Nur Ahmad Furlong

Tag: re-design

  • Ideas for nomad-one redesign.

    I’m starting to get carried away with look & feel design on the nomad-one redesign. This is even before my wire-framing is properly completed, but I just can’t help myself at the moment. I’ve just really enjoyed working on this design. There are a load of changes I want to make to my site, graphic design, functional, content and information architecture & usability, so it’s all over the place at the moment. This post lists a few of my thoughts, but I hope to get more ideas from you about what you think would make my space special. I’ve suggest how the best advice might be rewarded down at the end of this post.

    nomad-one-new2

    Look & Feel

    I suppose explaining where I’m going with this desert scene might help for starters. The nomad concept has been with me for some time, though not in this form. As you may know, I’m no city slicker. I’m also very much set on remaining as independent as possible, something the Bedouin values extremely highly. I’m a traveler at heart. So this is partly where the desert scene comes in.

    Saving Space with some Ajax/Design Patterns

    Regarding the layout and general interface, there’s a few space saving design patterns I want to build into the homepage, which include using some jquery tabs, a slider and an accordion to fit everything into a smaller space. My current design is way too long and lacks a few features above the fold. I don’t want to loose anything but feel I need to tuck lots of excess away in a more logical manner.

    Integrating Social

    I definitely need to integrate my social links into the interface much higher up the page, as well as include a twitter feed, what would we do without twitter. I like the idea of a user generated feed or post wall but am uncertain how this might impact the space on the homepage.

    Showing my Portfolio work

    Something I have failed hopelessly at s keeping an up to date portfolio area. I don;t even have a latest work feature on my current site so this is a must have i think. Of course it needs to be coded in such a way that it’s easy to maintain as well me always being pressed for time.

    Quick Contact & Chat widget

    I’d also like to include a few quick ways of getting in touch, like a mini form as well as skype me & gtalk widgets which allow people to chat with me directly when I’m online, which is like all the time.

    My Blog area will remain pretty much the same in terms of it’s location and general functionality, but of course in needs some space saving neatening up. I also need to get a featured post sorted. I’ve been toying with the idea of having 3 main areas of featured posts, and running titles of these in the header area somewhere but haven’t fully embraced this idea yet.

    Menu with Subtext

    I really love the idea of menu links with sub text explaining the links in more detail so these are almost definitley going to be part of my next menu. I also need to rework the way I display my pages, what stays, what goes and what needs to be added. Lots of information-architecture work lies ahead, and the dreaded writing!

    Header Message

    My header will have to have a brief explanation of where you are and who i am, some kind of elevator pitch style slogan. I’m considering having a few messages, one for first timers and a few others for returning visitors. I like the way yoast.com addresses the visitor based on where they have come from.

    What do you think? Want to earn your own design/redesign?

    I’m thinking of turning this into some kind of competition, asking for feedback and awarding the best advice a design of their own. What you you think? Would you be interested in participating in something like that?

  • Mail & Guardian online launches new site

    Fresh off the back of successful launches of Tech & Sport Leader platforms, the Mail & Guardian online has gone live with a fresh design.

    I was tipped off by Vincent Maher and had a little discussion about what they’ve changed and why. It’s clear one of the main areas of focus was content as it should be in a news site. This news site seems to pack in loads more content and fits it all in comfortably.

    mg-home

    Usability with a splash of Ajax

    Being able to quickly access the type of content you’re looking for is important for a site of this size, and with a nice little ajax slide down you can click right through to just about any part of the site through a hidden menu.

    access-allsections

    Further down the page the sliding menu of top stories is quite effective though it could help being higher up on the page.

    slider

    Tabs are used in the sidebar for the “Leader Platforms” and an even more interesting tabbed tag clouds section which allows you to browse popular tags by tag, people and places. It all makes for an adventurous journey through what’s happening in the world around us.

    tabs peopletags

    Personalisation is very much a part of it

    The login panel is also revealed nice & smoothly through some quick & easy ajax, something I need to apply to a few areas of my own site when I have some time.

    login

    Signing up and logging in gives you access to some nifty features like printing multiple stories for research purposes, or following the history of a particular issue and checking out your last accessed story.

    I’ve only spent about 20 odd minutes on the site, but can already see some heavy thought and research has gone into what features to add, how to add them and how to tie them all together.

    Thinking about Semantics & reader history

    I can’t wait for the newly planned feature of suggesting new content based on previous reader history. The site is making a serious move towards the new web in a very understated manner. No flashy frills but lots of power under the hood.

    Aesthetics, Branding & User Interface

    I initially felt the brand had been lost and that the design could do with a little neatening up, but it seems even this has been researched and considered. Many times designs that are too neat and orderly can become a little dead.

    I do however feel that what has been established on Thought, Tech & the other “Leader” website’s has been lost a little on this one. I still feel there is a little room to tighten up the user interface, but it’s a work in motion and I’ve already made a few suggestions like increasing padding very slightly.

    Extending in all directions

    Something which the M&G online has focused heavily on is diversifying it’s offering. From one starting point the reader can venue off in so many directions depending on their interest and need at any given time. Beside’s the blogs and leader platforms, there are a wide range of offshoots which keeps interest going.

    Looking for a job?

    jobs

    Not interested in reading?

    photos

    Share your African story. Readers can share their own African experience and earn money as well in the African Voices Project.

    africanvoices

    All in all G&M online have created a space where diverse need are catered for in an intricately woven online space. I’d probably do a few things differently, but this has been a ,mammoth task and it’s always easier criticising from the sidelines.

    So what do you think of the re-design?

  • What’s the whole buzz about WordPress 2.5?

    As you may have heard WordPress 2.5, the much hyped upgrade from 2.3 skipping 2.4 has been delayed for more than the promised week. I don’t know much about what they’ll be doing with the new release and took a little peak at the demo site.

    So what is really different about WordPress 2.5

    Admin Interface Re-design

    The admin area of wordpress has seen a significant overhaul, not so much in functionality as far as I can tell, but in terms of the user-interface and design with a few added extras. Here’s hoping it works faster than the existing one as I find one of the issues is the loading time with my limited bandwidth. I logged into the 2.5 demo site and poked around a little taking a few pics.

    Here’s a few screens of the admin interface

    Wordpress 2.5 Dashboard re-designed

    (more…)

  • Finally a new face to nomad-one.com

    It’s a proud moment for me to have flipped the switch on my new theme for nomad-one.com. Though I’m still ironing out a few bugs and need to fix up one or 2 visual elements, my impatience has just got the better of me and I had to go live with this today.

    I’m hoping you guys will get involved and let me know what you think as well as point out any kinks there might be which I have missed out.

    I’ve done tests in a few of the latest browsers and all seems well, though I think I was pushing it to expect IE 4 to have a clue what to do with this layout. This theme has Small Potato’s Wrath theme as it’s basis though you would never be able to tell that at a glance. Small P still has some of the best free themes out there so I made use of his expertise as a springboard for this one.

    I wanted my new theme to be based on sandbox with it’s rich semantic markup and dynamically generated classes for styling freedom.

    So tell me what you think so far and if you’ve managed to find any mistakes, which I’m sure there are. A few of the links might not be working so bear with me as I patch up a few things.