Feedback

[Gryphus_1]

This thread is intended for direct feedback based on the most recent updates as shown in the Change Log. All other feedback, comments or suggestions should be put in a new thread.

Any feedback is greatly appreciated.

G1

[Macca]

Gryphus, I love what you've done with the new website design - it looks fantastic! If you need any help with the programming/development I am at your disposal

Adam.

[Gryphus_1]

Glad you like it. Appreciate the offer, I may just take you up on that.

G1

[Macca]

Now I think of it, the website content begins way too low in my opinion Gryphus. As aesthetic as it is, there seems to be far too much focus on the header/logo than there is the content - a major design issue. How about making the header showcase for the homepage only, and then condense it at the top with the navigation bar for other pages? I guess my point is that people who have clicked on Happy Thanksgiving by NJA-Ruthless_One, for example, want to see a post about thanksgiving - not to be greeted by a large Net Jam logo and being forced to scroll down

What not try something like this?:



On the home page, you might want to center the logo in the screen (like this: http://imgkk.com/i/czz2.jpg) for a couple of seconds before sliding it up to the top of the page and fading in the navigation bar/page content etc. Doing that is certainly not for the rest of the pages, but a very nice first impression for new visitors to the website.

Your guardian angel,

Adam.

[Gryphus_1]

Very interesting idea on the landing page. I need to look into that.

The shrinking of the header across the rest of the pages is the plan once I begin work again.

Awesome input.

G1

[Ruthless_One]

I love it, "get'er dun!" ASAP PLEASE I can't take the header the way it is as of now!!!! (No offense Gryph, but this is what I was telling you about b4.

[TIGR]

Agreed on the header. Though a lot of it comes down to design philosophy; I prefer a clean/minimalist/simple approach and thus avoid redundant links and images, excessively bulky/complex design and graphics, and unnecessary padding. On the other hand gaming sites in particular tend to be heavily laden with graphics, features, etc.

Pages here do load slowly for me. I'm on a slow, unstable connection so maybe this isn't significant for most users. But here's a good tool for evaluating a page for performance issues:
http://tools.pingdom.com/fpt/#!/cNzJ8G/http://www.net-jam.com/

It shows 101 HTTP requests for the main page, many being external style sheets, javascript, and images. That's probably the main holdup for my connection, more so than the 2.8MB page size.

And even more in-depth tool is here:
http://analyze.websiteoptimization.com/

That one will check whether or not CSS/JS/etc. are compressed and make specific suggestions based on standard metrics. However for Net-Jame it is currently unavailable, returning "The size of this web page (4160556 bytes) has exceeded the maximum size of 3000000 bytes."

[Gryphus_1]

Landing Page/Header is my first priority when I start work again, followed by a theme overhaul. Theming is a mess right now.

The main drag I've noticed has been the background, as confirmed by Pingdom. It was made for a different NJ, so that will be gone with the theme redux.

Once the site is complete (less than 30% now) I'll be starting optimisation. Until then I really can't give too many answers on lag and load times. But those tools look far nicer than what I had been using, should be a huge help.

G1

[Steve-O]

So basically take it back to what it used to be! lol

Steve-O

[Macca]

I think the Engine forum system is slow enough as it is. There's no point optimizing the website's speed if your foundations are the problem. Have you considering making something from scratch?

[Gryphus_1]

Yes. But the Enjin backbone makes up for any shortcomings like speed. Even with the many limitations and workarounds.

It would take more time trying to recreate the basics than it would to work around any issue. Or would be worth from what I've seen.

G1

[Elephant94]

I'm digging the "No new messages" messages.

[saladFingrs]

lol - it makes no sense! you just wanted a starwars quote in there.