Author Topic: NSF News Site Redesign Update (WORK IN PROGRESS) - September 2017  (Read 33230 times)

Offline haywoodfloyd

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The News Site update looks much improved.
I would like you to add one more tag or link at the top of the page for Launch Schedule, similar to Spaceflightnow.com.
I have sometimes missed launches because I relied on looking through the Forums to find the latest upcoming launch.
One click of a mouse would be far easier.
I also have some questions and suggestions for the updated Forums but this is the wrong place for that.

Offline cro-magnon gramps

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Will reading old site articles be rendered in new site format, or will they remain old site format... not a requirement either way, just an odd question...
Gramps "Earthling by Birth, Martian by the grace of The Elon." ~ "Hate, it has caused a lot of problems in the world, but it has not solved one yet." Maya Angelou ~ Tony Benn: "Hope is the fuel of progress and fear is the prison in which you put yourself."

Offline IdeallyNotOnImpact

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Really like the look! Will it be responsive on phones?

Secondly, I use the web site, not tapatalk. The recent forum posts widget is an iframe and the iPhone does a poor job with caching iframes; most of the time the news section is fresh but the forum topics are stale, requiring a forced refresh in safaris to get the latest. Yes, I think it's an iOS defect, but If there's any way to put recent topics on the news site without an iframe (or have the iframe served differently so that it is cached differently) that would be a great improvement for the more occasional but committed visitor, I mean, me

Offline ClaytonBirchenough

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I like it. Looks cleaner and more modern than the current design definitely.
Clayton Birchenough

Offline Darren_Hensley

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I have designed and implemented 9 web sites, the feed back is basically the same..

Single article pages are the most readable, a navigation bar at top and bottom that are frozen are preferred. HTML Current Page Link at bottom in status bar is required, not optional.
       If you can, use a MLA citation generator button for students convenience.  Call a safe, and validated hidden script and check it often.
An index page with thumbnails is preferred. No sidebars. What's new section OK, Brief, Bulleted.
Make code that will maximize the page width to the browser width, nothing bothers readers more than wasted space, big blue vertical bars to each side of my page in the browser just reeks of waste.
No depth is beyond three clicks from the master article page. Preferably only one click, to a new tab.
A "Back" to master article button is preferred in the NAV bar.
No animation, or update on the fly clickbait. Keeps overhead down, faster load times. Less distractions. Less unwanted content.

If you must use sponsors, absolute bare minimum, static, adverts at the bottom of the page only.
Any page you write is your page, not the sponsors, don't let them alter your vision for a better page by giving preferential treatment to high dollar adverts. Real Readers hate to scroll past cr@p that's in the way to get to the real article.

Make the real article easily recognizable, frame it, font it, whatever, just make distinctive.
Make the page logo short, to maximize the article text area, so the reader can enjoy more. 1/4"-1/2" max@1024
Home link the page logo, everyone does this now, it's a no brainer.
If you must use a "Home" button, put the homepage button at the top right and make it bigger than any other link button, same height as the home page logo, no wider than 1"@1024 res.
No Java, CPP, Pearl or other programming scripts on page, prevents page hijacking.
Minimize cross-article linking to no more than 3, Use notation and Bibliography if more is needed.
No more than 5 tags per page. 3 tags preferred.

Use outline format for articles
"Tell me what you're going to tell me"
"Tell me 1"
"Tell me 2"
"Tell me 3"
"Tell me what you told me"
Lengthy articles should be cut into two articles and so on... Don't lose the reader in a to long to read article. KISS principle applies.

That's what I've gleaned since the days of BBS to modern HTML/JAVA web design.
Do I practice this? No :(, I haven't edited any of my sites in 7+ years, I got my Masters in ITM 2013, I just don't have the time right now, who does?

It's Just My Two Bits(IJMTB) Take it, Leave it, whatever. My Credentials if you really care: http://www.h-10-k.com/h10k/author/author.htm
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Offline SmallKing

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The new theme is nice, but I like the old logo
Some are bound for happiness, some are bound to glory, some are bound to live with less, who can tell your story?

Offline Crispy

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This is looking fantastic :) A huge improvement.

Make code that will maximize the page width to the browser width

This is not great advice. Line length should be restricted to maintain readability.

https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability

On a 21:9 aspect monitor, a "full-width" paragraph might collapse to a single line!
« Last Edit: 09/19/2017 04:33 pm by Crispy »

Online PahTo

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Lookin' good--keep up the good work!

