Hey everybody,

 

I know I promised about a year ago to design/develop a new urbanohio.com, well I have finally buckled down and gotten the site into the testing phase.  The testing site can be viewed by going to:

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/v4/

 

We are going to need content contributors and bug reporters so if anyone can donate some time it would be greatly appreciated.  If you do experience a bug please report it here in this thread.  Also any feedback/ideas would be appreciated, I hope you all enjoy!

 

Thanks,

 

Aaron 

I'll sticky this for ya.

I'll sticky this for ya.

 

Yuck.

I'll sticky this for ya.

 

That's messed up.

Immature southerners.

i certainly like the design, the top banner, and the layout.  why are you creating a new site?  is there a need?

I thought this might be a hoax, since it was not posted by an administrator.  Whats wrong with the site as is?

Gorgeous!  Can't wait to view the finished product.  I especially love the colors as well as the urban images at the header. 

looks ok

Only problem I have is the way stuff gets shoved off the right side of the screen when I increase the font size.

I need big type.

I can give you a bit of background on the project.  About myself, I'm a web developer from the akron/cleveland area and an avid urbanohio.com reader.  (sometimes a reluctant poster) There was a discussion about adding a podcast to urbanohio.com about a year ago and I offered my help in getting things started. 

 

http://www.urbanohio.com/forum2/index.php?topic=5562.0

 

As the discussion went on (on the forum and in private messages) we realized there were all kinds of other updates we could add to the site, but the site as it was currently running would have been difficult to integrate the features because there was no database in control of the content except for the forum.  If we wanted to maintain a fluid site (one username/password per user, database driven content, etc) we could have to start from scratch. 

 

So I offered that I redesign the site and integrate some new features (upgraded picture gallery, podcast ability, blogging, etc) as long as I could do things in my own time without a strict deadline. 

 

As it happens right after committing to the project, I bought a new house and got a new job and was really really busy.  So finally this past month I found the time to sit down and concentrate on the site again. I have been in contact with RichInCincy and ColDayMan here and there over the past year about the project so I'm sure this has been a long time coming :-).

 

Right now there is a lot of information on the test site that is just "filler" information so it is basically in a barebones state, but it is now database driven which will improve functionality/integration greatly.  Really the point of posting the site now, in the state that is it currently in, is just to test for browser issues, errors, login problems etc. before adding more functionality.

 

My motivations for this project were simple, urbanohio.com is a great site and I wanted to contribute something to make it better.  It was really refreshing to come across such a focused and positive online community when a lot of Ohioans can be the exact opposite.  I thought at least I could contribute something in an effort to make the community the best it could be.

 

Quimbob what browser are you using? (ex Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc)

Thank you for the effort - it's much appreciated! I think you've done an impressive job so far :-)

 

I do have some critiques - I like the idea of the collage background but it needs to be simplified a little, imho. I don't care for the darker bar beneath the collage - it adds clutter without really tieing the page together. I presume the OpenSourceMatters is a banner-ad placeholder?

 

Also, I've taken a screencap - keep in mind that I'm regrettably on OS9.2 at work (OSX at home, thank god) so maybe it's only showing like this because I'm forced to use IE5. At home, I use Firefox.

 

I clicked on the Northeast Ohio section - I really don't like the smaller window compared to what exists now. Also, it's fine for the navigation menu to read "NE Ohio" for space constraints but the content page should have "Northeast" (and so on) spelled out.

 

 

^I agree about the smaller window for the picture pages.

wow IE 5 really rips the site a new one.  That window is supposed to resize to fit your screen so there is no scrolling, looks like a javascript issue.  Maybe we could fix that with the updated picture galleries.  It also looks the side links aren't embedding correctly either.  Right now the section titles are stored in the content management system so that shouldn't a tough fix.  Maybe I could add some opacity to the banner so that the logo stands out a bit more...

Immature southerners.

 

Southerners? Where you from, Oscoda?

