A Peek Behind C9 Revolution UX | LarryLarsen

aL_
Rx ftw

the poll is closed already? O_o this post is only a couple of hours old

LarryLarsen
A new world man putting the new world in order.

In reply to aL_

#Jul 31st @ 4:38 PM

We'll get that reopened. Smiley

NishantKothary

I got a little trigger-happy on the poll closing date. It's open again. Let the voting begin!

dentaku

The thing about logos is that sometimes they look amazing close up but when you scale them down to the size it'll be on the website it doesn't work. It's good that B and C are exactly the same but just with different shading and outlines because they can both be used. I can see B on the website and C on promotional material.

littleguru
<3 Seattle

Nice new ideas Smiley I hope that the community really faces more into the front page (not just twitter)... That was really great in older C9 versions. Hopefully browsing through forums gets also improvements.

exoteric
I : Next<I>

Looks great. On the video (?) navigation page (second screen I think), consider customizing the layout with an optional number of colums and video sizes for increased overview. And definitely better C9 guys - at least A & C. B is clearly the most retro. (But hey, why can't I choose my own C9 guy of those 3?)

The design philisohy reminds me a bit of Live/Home. Quite nice and semi-minimalistic.

Bas
It finds lightbulbs.

Regarding the Sandbox: I'm seeing a bunch of integration with other websites like Twitter and Flickr and such in those sketches. Rather than creating a new separate sandbox area, would it be an idea to allow Niners to talk about and show their projects by simply posting a new thread in an existing forum, while allowing some sort of link to Codeplex or Sourceforge or something? If you make it a separate field, you could retrieve those threads that link to these projects and syndicate them in a "Niner projects" or "Stuff Niners are working on" thing, or something like that.

It would bring the community forward into the front page, like you said, and that way you could still do show and tell on your project, but you wouldn't have to put the whole upload/hosting/separate section thing up. It'd just be a forum post like any other, only with an extra "project link" field.

Regarding the nine guys: I'm leaning towards the latter two. It kind of depends on the final site design wether you want to use the crisp, plain look of guy B or the shininess of guy C. I'm not sure how well the look of guy C would scale, but I still kinda like him. He's a bit more light and airy than guy B, and I think that works well now that the site's look is moving away from the traditional orange and yellow that guy B still seems to represent.

One thing that bugs me about B and C is the guy's hair. The antennae on the left side of his head are shorter than the ones on the right. From this perspective, they should stick out above the other ones. Like you suggested, hold a foam 9 guy next to those pictures and look how the antennae in the picture appear like you're looking at the guy from below while the rest of the guy looks like you're looking at him from a slightly elevated angle.

Edit: here's a quick comparison mockup. Granted, you can change the 'height' of the antennae by tilting the 9 guy, but I still think the one one the right looks better than the one on the left.

I like what I've seen of the design so far. One thing I'd really like to stress here is make sure it works. I still think v4 is a great improvement over v3, but the stuff like not having your post show up after submitting it, or having to revisit a thread you just posted in simply because it won't mark itself as 'read' is so incredibly annoying that it taints the whole image.

Edit: while I was editing this post, C9 went down again and is now ridiculously slow. Editing this post by clicking the edit button didn't work: I had to click 'reply' to get the editor to show up and then "edit" to get my post to appear in the editor. I know Revolution 9 is about the UX and not about technical stuff, but honestly guys, this sort of thing can't go on.

TommyCarlier
I want my scalps!

What if, instead of using a rendered logo, you photograph the real foam Nine Guy? You get a subtle texture, cool lighting and realistic shading, and it doesn't scream Web 2.0.

Something the 3 proposed logos still share is the perspective. Maybe changing the perspective could also refresh the logo. Try out different angles.

stevo_
Human after all

I think the logo should be the 9 guys face, very serious, set in the middle of the header looking down slightly and dimly lit from above orwell style.

I don't think it should be a photo myself, I can't see it fitting, I think 'web 2.0' style has good reasoning, just like any design can be poorly done, it tries to benefit from simplistic colours, shapes and grids.. something the web can do ok today.

Edit; as for the changes, I'll just wait until I can use it, I think the experience of using a product tells a lot more than concept stills.. personally my problems with the current site are it being over designed, too many design elements going on, to much 'related info' that I never even use.. I think it should be a lot simpler visually, and related data should invade if I invite it to, as personally I never use it.