GNB - A new look Options

[Ruud]

With the growth in the last year (CNN, Newsweek, ABC NewsRadio,etc.) I thought it was time for another look for GNB. A breath of fresh air.

What I tried to do is to provide more: more news, more links, more value - and I'm especially interested if that also works on resolutions above 1024x. I'm considering in the back of my mind to put a max-width on the template of 1024. (?)

Overall I think the site, in its new design, is both more useful and user-friendly, especially where it comes to drilling down into a specific news archive.

I'd really like your input on:

- how the look feels for you,
- how it looks & behaves on your resolution,
- how easy it is to find something specific
- how it looks at resolutions above 1024
- the home page

GNB - Real positive news

PS: kindly remember when reviewing the look & feel of the site that there is no intention nor need to make profit. The advertisment displayed is meant to provide towards the cost of running the site, both in investment as well as time spent on maintaining the site.

[eKstreme]

I like how it looks 'full' but not cramped. The columns really do tidy up things well. Perhaps a touch more padding to add more space and make easier on the eyes, but otherwise, good!

Headings ("Good News Blog", "Off-site News", etc). The light blue/white combo could use more contrast.

Bottom right link ("Sinorca") 404s on index.html

And where can I buy some Sauerkraut? Cures cancer and bird flu!

EDIT: 1024x768 resolution using Firefox.

[Respree]

Nice job, Ruud.

I was thinking you could use some imagery in your header area to help brand GNB. While I think you've got a fine layout organization-wise, I also like the more personalized (look) touch of the old site. This one seems a bit more stiff (i.e. less personal). Maybe a hybrid of the two would give it a more homey, comfortable feel to it.

I thought the RSS feeds were a little to prominent on the left nav, above the fold. Maybe moving it down toward the bottom of the page would help users focus on (what I would consider) the more important site functions.

In place of the current RSS area, I would insert a navigation area by subject type (alphabetized), similar to Google News. In your case, Science & Technology, Animals, Rescue, etc.)

Broken link here.

You've got a minor scroll right problem here.

On your homepage where you present items by day, I'd recommend sorting them by category, then by title (or reverse chonologically). It would make it easier for people interested on just one subject to more easily focus and find what they're looking for.

Hope this helps.

Overall, a nice job Ruud.

[Ruud]

Thanks! Just saw I posted this in Design instead of the Hospital... Sorry!
[size=9][No problem, Ruud. I moved it to the Hospital. Garrick]

I played around with higher contrast but disliked the overall feel that gave. Thanks for spotting the Sinorca link! I had the author's URL there but replaced it with this link as his site has been down (gone?) for a while now.

Thanks for the tips, Respree. I thought about taking the images I used for my previous design and softly let them shine through. Going to be a bit tricky as I've only got the banner to work with - the original images got lost.

RSS: true. I did it to add some color and life to the sidebar. What I want to work towards is linking to one page with short info on RSS and then the direct links to different RSS services. Unfortunately I have too many sections/categories to list there. Going to try to play with that though.

thanks!

[paranoidandroid]

Some first impressions

As mentioned, the header could do with a more graphic, personalised look.

Prefer the color scheme of this new version to the old pink one.

The links in the 'Good News Blog' column seem to display justified in Opera & Safari, but look ok in Firefox.

I like the Hot news topics at the top of the page, was drawn to these straight away.

Some of the pages are quite long, even on a 1024 x 768 display, could the main nav be repeated at the bottom of the page? Also I quite like sites which have 'back to top' links just think it would add to the usability of the site.

Seems to be more variety of news, 'Man sues after using glue-covered toilet' although this doesn't quite fit into what I thought the site was about (good news?), I did find myself spending more time looking at the various news. (This made the review quite difficult, kept getting distracted)

Nice work as ever

Regards

Paul

[Ruud]

Thanks Paul!

Excellent ideas for the navigation and the back to top. I've exposed the staging site to a couple of people, none of which reflected my concern that the pages do tend to get long. It's great to read I'm not completely off there. I do try to cut the content into multiple pages where needed but even then - they do get long.

Will definitely work on that.

Justification... That's odd... Think I noticed that on IE earlier as well. Had it fixed but seem to have swapped the CSS back to an earlier version. I think the same happens on the content pages then?

Yes, there indeed is more news and more variety. Basically everything in the middle and right column goes offsite (is that arrow clear enough you think?). I've always included odd news but have also felt for a while that Good News should contain or point to solid content. Instead of a light side snack it should be able to be a main dish, if you catch my drift.

Happy and honored you liked it!

[rynert]

Hi Ruud, I have never seen your old version but from a first perspective I have a few points.

I would agree with previous comments regarding the header/logo area, bringing in some art could lift the whole feel.

I also found the pages long and on my old laptop they took a while to display.

If I shrink the width of the page a little bit the 3 photos in the second column don't wrap.

I would like to see a version with just one font and one font size (headers exluded for font size). I can't make up my mind whether the mix of fonts and sizes helps or not. The green text does help to break up though.

In summary you present a hell of a lot of information yet still retain structure and segmentation. From a new visitor perspective; I think improved header area and consitant font / sizes could tip the balance into a 'stay and read' from a 'maybe stay and read'

[travis]

Ruud,

First Impressions.

Too much blue. If you want to use blue to that extent, have a look at this site

http://www.smh.com.au/

Its not as blatant and uncomfortable. Just the use of text size and font styles in CSS could fix the look and feel in half an hour.

What coding platform do you use ?

A bit too much information for a blog.

But certainly an impressive news site.