Nice use of Joomla. The site looks really nice, though it has a very gritty color pallette. Perhaps that is purposeful. For the record, I do like the color pallette, just found it funny that it reminded me of grit. Perhaps with the new version of the site you guys could upgrade the forum to 1.1 Final (released 12/2)

Quimbob what browser are you using? (ex Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, etc)

Sorry, that was ignorant of me

Firefox 1.5 , Mac OSX 10.4.8 1280 x 800 monitor

I like the header graphic. The rest seems like it would take some getting-used-to. What I like about the current UO, aside from this nutty forum, is the galleries, specifically, the breakdown of the regions, cities and their constituent neighborhoods. The site, as it's been redesigned, seems very bloggy and overly topical. I don't come to UO for late breaking news (unless Grasscat deems it newsworthy, then I'm all over it).

TraderJake,

 

Yeah I actually was going for a gritty look.  When I think Ohio I think dirty, but in a cool way.  Here is another version of the layout with a slightly lighter palette.  Maybe I could make a few variations and just everyone vote on the one they like the best.

 

Aaron

That's cool, I just had a feeling the gritty look was purposeful. Is the new site going to stick with the Babylon Theme (I think this is Babylon, I use YaBB Grey) for the forum?

I'm not sure actually.  I assume we will probably tweak it a little bit.  I haven't really messed with the forum much yet.

Immature southerners.

 

Southerners? Where you from, Oscoda?

 

Iron Mountain.

Always figured you for a Bad Axe fella.

I don't come to UO for late breaking news (unless Grasscat deems it newsworthy, then I'm all over it).

 

Nah, I'm good for posting stuff that happened in Bucyrus three weeks ago.

 

 

Critiques of the design:

 

1) Someone mentioned the small window, which I guess is the main window.  I don't like the way the forum appears.  It's similar to the effect of having Favorites or History open in IE and having the web site you're viewing kind of smash up due to space constraints.

 

2) Going from the main page to photos is kind of clumsy.  It looks like you've left the main site when you get there, losing the entire menu and color scheme.  I'm guessing that you haven't gotten around to that yet, though.

 

3) I do like the way everything's integrated, though.  The forum has always felt seperate from the main site to me.  This way they at least feel linked.

 

Right now the main content area is set to 700 pixels in width because of an issue with IE 6.  I'm trying to mess with the layout so that it will become fluid and stretch with the screen size and work in every browser. 

 

About the photos, I'm looking into some new gallery software that will allow all the pictures to be database driven.  I really like http://www.plogger.org but I will see how difficult it would be to integrate into the site.  Right now the pictures are basically being displayed through a frame.  I'm looking into something that will allow pictures to be tagged and searched.

Wow I thought this project fell through.  I don't think you should open the "forum/message board" inside the website, it should be opened as a new tab on the browser.

 

I am going to have to look over the rest of the site when I have more time and respond with further feedback then.

when i click on the forum link, it opens the forum (header and all) inside the new layout with its own header and what not.  I love the idea of keeping the same sidebar, header, etc. for each area of the site, but it needs to be consistant.  I am asuming that this is a trial thing going on with the new version, but so far soo good.

 

I do really like the idea of keeping the sidebar along side of the page even when you are in the forum.  I would love to be able to more easily meander between the photo pages and the other pages on the main site when I am in the forum location....I currently find myself not paying enough attention to those other great pages on UO.  I agree with the earlier comments that the forum feels disconnected from the rest of the page....oh and keep it gritty!!!!

ohhh...I also like the forum profile information (messages, recent posts, etc) displayed on the sidebar!!!  Keep up the good work.

 

Oh, I hope we don't lose the information from this forum (posts, threads, # of posts, etc)  I like that a lot, and the stats feature is another good one.

I'm not a fan of the forum opening within the site. Correct me if I'm wrong but doesn't that take away space for posted photos - in other words, people will have to use some kind of side scroll to view wider photos? I know it happens now but it'll happen more if the viewing area is reduced to accomodate the sidebar.

^I completely agree! At least the ability to open the forum without the pesky sidebar would be nice, then one could bypass the main page completely.

 

UncleRando, do you know that the UO logo on the top of every forum page takes you to the main site?

