New [H]ard|OCP Design [FINAL]

Hi again everyone!

After a week of feedback and a few rounds of revision, today's final round of revisions has yielded what Kyle and I have decided is the final new [H] design. yays!

So, for your comparison:

Here is where we originally were.

Here is where we are.

What changed? I'll tell you!

• Fixed width went from 955px to 972px. This allowed for more space between individual elements.
• Latest Headlines got moved over to the right and was allowed a wider treatment because of this.
• Shack Headlines get to divide the two ads on the left, and they received a different treatment.
• The tabs were significantly adjusted to have a more interesting display that wouldn't keep them looking dropped back and wouldn't make them over-take the current News tab either.
• [H]ard|OCP is now a registered trademark. No more TM! The days of the circle R have arrived! What a dumb change to list!
• News divider line has a more consistent tapered fade treatment.
• The Planet's logo placement and treatment was finalized.
• The announcements section was treated and placed in the mockup for evaluation
• The main section headers were slightly altered
• This is getting boring. Just open both in a tab and flip between them and make a game out of spotting the differences. Call it the haiku sucks game.

And there you go!

Well, looks great and professional. Not much of a footer, (offscreen most likely) but who looks there anyway. =)

Looks good to me. The biggest issue I have had with the new designs is the 'blah'ness factor to the new [H]ard|OCP logo The plain red logo with the silver outline just looks too basic and kind of blends into the site so you don't really see it.

Other than that, I like the looks of it. Still not sure about the fonts and the use of flash for certain text, but I guess it will just take seeing the actual product in action, and getting used to it.

It's alright.

One thing I've always disliked about this site is the color scheme. It burns your eyes after being here for more than 10 minutes or so. That's not really your call, but yeah. I do love the buttons (the series of buttons with the Forum link...) they look kinda radioactive with that inner glow.

Definitely a step up from the first. But I do have a major problem with it being fixed width for the 1024 crowd. Even on sites frequented by web developers and geeks, this isn't the best idea.... Not everyone browses at 1024.

Good work, for the criteria you're working with.

I just thought I would thow in my 2 cents. I've been comming to this site for about 5 years now. I visit it daily. IMHO the new site looks way to busy. Now I might get used to it but that was the first thing I thought when I opened the link.

Please take with a grain of salt as I don't mean any disrespect and it's not my site. I'm just a long time reader giving my honest thoughts.

Any chance for a non-image page to check under the hood? This is [H]ard Forum, after all...

looks great hiaku

any criticism i might have is just gonna have to wait for another time, i'm tired as fuck right now

i like the re-working of the tabs on top. very good work in fitting a boat-load of info into an organized and easy to use design.
i especially like how you managed to retain enough of the original look and feel to maintain "brand" familiarity, from a marketing and communication perspective, that's an excellent approach.

Flawless So, when will the new design be implemented?

The busyness make my eyes hurt.

I don't know if this is just an issue with the capture, but what's up w/the blurry news text? I did a side by side, and the current text is much sharper. Is it just the image?

I like the modifications, it looks a lot less confused. For the nitpick in me though, the Planet and the HardOCP logos look really one dimensional and unfinished. At any rate, I can't wait to see this implemented. Of course since I'm pretty interested in all 4 of the new sites, I'm apparently going to be spending a lot more time reading here every day. Which is of course the point.

Originally Posted by doh

Any chance for a non-image page to check under the hood? This is [H]ard Forum, after all...

I'm w/doh. If not here, possibly in Genmay? I know we'd all love a more lively version to peek at.

Outstanding work.

I like how it's a little brighter than the first shot... Looks good. A bit busy, but good.

I like it. Now I am going to have to get used to a new HardOCP page all over again, but that's ok, I'll manage. Great work haiku!

Edit: Although the logo could stand out more. I mean look at the current page. The [H]ard|OCP logo seems a lot bigger than on the new site, and then right below the ad on the left there's this bigass [H], just in case you are stupid like me and forgot what site you were looking at in the span of that ad.

I think its secksy

Something about the top navigation doesn't seem right.

I still think its beautiful, Im really diggin' that technical feel

The changes from the first mock up to the "Rev 2" are subltle, but damn effective. I see the incorporation of a great deal of the feedback from "Rev 1" throughout the layout. The impact of reducing the number of article headlines into each section to five was dramatic. Yes, there is a hell of alot going on, but since the [H] is expanding into broadend areas, getting the "front page" to the point where it is a gateway into everything else was a hell of a chore.

The Navigation tabs on the top are more distinct and easier to see / find. The recent [H]eadlines to the upper right is perfect - that's where one's eyes are trained to look for things (think of it as holding a newspaper and that's where your right hand is.

I think filling in the adspace with ads helped too - easire to visualize what's going on and frames in what were looking at better. Overall, it looks to be less dark and one's eyes can home in on what's there.

The "only" gripe is the HardOCP logo... it seems flat and like it's blending into the page. Pretty minor really considerting the overall scope of what's going on. Looking forward to the growing [H], especially the Enterprise section since my job is moving more in that direction Timmeh gets to deal with more hardware and fewer endusers!

Peace,
Tim

Date and Headline fonts look like they're from TrekToday.com. Eh, I guess I'll get used to it. Otherwise, I like the highlighting of the tabs and the "less grey" feel to it.

OK here are my thoughts:

I thought the new width really sucked on my Dell 2405FPW @ 1920x1200. BUT after looking at site while at work on my 19" Dell CRT monitor @ 1280X1024, which is much closer to what the average viewer is seeing, it looks just fine.

The "Posted by Kyle" is WAAAAYYY too small. The name needs to be much larger.

I really like the font being used for the news headlines and dates. Much better than the old version.

Originally Posted by somecallmeTim

The "only" gripe is the HardOCP logo... it seems flat and like it's blending into the page. Pretty minor really considerting the overall scope of what's going on. Looking forward to the growing [H], especially the Enterprise section since my job is moving more in that direction Timmeh gets to deal with more hardware and fewer endusers!

Peace,
Tim

Actually, this is a good thing to hear. One of the things I am looking to do is distance ourself from "HardOCP" and bring us closer to "[H]" sites. Quite franky, then enthusiast community embraces us much more as [H] than OCP anymore. Also, the OCP part seems to be confusing to many and the Hard part seems to put many people off as well, especially when you start talking to folks in the mainstream and our new sections are looking to exten right there.

That all said, we don't see the ethusiast section changing much at all. One of the reasons for the changes are so that we can expand and keep our enthusiast edge as well. To do that we need to make some core site changes and that is what you are seeing now.

For those of you not interested in the least with the new sections, a quick rebookmark to enthusiast.hardocp.com will be all that you need.