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Author Topic: New website design  (Read 37329 times)

Offline SupSuper

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New website design
« on: April 18, 2012, 03:21:31 am »
One thing I've been thinking about for a while is a brand new website design. It's been long enough that I think the project deserves something that looks like a proper game website, instead of just... a WordPress blog. The current design is really bland and ugly, doesn't convey the game, and the information is spread all over in the menu and sidebar and links and ugh. Terrible. It horrifies the usability-nerd in me. :(

Here is a concept I've sketched up... yeah now you know why I didn't do a remake with new graphics. :P But the idea is to give it a more X-Com look, with the menu looking like the Geoscape sidebar, the content boxes (with news and etc.) looking like the X-Com message boxes, much more appealing look and proper logo. You look at it and think "wow this is so X-Com".

The layout would be wider and more flexible to give more room to the content like screenshots and Youtube gameplay. All OpenXcom-related links would be merged into one menu, with the third-party links (other X-Com projects, etc.) left at the bottom of the sidebar. I'd redesign the pages to be more useful and varied instead of just looking like text walls too.

So, feel free to post your thoughts on this sketch idea, or if you got other ideas of what you'd like to see on a new OpenXcom website.
« Last Edit: April 18, 2012, 03:23:30 am by SupSuper »

Offline michal

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Re: New website design
« Reply #1 on: April 18, 2012, 07:51:50 am »
Looks good :)

Have you thought how to implement it? Using wordpress theme or something completely else?

Offline luciderous

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Re: New website design
« Reply #2 on: April 18, 2012, 08:35:48 am »
Nice! The new UI should do the trick. Still looks a bit like a blog though :P

Offline kkmic

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Re: New website design
« Reply #3 on: April 19, 2012, 10:00:43 am »
What you need is someone to make a customized WP theme.

Offline Daiky

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Re: New website design
« Reply #4 on: April 20, 2012, 01:37:18 pm »
I like the clever logo :)

Offline luke83

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Re: New website design
« Reply #5 on: April 22, 2012, 07:37:22 am »
I like the logo too, i had a quick go at making it with guns but its not right :(

Offline bullitmagnet

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Re: New website design
« Reply #6 on: May 03, 2012, 01:57:48 am »
I'd love to have a crack at helping out some with a new site, also the new logo. I'm a web designer by trade and have done alot of site with wordpress.

Offline kkmic

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Re: New website design
« Reply #7 on: May 04, 2012, 09:54:18 am »
PM SupSuper. He's the BDFL around here.

Offline SupSuper

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Re: New website design
« Reply #8 on: October 04, 2012, 06:23:51 am »
First draft.

Sorry I ignored the offers for help but I kinda like adventuring into these things myself. :P It will just be a custom WordPress theme to not disrupt the current website.

Offline michal

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Re: New website design
« Reply #9 on: October 04, 2012, 07:37:51 am »
Looks nice :D What time buttons will be for? ;)

Offline moriarty

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Re: New website design
« Reply #10 on: October 04, 2012, 10:08:28 am »
is it possible to toggle the news articles with the time buttons?

something like:

5sec - only newest article
1min -  newest two
5min - newest 5
30min - newest 10
1h - newest 20
1day - all of them

Offline DiceMaster

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Re: New website design
« Reply #11 on: October 04, 2012, 01:14:16 pm »
Website is a website, not a game. It should not looks like a game. Especially while game is not so elegant and beautiful.

Sorry, but this design reminds me of ugly sites from 90's.
Ingame ui controls are not designed to be part of website. So don't use them please.

Volutar

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Re: New website design
« Reply #12 on: October 04, 2012, 03:43:30 pm »
Agreed, it looks more like funny picture, than user-friendly site design.

Offline moriarty

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Re: New website design
« Reply #13 on: October 04, 2012, 03:47:33 pm »
I like the design. it's a retro game, why not have a retro website? it's completely recognizable, although I would actually go one step further and use blocky pixel graphics for the buttons on the right-hand side.

maybe even add a geoscape globe as background picture in the left part?

isn't there even a technical possibility to add custom mouse pointers for websites? :D

Offline LCSand

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Re: New website design
« Reply #14 on: October 04, 2012, 04:34:31 pm »
Website is a website, not a game. It should not looks like a game. Especially while game is not so elegant and beautiful.
I agree. But I see no reason not to use buttons like in the game, but with different writing. Maybe even with the blocky font. But it should be obvious what the buttons do and no buttons purely for decoration(like the time buttons).