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Thread: New WHT Design

  1. #1
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    Menu Change - Awful

    Now, I might be jumping the gun here and complaining just because my habits were changed up. But, so far - the menu change. Uh ah, it's not working for Terry.

    See, I have this habit. I search for my name and my company name every 40 seconds or so. Now instead of just scrolling up a little bit above the default bread crumb tree like menu's, I have to go way the heck up there. It just doesn't seem like a very user friendly navigation system to me.

  2. #2
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    I agree, and it pushes more of the forums beneath the fold, especially with the new banner placement.

  3. #3
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    Originally posted by amish_geek
    I agree, and it pushes more of the forums beneath the fold, especially with the new banner placement.
    Yeah, with the banners there now I can see why they did it. The banners are right there at eye level with me now. When the page loads it's the first thing I see.

  4. #4
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    I think they're working on things, but I agree, for now, it looks completely and totally TERRIBLE. There's this dead white space up top, and ick ick ick ick ick!!!!
    Of course, the problem of "nobody noticing the banners" just got solved, it's hard NOT to notice the banners now ! Blech!!
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  5. #5
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    There were some rogue <br> around the banner at the top. I just resolved that issue. Less whitespace now.
    Last edited by SoftWareRevue; 05-04-2005 at 11:14 PM.
    Greg
    Creative Director,
    iNET Interactive

  6. #6
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    Swap the two drop downs and put those up the very top and bring those forum links (such as search) lower down where the drop down menu's currently are.

    Easy to do and will solve everyones gripes.
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  7. #7
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    Compared to that terrible site5 banner thing last week I don't mind this change.

    Just out of interest, does anyone use the Find a Host/Webmaster Resources utils? If that was removed it would look much cleaner 'up top'.
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  8. #8
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    Greetings,

    I assume these changes were done in order to bring more explosures for their advertisers, specially after many complained when the (------) had a large bar for few days!

    Still it doesn't bother me, not sure why everyone make a big fuzz out of this.
    Amir Golestan
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  9. #9
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    Originally posted by Jim_UK

    Just out of interest, does anyone use the Find a Host/Webmaster Resources utils? If that was removed it would look much cleaner 'up top'.
    Then how people are supposed to find the showcase advertisers? Everything is done to get more business not less :-)
    Amir Golestan
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  10. #10
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    Based on a few people suggestions, I will be moving the nav down to where the drop downs currently are and moving the drop down to where the menu is now. That will be completed and implemented later today.
    Last edited by SoftWareRevue; 05-04-2005 at 09:54 PM.
    Greg
    Creative Director,
    iNET Interactive

  11. #11
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    The lite skin was pulled because it was a lite verson of the old skin. I just got the go ahead to do a lite version of the current skin, so I'll start that after I relocate the nav at the top of this skin.
    Last edited by SoftWareRevue; 05-04-2005 at 09:55 PM.
    Greg
    Creative Director,
    iNET Interactive

  12. #12
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    I wonder if the removal of all the other themes is permanent? If it is, I'd recommend enabling more themes for users with X number of posts. Just a suggestion to allow your long time members some convenience when viewing the forums.

    Obviously the ads would still be on the forums and those users have been around long enough to figure out to look in the upper right for them if they care to.

    Food for thought.

    EDIT:

    Nevermind, looks like we will be getting another theme to choose from.
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  13. #13
    Wow, that's good to know.

    I really hate these post icons... much prefer the little folders to the little squares. Once upon a time, there was a thread of complaints about the squares, but it looks like they're here to stay.

    Pity.

  14. #14
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    Thanks for all of your feedback. Greg is working on incorporating some of your suggestions now.

    Regarding the placement of ads... we indicated last week in a thread that this change in skins was coming on may 1... we're a few days late, I know. It's kinda funny how often we read messages about the "old school" wht... well, we just brought back, to a degree, the "old school" wht... the ad location is now where it was back in 2003. The reasoning behind it is simple, and I am sure any of you who advertise your web hosting company or products and services will agree. The location it is now in is in more "prime real estate" versus top right corner blended with the site. While some of you absolutely hate advertising, it is important for us to try and enhance the return the advertisers get when they promote their product on WHT. Studies have shown that you can draw a line from the top left corner of your screen to the bottom right corner of your screen. The closer you are to top left, the more valuable the location.

    Time have changed in online media... and WHT has been slow to sluggish in adopting with the changing times. The results have been diminishing returns for advertisers. As such, we had several very large marketing companies analyze WHT as well as our other iNET sites and provide us with detailed feedback. While many of them said to do what sites like internet.com does(put the top banner above the header completely), we did not go that route because it really breaks the look of the site (in our opinion). Instead, we took a look at how WHT used to be and saw that it accomplished much of the same effect, so we opted to go that route.

    We had to look seriously at revamping a bit WHT to more fit the times to enhance the return for advertisers, outside of introducing new ad spots on WHT. We felt that relocation of the top banner clearly would be better than creation of new advertising spots on WHT.

