A New Look

Post by **M.Steiner** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 4:16 pm

Okie, these are what the rest of the unread icons would look like with the same colour. (Just to note: The lettering on the sticky/announcement icons is wider on both sets below now than what the current ones on the board are, i believe that has helped those to stand out more. Will pass those to Anny for him to update tonight)

Current:

Blue:

The blue X's have grown on me, though i still prefer the current ones personally but that's just me. The other blue icons (sticky/announcement/global announcement) do become harder to spot though imo. I have however thought of something we could do instead;

Current:

New:

Just a tiny change but one that makes all the difference i think.

Edit: If you click these btw:

They'll take you directly to the last post made in that forum. I think they must have been disabled up until now as they seem to have appeared since i sent anny a replacement icon for them earlier. Must have triggered them to turn on i guess...

BlackDove · Post by **BlackDove** » Thu Sep 25, 2008 11:07 pm

esd wrote:Could make the new post icon blink blue/white or on/off..

That is a good idea that I endorse fully.

Post by **M.Steiner** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:52 am

I'm pretty certain you're being sarcastic BD, but just incase..

(Edit: Don't think we really want the place looking like a Christmas tree eh?

)

[One other change on the way too soonish. Replacing the bright white field boxes with one's that go better with the theme and are much easier on the eyes as well. Preview (ignore the font style btw, it's just a mockup for the colours).]

Inquisitor wrote:same with Wii code

I couldn't recall ever seeing anyone post their Wii codes so i assumed a button would hardly get used, if at all. Just done one though so we could implement that in BB3 with the others if people wanted.

Futile Resistance · Post by **Futile Resistance** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 5:24 am

I actually want the blinking since most of us frequent the site often enough that it won't look like a x-mas tree.

I've always had a hard time discerning new/old posts (old style and current style with white). If we can't go for blinking, I'd vote for the blue one since it stands out more.

Fenavian · Post by **Fenavian** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:19 am

I'd say make the new post icon a lighter blue all around and not just the X. You would leave the 'no new posts' icon as is. It would make a difference I think.

BlackDove · Post by **BlackDove** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 11:50 am

The blinking stands out. I'd go with that.

Post by **Anubis** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 12:09 pm

Looks like the blinking is the popular option, and I'm inclined to agree that it would stand out well. MS, could you throw together a set of blinking icons today if possible and I can put them up tonight? No harm in at the very least trying them, even if they end up not working so well.

Also, the continued thoughts and comments are very much appreciated

esd · Post by **esd** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 1:13 pm

5min job working on already-optimised images (so it's transcoded), and annoyingly has white as it's matt... grrr... only just noticed that:

Gives you an idea of how it'd look, anyway.

Post by **M.Steiner** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 1:48 pm

I did think of changing the unread icon colours to a lighter blue too actually, the thing that stopped me was that i had already done that with the read & unread popular thread icons to distinguish them against the others. (

). So i was worried they would all look too similar then and i couldn't think of another colour to use for the popular ones at the time either so left them alone.

I'll get working on a set of blinking icons this afternoon and post them up later today though, might see if i can do what i said above as well (without the blinking) if i can find some suitable colours to make the rest and still have them stand out more. Can try either of those out on the board tonight and see how they work live like Anny suggested.

(Had that problem with saving as well to begin with esd, fixed it by saving with no matte in PS's Save for Web & devices.

)

Really appreciate the feedback as well guys, makes it all worth while and the more of you that are happy with the outcome the better.

Post by **M.Steiner** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 5:01 pm

Okay, i've spent the afternoon doing these;

Set1:

Set2:

I think we should go with set2 personally, i much prefer those. The unread icons there stand out very well, maybe even more so than the blinking ones and just tend to look better imo. The blinking ones have grown on me but i'm still not overly keen.

Post by **Inquisitor** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:13 pm

Blinking annoys me

Post by **Anubis** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:43 pm

Oooo, I also like Set 2 - though Set 1 is not bad by any means. If everyone could weigh in with their preference of the two, I'll sort out the icon replacement when we have a decision.

Post by **SSX Fahd** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 6:48 pm

If they were slowly pulsing I might be able to swallow that, but blinking? No... just no. Set 2 is definitely the better of the pair, especially since it better distinguishes between the "new posts" & "no new posts" states by having the outer colours brighter/dimmer.

--edit--

Oh, and Anny, if you want to try increasing the font size by 1pt to see what everyone thinks, feel free. I just thought it might look big for some people, which was why I didn't want to complain too much about it

.

Futile Resistance · Post by **Futile Resistance** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 7:37 pm

OK. Correction, blinking is annoying. The slow pulse would probably work.