The layout that I have created right now has a fixed width of 700px.  I'm working on allowing the forum to stretch to fit the size of any monitor but that isn't in place yet.  So really, a given user will only lose about 150px due to side menu.  You could probably make up a lot of this space by messing with layout of the actual forum. An example of an integrated forum:

 

http://www.joomlahacks.com/component/option,com_smf/Itemid,94/

 

Or you could just hide the side menu entirely if the forum is begin displayed.  An example:

 

http://www.berggeit.nl/index.php?option=com_smf&Itemid=412

 

The advantage you get from integrating the gallery, forum with the rest of the site is that the user experience become more fluid, meaning its easier to navigate between sections of the site.  You also have multiple ways to get to the same information.  For example, instead of posting pictures on the forum, you could login and post your pictures to the picture gallery directly so that you can associate keywords, descriptions, etc so that it can indexed and searched more easily.  There is a lot of great information on this site but sometimes it can be tedious to search through the forum posts to find what you are looking for. 

 

I know it seems like its a big jump, but when all your information is integrated it makes finding exactly what you A LOT easier in the long run.  Here is some more information on Usability:

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usability#Usability_considerations

UncleRando, do you know that the UO logo on the top of every forum page takes you to the main site?

 

Yes.  But as caipenar mentioned it is the fluidity of the site that would be greatly improved.

The advantage you get from integrating the gallery, forum with the rest of the site is that the user experience become more fluid, meaning its easier to navigate between sections of the site.  You also have multiple ways to get to the same information.  For example, instead of posting pictures on the forum, you could login and post your pictures to the picture gallery directly so that you can associate keywords, descriptions, etc so that it can indexed and searched more easily.  There is a lot of great information on this site but sometimes it can be tedious to search through the forum posts to find what you are looking for. 

 

That is an interesting concept, because you currently have Chris/Rich post pictures in both the forum and main page. I would assume it is double posted in the forum because they want to make it available to questions or comments, a very vauble tool that makes UrbanOhio so great. There would also be a quality (and quantity) control issue as well.

 

Indexing is a good idea that I've brought up before, but it seemed the general consensus was that people like the forum format, presenting the newest information to the user.

 

Not being a regular poster, I have a feeling that you don't quite understand how annoying it will be to have to resize your browser window outside of your screen will be.

Also, I am continually being knocked off of the forum and having to log back on. This has never happened before and I suspect it has something to do with me opening the proposed site.

"For example, instead of posting pictures on the forum, you could login and post your pictures to the picture gallery directly so that you can associate keywords, descriptions, etc so that it can indexed and searched more easily"

 

I see one area of concern and that's that ANYone could log in, and upload photos that have no business being there. Access to the galleries absolutely needs to be controlled.

 

Also - I post photos that I don't always want put into the galleries. When I first agreed to be a contributor to UO, the agreement was that I would add images to the gallery that wouldn't be appropriate on clevelandskyscrapers.com. I do NOT want all images I post here to be added to the galleries - I usually send them to Chris to upload them on an as-needed basis. Plus, posting photos is really the best way to alert forumers that "hey, I have some new recent pics for you to check out" - and they should be able to see them without having to click on another link. 

 

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely appreciate and applaud your effort. However, the dynamic of this forum - particularly how photos are posted in threads is something that has worked for similar forums (skyscraperpage.com is another) for at least ten years. I really think that one aspect is a case of "if it ain't broke... don't fix it".

I'm not trying to break anything by creating more ways to access content. If there are functionality issues (being kicked off after logging in) we can address those as bugs before the site launch. 

 

Talking about the gallery, it could be as closed or open as you want it to be.  The software has the ability to allow users to upload photos or it also can be in view only mode (which it is right now).  If there are legal reasons why it should be closed, then you can prohibit users from posting/downloading those pictures.  Here is a link to the software I'm using with detailed documentation:

 

http://gallery.menalto.com/

 

The focus of the site will still be the forum, just because it is already a great resource.  People will still be able to post pictures in the forum and talk about them, I'm just giving everyone the option to expand those ideas.  We could even link to forum stories on the front page, or create an archive of the best threads and link to them.  I recently added a wiki section that could allow people to post articles about moving into certain neighborhoods, the best restaurants/clubs, detailed listings of the largest/tallest buildings in the state, etc.  Stuff that is discussed  in the forum could be archived and could be maintained as a resource along with photos of the places being described.  There are all kinds of possibilities.  Really all I want to do is to provide the tools and you guys would be the ones who would utilize them.  If something isn't working you can always change it or get rid of it. 

