion of function operated as a carte blanche: having been empty the notion of function made the architects and designers free to define it in ways that always legitimized their own aesthetic priorities.

We can say that in our commonsense world the dictum form follows function proved infeasible as a design precept for objective design. Not only did it fail to bring the promised end to formalism. On the contrary, it inaugurated and legalized an era of a surreptitiously formalist approach to architecture and design. The dictum was a summary of the design philosophy that brought about a victory of the 19th century idea of art for art's sake - in the wake of a phony war against that very idea.

Unless we see the crux of the dictum in its furtive promise of artistic autonomy, the success of the functionalist philosophy of design among architects and designers would be difficult to understand.

[weldo]

The functionalist notion of function, which begot the name of functionalism...

at that point i laughed.
then left.

[Dusteh]

Funnily enough I am working on a website where we tried to come up with a design for the client... they didn't like anything and decided that they wanted the site to go live with 'no design' and that the design would grow from the content.

It looks gash.

When I said deep blue, I didn't mean the whole site... just the top nav, even the grey bar you have... just something to make it different from wikipedia which is also white and light grey.

[adam c]

Originally Posted by Dusteh

... they wanted the site to go live with 'no design' and that the design would grow from the content.

Well weird. Do you have a link. Is it just unformatted HTML then?

[Mik]

Originally Posted by weldo

at that point i laughed.
then left.

haha i know. what a load of old gash.

[matthall28]

you cant tell where to look. no focus. hurts my head to look at!

[ott0]

So which version is better?

This is the old skin:
http://midnightwiki.com/index.php?ti...nobookmidnight

This is the new, as seen above:
http://midnightwiki.com

[pgo]

I vote for the one that looks more like the MediaWiki default.