Snakes In The Ball Pit > Announcements

thefpl.us v2.2 Redesign

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Shell Game:
So it looks like some entries show the body text and others don't. It throws off the balance a little on mobile. Screenshots below. I'm on my phone so I can't get a shot of this one but last night on my desktop I noticed title length seems to also affect how things are positioned.



The result's a little messy when it feels like you were going for a cleaner, more modern feel.

On a personal note I can't really say how I feel. My gut says not to like it,  but my gut is a nostalgic fool that forgets really fast so don't listen to it (and no lie I think most negative reactions are probably that too. change, man...)

I appreciate all the work you put into it. Hope my nattering observations helped. Unless those were intentional. In that case I guess I didn't have much important to say.

Lemon:
Okay, some responses.

Is the logo meant to be cut off on the bottom? Because I really, really don't like that.
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Well, clearly you're not alone, because there's a whole lot of that going around.

I'm also not a fan of the font used for the tags. It's kinda cramped.
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I think I'm in agreement there.  With a bold serif, the point size of 12pixels is a little uncomfortable. That'll get changed.

[...] if the logo was in the top left instead of the large empty gray space it'd be fine by me
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Alright, here's something I mocked up.



If you think that's better, then I just fundamentally disagree with you. Firstly because it's common and less interesting, but also because that logo, probably the least interesting thing on any given page, is then the focal point on every given page. No matter what you're looking at, a bright red circle in the top left is trying to steal your attention.

there's a lot of wasted space in portrait mode (like in tablets):
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Yeah, this I definitely agree with. I kept the same breakpoints from the previous design where it made a little more sense, and I need to adjust that. My thought is that the mobile version of the sidebar will happen a lot sooner, absorbing resolutions up to like 800 pixels or so.

Are the icons at the button left meant to cycle randomly?
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That was kind of a last minute change and sort of half-baked I'll confess. But you saying that made me realize I can change around that idea to something a little more useful. Here's what's happens now.
* The first icon is a subscription method (currently iTunes, Pocket Casts, or RSS)
* The second and third icons are two random "social" options (YouTube, Twitter, GitHub, etc)
* The last icon is ballp.it

Does that make more sense?

The date box significantly overlaps the title for a number of the episodes
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more on this later

With sixteen fifteen items with one of them double-width per page on a 1080px wide monitor, one item winds up all on its own on the bottom.
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Sure, that's how a grid works. It responds to your resolution, whatever it may be, and tries to do the best math depending. When you're designing responsively you can't fixate on orphans.

More logo things
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Again, majority opinion here so I'm not gonna discount it completely, but I'm in disagreement here. The logo is everywhere on the site, I think tucking it in the corner makes it more interesting and less stock blog. I also don't think "home' needs more prominence because once you've come to the site, "home" isn't really the best way to navigate anyway, every other method is going to help you drill into what you're actually looking for.

As it happens, here was my first iteration, which I also still like.

The logo gets partially covered by URLs when you mouse-over links, including the link around the logo itself.
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Here's the only piece of this I do agree with. I don't mind it being covered up when you hover over other stuff, I do mind the url inspector covering the link itself up.

Recognize that I'm not locking anything in forever. That's not how I make websites (obviously). What I'm saying is that I'm feeling good about that placement and while I'm considering what I'm reading about it, I'm not currently being convinced by any of it.

Also, not having the episode titles (or numbers) display in text form on the episode list seems problematic to me.
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Assuming you mean the breifs pages because the episode list is pure-image, I hear you. More on this in a bit.

i discovered the tag explorer (and a nice number of fetish tags), but there's no obvious (to me) way to get to it from the homepage.
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Yeah, that's alright, I wouldn't call that "primary discovery". Getting dumped into the tag page right away would be jarring, it's main use is to pivot from one episode to another of similar content, exploring all available tags is definitely something you should discover on your own.

i like a sitemap link for trying to find things like this
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FWIW, thefpl.us actually does have a sitemap, but its primary purpose is to be consumed by search engines.

I just want to see the dang logo
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You're in luck. The F+ logo currently exists 14 times on the home page. 25 times on the epsiodes page.

The new layout makes it a lot harder to read the tags page because they aren't all in little bubbles like the old layout.
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Yeah, agreed, I think the design of that page can be improved, though I'm not yet sure how. I'm exploring this

I genuinely thought the website formatting was broken and it wasn't until I read this thread that I realized it looked like that on purpose.
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I'm using this as a testimonial in my portfolio.

So it looks like some entries show the body text and others don't.
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So what's happening here is that the double-size block is getting squished into a single box at significantly smaller displays, and I think I might agree that the rhythm change is a bit jarring. Gonna explore that.

Okay, so

One of many things I was hoping to get away with in this particular resign was to avoid a duplicate content issue with the title. Since (I think?) every single episode cover displays the title itself. It seemed better to me to not duplicate content right next to itself, let the image serve as the title and move forward from there.

The problem there is that the images themselves are inconsistent. With everything else having rules, every episode is allowed to determine where its own title goes, as well as the ep # if there is one. While I don't super duper love displaying the text "Problematic Sex Toys" underneath the text "Problematic Sex Toys", I think it solves more issues than it causes.

So I have a GitHub fork called rebrief set up to approach some of the stuff discussed here. But for the record, you remember the several times I asked for design opinions on the beta? None of you did that. So, a teeny tiny itsy bitsy ever-so-small fuck you to the lot of you. Y'know?

bubbleuj:
On mobile I keep trying to move the logo around like Facebook messengers little pop ups.

But that's a me problem.

SHAMBA~1.SBB:
Alright, here's something I mocked up.



If you think that's better, then I just fundamentally disagree with you. Firstly because it's common and less interesting, but also because that logo, probably the least interesting thing on any given page, is then the focal point on every given page. No matter what you're looking at, a bright red circle in the top left is trying to steal your attention.Lemon, January 02, 2019, 11:17:01 am
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If this is about attention and focus, having the logo at the bottom is actually more distracting to me.  A logo in a normal place is invisible.  A logo in a strange place where I have never seen one before is constantly itching at the corner of my eye.  Also, having it way up at the top as its own little thing gives it undue focus, but putting it in the same block of the screen as the menu doesn't have that effect:



But for the record, you remember the several times I asked for design opinions on the beta? None of you did that. So, a teeny tiny itsy bitsy ever-so-small fuck you to the lot of you. Y'know?Lemon, January 02, 2019, 11:17:01 am
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This doesn't mean I'm interested in your Goddamn Design Opinions. In fact, assume I'm not.Lemon, December 18, 2018, 04:19:12 pm
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Genuinely can't tell if you're joking.

Blandest:
I for one like the new design. It's interesting and minimal. And I really don't think having the logo at the bottom is going to be something anyone cares about after they've seen it for the hundredth time.

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