    It is important to note right now, despite none being in the zones, to help relieve the shock you may receive when some do appear, but as I announced last week, we will be allowing 728x90 ads as well as the old school image and text ads to run in that top banner zone.

    Some of the comments last week, which undoubtedly will get repeated here today, were that we're ignoring the community and only looking at things from the advertisers' perspective. I assure you this is not the case. Adverisers are required to run this site, but the community is required to have pages for the advertisers to run ads on. Each is important to the success of sites like WebHostingTalk.com, and we truly value both! That is why we're taking your feedback and modifying some things that you think could be done better. There definitely has to be some give and take.

    Now, I'm also sure the ad blocking discussion will resume here, too, just like it did in last week's discussion. Obviousy we can't stop you from doing that, nor do we really want to be able to! Afterall, what we're trying to do is give advertisers better return for their money (again, as a web host or service provider I'm sure you can respect and appreciate that). You blocking ads if you are so opposed to advertising only helps! Their banner will get shown to someone with a higher liklihood of clicking it.

    Thanks for your time and understanding... no, we're not incorporating ads in posts... no, we're not introducing new ad spots... no, we're not going to allow popups and popunders... just wanted to throw that official response out before people start saying that (like they did last week!).
    Last edited by Ryan Elledge; 05-03-2005 at 12:36 PM.
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  15. #15
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    I use Safari and FireFox. Safari is where I get the errors. Something about "cFrame" and pauses the page loading process for a couple of seconds. It has always done that, one of the reasons I ignored this skin.

    Originally posted by The Prohacker
    What kind of errors? JavaScript? If so what browser are you using?
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  16. #16
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    Originally posted by Ryan Elledge
    Too long of post to quote ... just showing I'm replying to Ryan.
    Ryan, I don't mind where the banners are at. I just think the menu is so far out of reach for a normal website design. It's rather unusual to have the menu pushed way into the upper right hand corner.

    As for the banners, they don't bother me. The space around them could use some sprucing up how, like how they were when Matt ran it. Right now they look a little lonely.

  17. #17
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    The "Home Profile Search" menu could be place just under the logo, and the logo height could be lessened, too much space wasted on top.

    Most people hardly use those menus anyway.

    Banner is okay, the left and right space for bigger banners.

  18. #18
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    It is all alone. Looks like when I did banners on my mboard for a test. Maybe some kind of subtle border can be placed around it when a normal size banner is shown.

    Originally posted by inogenius
    Ryan, I don't mind where the banners are at. I just think the menu is so far out of reach for a normal website design. It's rather unusual to have the menu pushed way into the upper right hand corner.

    As for the banners, they don't bother me. The space around them could use some sprucing up how, like how they were when Matt ran it. Right now they look a little lonely.
    73's, Kim
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  19. #19
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    if there is going to be a light skin may i recommend the thread icons to be different or atleaste envelope based like the old skin used? these blue boxes with different color centers and the arrow on top for a thread you posted in is very hard to tell apart unlike the old ones of yellow envelope for new, grey for old, hole inside inside when you posted in it and the flaming for 25 posts/150 views envelope.
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  20. #20
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    I am usually pretty content, but forgive me for asking, what was the problem with the old ad placement? It looked good, got the advertisement to everyone....this current system is just a eyesore; just another member's thoughts on it.

    PS. Any plans to make it so premium members browse ad free?
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  21. #21
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    IH-Ken: Good looking doesn't necessarily mean good returns. iNet needed to see advertisers get more returns on their ads, so this way they stick out more, drawing people's attention.

    <<< removed reference to removed post >>>

    Also, Ryan mentioned that there were works for a revamped Premium Member setup, which would include ad-less pages.
    Last edited by SoftWareRevue; 05-04-2005 at 10:15 PM.

  22. #22
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    @iNet: the medium blue -> dark blue -> light blue bars look just okay, but better than nothing. Try centering the two dropdowns without the separator above the navigation.

    Edit: Also, remove "HOST QUOTE" from under "Find a Host."

  23. #23
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    The grey box fixes some of the alignment ugliness... But it still looks pretty awkward.

  24. #24
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    Looks like that border has been added.

    Now since the dropdowns and the buttons have been swapped, it looks like those dropdowns are suspended in mid-air and tacky looking. Maybe putting them in a box or something might help.

    Edit: The text-to-speech screen reader no longer works on this board as it crashes when it gets to the drop downs, since they overlap the lower buttons when they open up.

    Originally posted by KimmiKat
    It is all alone. Looks like when I did banners on my mboard for a test. Maybe some kind of subtle border can be placed around it when a normal size banner is shown.
    73's, Kim
    Everything happens for a reason I make up.

  25. #25
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    I agree, still a LOT of whitespace up there
    And I'm surprised that nobody's said this yet, but the menus overshadow the advertisement, when clicked. If I was paying for an ad up there, I wouldn't want something like that, in fact I'd be a bit upset.
    However, that's just me.
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