wwp@yahoogroups.com:
Re: Going Dark?
Pat Swovelin 2007-Mar-18 20:15:00
Landis wrote:
> Over the past several events we've had people who suggested that all
> of our imagery might look better against a darker background that
> would set-off the images a bit better.
>
> Markus spent a good deal of time during the last event preparing the
> server for that possibility and now we'd like to ask for your
> opinion. The full transition isn't quite complete (the edges of some
> images have a white outline) but the majority is ready to go.
>
> You can see this new scheme by looking at the Best of 2006 at:
> http://128.32.102.88:8090/gen/live_preview/wwp1206/index.html
>
> We're mostly interested in your opinions regarding how the panoramas
> look with the darker backgrounds and how readable the text is as well
> as your overall opinion of changing the site from white to dark.
>
> What are your thoughts?
Hooray ... but ... I prefer black vs. the dark gray but that's just me.
I don't care for the main text color choice, my eyes keep trying to
shift it to white and my brain says it's screwed up, why won't it go to
white. I think the light green isn't enough of a contrast between it
and the normal text color to easily distinguish what are and aren't links.
As others have suggested it may be best to go back to the original white
BG for the main page of a particular photographer's submission and have
the dark version for the full-screen pano but that would negate the
concept of having a dark BG for panos because it would, by necessity,
exclude the small version of the pano. Plus, if you do go back, you'll
have to different color schemes for the site and it's best to have a
single cohesive look across the site.
Using user-selectable style sheets may be more trouble than it's worth
because you'd have even more things for people to complain about/make
suggestions about improving/figure out new ways to break (remember; if
you give us an inch we'll take a mile). Unless, of course, Markus
really doesn't want to have a life of his own. =8^)
While we're on the subject of the WWP's site redesign you might consider
doing something with the rotating text ("This is an interactive picture"
blah blah blah) directly above the small pano. The problem is that it
changes when you probably aren't looking so the new text (or at least
the text you didn't read initially) won't be read because as the site
visitor moves visually down the page he/she won't go back up to see if
they've missed anything or if anything has changed. On a page with a
static pano the movement might attract their attention but it'll be
totally missed on a page with an auto-rotating pano. Now I'm NOT
suggesting using the dreaded marquee text (barf barf) but there needs to
be a way to bring the site visitor's attention to that area of the page
long enough to read all of that text. Instead of using text that's in
graphics (that cycle from one to the next) can't you simply put "This is
an interactive image, click and drag to change the view. Use Shift/Ctrl
to Zoom in/out." (I believe there's enough room horizontally to do that
with the existing font and point size) as a single line so all of the
information is readable the 1st time the site visitor's eye sees it?
That having been said GREAT JOB guys! Thanks for all of your hard work.
> -Landis
Pat Swovelin
Cool Guy @ Large