 

 

^ I use Gallery2 and love it.  As you said, it can be as open or closed as you would like it.  You can set permissions on who can upload, view, etc. so you can have galleries that would be visible to just you and admins, to users only, or to anyone.  Also it is easy to set it up so that only mods could upload pictures.  I use just a small part of the functionality, so I'm sure it is even more powerful than I even know.  One thing I would warn you about though, it there seems to be some performance issues with using G2 with Powweb.  I think there may be some technical work-arounds to address this, but that's beyond me.

caipenar, I hope I emphasized the "appreciate and applaud the effort" portion of my post. I understand conceptually what you're trying to offer - I (and others) are having a hard time seeing the benefits in a tangible way or at least a way where we can visualize how things would be improved.

 

Basically it seems like people find the forum first and it becomes the "base camp" and if enough people in the same area with the same interests join in, a community forms (easiest examples being Ohio's Big 3 cities). If members want to delve deeper, they check out the main site. So when the suggestion comes up of reworking the forum and site so they're more intertwined, it comes across as disruptive to the natural hierarchy that's developed since UO's inception. Right now, the proposals you've put forth seem like a suggestion for change for change's sake, rather than change that would benefit the forum as a whole.

 

I say this as a designer - it helps to step back and put yourself in the mindset of a nominal end-user. Try to remove yourself from the developer mindset and put yourself in, say the shoes of someone who isn't technically savvy, and used to live in Ohio but wants to check up on how things have changed - maybe some photos, and info. Identify the benefits of your proposals to that kind of user and present them - as "real life" examples that non-techie people can clearly understand. Honestly, if you can think of one component of everything that you've proposed that would help - start with that. Explain it as though you're leading us by the hand (because in some cases, mine included, you are) and let it happen one improvement at a time. When you're talking about an established forum with over 1,000 members - change can't happen overnight, but with consensus it'll happen a lot easier. :-)

The way I see it, the main site and the forum could just as easily be two separate sites (not necessarily a bad thing), but I can't tell you the last time I've even looked at the main site.  IMHO, if caipenar can better integrate the two (not as it is in the current beta version, but actually integrated), I only see that as strengthening UrbanOhio and our already great online community.

Thank you for all the suggestions on the site.  Maybe what we can do is this, we can try to mimic the current site as closely as possible, but just have the guts of the site running with database driven content.  So hopefully the change won't be too drastic or confusing.  I know that Rich is going to start adding content and if anyone else want to help out in design/development/content everything is open source so drop me a personal message and I will send you whatever information/source files you need.

 

There are some issues with the layout that need addressed (IE 5-6 The world's most annoying browser) which I will mess with this weekend.  Also, I will try to maximize the space on the forum so that it will fill the entire page and just leave the top links.  Again if anyone can donate a bit of time it would be greatly appreciated!

Before you spend too much time trying to find a workaround for IE5/6, let's find out how many people actually use it. If only 1% of our users are using it then it may not be worth the hassle. My magazine's website is undergoing a rehab and they thought about trying to accomodate the oldest browsers, etc. They found out that 95% of viewers used pretty up-to-date software. I'll post a poll and see what comes up.

^ Sounds like your company needs to spend more time upgrading their OS first. ;)

^Already happening (thank god!)

You seem like you had the same problems I encountered (and still encounter) on Abandoned. I wanted to move from a table/CSS layout to pure-CSS, but it is next to impossible to code a three-column layout that would make it compatible with IE 6/FF 1-2/O 8. IE 6, for instance, would render a column off quite a few pixels, while Firefox would render it correctly. Do a few changes and then IE 6 would render it perfectly, but Firefox would screw it up. And Opera...

 

The variable-width layout with CSS is just too damn hard. I had workarounds for the workarounds to get it to render correctly in IE 6 and FF 1-2 by week 2. My CSS files were so bloated that I had trouble finding what I needed to edit.

 

So I gave up. It's now at a 3-column layout using tables, but CSS controls all other formatting and layout properties.

 

As for the design, I like it but the forum should take up the entire page for the image display reasons alone. Otherwise, it is a nice step up!

I don't think we are going to use the "new" version of the site.  If we wanted to use it, we would most likely need a dedicated host because performance on a shared server would be too poor and the software is difficult to configure.