I like the new set 2's with the lighter blue. If people can't agree on pulsing, then I'll vote for the light blues

esd · Post by **esd** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:29 pm

Pulsing was why I set my example to be on for 1sec and off for 0.5sec.

Post by **Anubis** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:51 pm

Blinking seems to be producing equally strong no's to go with the yes's. I am by far inclined for this reason to go for Set 2, where the New Post images stand out a lot clearer than before, resolving the issue without annoying those of us who do not want/like flashing images.

Does anyone have any objections to at least trialing Set 2?

Post by **M.Steiner** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:55 pm

I have updated the flashing on the icons above to be like esd's now. Just to mention though that if anyone that visits happens to have animations turned off in IE the entire blinking/pulsing stuff of the gif is kinda pointless in a way. That would never happen with set2, they're much clearer and they're not likely to start annoying peeps either.

BlackDove · Post by **BlackDove** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 8:59 pm

RAVE PARTY UP IN THIS MOTHERFU-

Yeah, they're kinda annoying.

Tho I still kinda like this one.

undrin · Post by **undrin** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 9:36 pm

BD that is alot of blinking X's

Ok I think set 2 is looking like a better option at this point.

Isileth · Post by **Isileth** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 10:03 pm

Set 2 looks perfect to me.

BlackDove · Post by **BlackDove** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 10:12 pm

LOLWUT!

El Oso · Post by **El Oso** » Fri Sep 26, 2008 10:28 pm

SSX-MS wrote:I have updated the flashing on the icons above to be like esd's now. Just to mention though that if anyone that visits happens to have animations turned off in IE the entire blinking/pulsing stuff of the gif is kinda pointless in a way. That would never happen with set2, they're much clearer and they're not likely to start annoying peeps either.

I like set 2

Post by **M.Steiner** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 1:46 am

Tried one more animated icon out.

And some of my thoughts to go with it

Admittedly i do like the one i've done above, but i think there are other things to consider - It's over 3kb larger than the static one of set2 for a start. Might not seem like much but it'll all add up when there are others animated as well. Also when we've been trying to reduce forum loading times recently, for us to go and add a set of animated icons is kinda counter productive and is just gonna add to that. Pretty much anything animated is going to increase that simply because they have several frames.

Then there's the chance that some visitors may have animations turned off, which if that happens their browser is just gonna freeze that image on the first frame and leave it at that. So for anyone viewing those they're still probably going to have the problem of finding it hard to distinguish between read & unread and the entire animation is pointless to them. Solving nothing really.

Looking at some of them now they do look quite cool, but i can easily see myself becoming annoyed by them later. If a forum section is particularly active too i think with all the animations going on whether subtle or not is gonna go from looking cool/flashy to just tacky tbh. Some people just don't like animations full stop. I may be wrong but i'd assume those may be some of the reasons why we've never allowed animated avatars as well, amongst others.

Basically i'd still go with the static set2. They're very easy to distinguish now, anyone that visits will be able to see them as they were meant whether they have animations disabled or not, their filesizes are fine, and since they're not animated anyone that finds animations annoying in general won't have that problem either. They might be slightly more boring in comparison to anything animated but i think they're a more sensible choice overall. Just my opinion.

BlackDove · Post by **BlackDove** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 8:48 am

The kilobyte increase is negligible. That's the end of discussion on that one. It plays no role whatsoever. They could easily be ten kilobytes each and still things would be pretty much the same.

Visitors who have animations turned off get the first frame. Difference is still easily visible, first frame or entire animation of it.

I'd go with one of the animated ones. Pussying out for obscure and irrelevant reasons is lame. Especially when things could be that much better.

Post by **M.Steiner** » Sat Sep 27, 2008 11:17 am

I wouldn't call it pussying out, i spent most of my free time yesterday afternoon working on icons, it wasn't like i was trying to do something quick and easy.

I'd like to think that at least one of the sets i did yesterday (preferably set2) will be given the time of day and not just dismissed for something more flashy and animated, not just because otherwise it will have been a waste of my time but i think we already have a suitable one to use.
Just seems a bit off as well that we're going to lengths to come up with something that's animated when we have a perfectly good static set ready to use, or at least try.

I may still have a go this weekend at doing an animated set like the one i posted above, i won't write that off. To note though all the animations posted so far will freeze and look like either

or

for anyone that has them disabled. Neither of them are as clear as

of set2. If the first 2 were already easy to spot for everyone we wouldn't still be doing this i don't think.

It's going to come down to opinion at the end of the day like animated avatars would, but putting aside my comments in the other post i don't honestly think the set needs to be animated to look good and do it's job either, as set2 has shown (at least to me as i still prefer the latter).