Offline russianhalo117

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The new theme is nice, but I like the old logo
There was a poll and majority voted for a new logo.

Offline moreno7798

WordPress?
The only humans that make no mistakes are the ones that do nothing. The only mistakes that are failures are the ones where nothing is learned.

Offline russianhalo117

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WordPress?
I have written one article for NSF so far and word press I believe is used.

Offline Chris Bergin

Yep. Wordpress. And that answers a previous question about old articles - they will reformat to the new version. Some VERY old articles (which looks a bit messy anyway, as it's from over 10 years ago) were MioManager. We'll look at a potential solution for those, but hardly anyone clicks on 10 year old+ articles.

We also had a logo vote, etc. Never will please everyone, and the current logo is super, but we had to scale down the size of it and move a bit away from "NASA" as we've moved from the initial site of exclusively being about Shuttle to all rockets,etc.

Keep the feedback coming! We'll get this moving and keep updating status and look to utilise the talents of the community for the additional cowbell :)
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Offline vaporcobra

Looks amazing, Chris & Webmaster! Beautiful work. I might suggest an optional dark theme users can select, if possible. https://arstechnica.com/ is a perfect example of this being successfully implemented.

Offline RocketLadyUM

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Looking excellent. How long till it's live? :)

Offline Roy_H

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Nothing new, but just to re-enforce points already made. I am quite comfortable with the existing layout, but new layout looks better.
- clickable pictures (I know already done).
- there is always a thread in the forum about the article, but sometimes difficult to find. A link at the end of the article would satisfy me. The fancier version suggested above is ok too.
- advertising should be static, ok for column on right, no YOU HAVE TO LOOK AT ME! ads.
- agree with link to up-coming launches. I think a link to Salo's latest list
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=8184.1420
would be sufficient and for SpaceX fans, gongora's list
http://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43418.0



"If we don't achieve re-usability, I will consider SpaceX to be a failure." - Elon Musk
Spacestation proposal: https://politicalsolutions.ca/forum/index.php?topic=3.0

Offline docmordrid

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Looks amazing, Chris & Webmaster! Beautiful work. I might suggest an optional dark theme users can select, if possible.

https://arstechnica.com/ is a perfect example of this being successfully implemented.

I second this, strongly, especially because of its utility for the visually impaired. Also useful would be an all large text setting and care with color choices in dark mode.

Learned this the hard way before having a cataract repair.
« Last Edit: 09/26/2017 06:23 am by docmordrid »
DM

Offline NSF Webmaster

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Looks amazing, Chris & Webmaster! Beautiful work. I might suggest an optional dark theme users can select, if possible.

https://arstechnica.com/ is a perfect example of this being successfully implemented.

No hard promises on when it will be ready (primary design first) but I'll try to make this work (very wip):
« Last Edit: 09/26/2017 12:34 pm by NSF Webmaster »

Offline Chris Bergin

Community input required for the new launch schedule/calendar:
https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com/index.php?topic=43826.0
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Offline Darren_Hensley

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This is looking fantastic :) A huge improvement.

Make code that will maximize the page width to the browser width

This is not great advice. Line length should be restricted to maintain readability.

https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability

On a 21:9 aspect monitor, a "full-width" paragraph might collapse to a single line!

Great link to a valid argument.

I'm sure there's a happy medium somewhere in here, I and most of my readers hate wasted space. Maybe fixed column widths larger than news print, but still using the bulk of the width of the page I can see, with two or three columns. Again JMTBW.  Keep up the good work Chris.
BSNCM Devry, MAITM Webster, MSSS & MSAP SFA
H-10-K Enterprises Gateway Station

Offline saundby

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I like the new layout, the tablet-friendly layout particularly. My tablet's screen is larger than half the laptops I use to read the site, anyway, and I hate when sites default or force it into a cellphone format.

The clickable pictures and full breaks around them are a welcome change.

A dark format will also be welcome, I hope that works out.

And, as others have mentioned, links into the forums from the articles will be welcome. Once I go to the forums I'm always asking myself if I should expect the article in one place or another. E.g., I never know when to expect something to be in the Live forum vs. the nation's or company's forum. And wandering into the public forums looking for something is always a crapshoot vs the relatively refined conversations in L2. ;)

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