Website Layout & Design

Here is where you can find whats happening on the website, and current, and future updates.
Post Reply
User avatar
takyoji
Legendary
Legendary
Posts: 530
Joined: Tue Nov 27, 2007 4:46 pm
Gender: Male
Mood: Busy
Location: Minnesotan, dontcha' know!
Contact:

Website Layout & Design

Post by takyoji »

Considering that we'll finally be expanding out from just the forum, we'll need a bit thorough planning on what a convenient layout would be. Before any development is done, it would be best to have everything planned out first. Such as content, layout, design, and development. To start off, the layout will have to be planned a bit, once a general layout concept is established for each form of content, then we can go forth on determining the design and appearance that follows the decided layout.

When I talk about the layout, I generally mean how a page is structured, consisting of the primary content, navigation, and asides; and of how users get from one page to another. Everyone is free to propose layouts and make useful critique on any of the layouts proposed. The way to portray an idea would be to create a diagram of where what goes, and perhaps with a little demo content.

Things to take into consideration for a layout are:
  • Overall layout
    • Where should the navigation be? Top or the left, or both? What would be on the navigation, how would it be categorized?
    • What parts should stay consistent across all pages?
    • Where should the user login, and where should their login information be shown?
  • Reviews of (published) movies, books, games.
    • Actions: Add movie/book/game, edit. Rate, comment, favorite.
    • How should categorization between movies, books, and games be handled?
    • How should the above be listed? Name, community rating, genre, or anything else?
  • Artwork (Drawings, pictures, writing)
    • The submission itself
    • Submission information. Artist, license of the submission, artist comment, statistics.
    • Comments
    • Actions. For users: favorite, watch artist?, larger view. For artists: edit, remove, hide, etc.
    • In the site-wide navigation, should each of the above be listed, or should it just be "Artwork" and have a dropdown menu of the three options? Or not divided at all?
  • User Profiles
    • The user's recent artwork and writing
    • Profile details (the information on the user's forum profile)
    • Favorites
    • User's "wall"
    • The user's favorite movies, books, etc; and reviews
    • Actions: For the owner of the profile: rearrange, add/remove/edit profile element, comment. For others: watch artist, comment, private message.
  • News/Updates
    • Actions: add/delete/edit article, comment, rate
    • News articles listing
    • The news itself
    • Comments
  • Online store
    • Products
    • Categories
    • Cart
    • Offers
    • Reviews
  • Links
    • Should links be a section to the left, visible on some to all the pages, or be it's own page?
    • How should links be presented and/or categorized?
  • PackChat
    • Discussion dialog
    • Users (in the channel)
    • Channels/rooms selector
    • Actions: talk, change username, format text, insert emoticon, insert link, private message, view profile, join/leave room/channel, etc
  • Resources (tutorials, downloads?, etc)
You can draw out an idea (doesn't have to include everything above) or even just share some of your views on how it should be rather than drawing out a complete idea.
Avatar original image by "sometimesong" of Flickr, released under the Creative Commons license (share-alike, attribution, non-commercial, no-derivatives)
Post Reply