At 9/8/14 03:39 PM, PeterSatera wrote: My call preferably would be to make the entire thing dynamic, so it works with your screen dimensions. So it never feels cluttered.

Yeah, that'd work. As a comment, I think the left hand menus (under judgement, usernews) would probably be a fixed width, so any dynamic changes from screen size would be with the icons themselves.

I also like the coloured frames around the entries, so that you can see what category they are subtly at a glance.
The P-Bot picks getting prime position is a nice idea, but I don't think it would work in practise. The portals all get different viewerships, and I don't think they would merge as easily as you'd hope.

I think the design needs more space like Luis' around the text and each of the windows, otherwise I quite like it overall.

===
Haven't followed this thread much, but I don't think NG orange should be a major part of the site design anymore. It's too easy to be either an eye-sore or comparable to shit-brown.

At 9/8/14 04:03 PM, TurkeyOnAStick wrote: but I don't think NG orange should be a major part of the site design anymore. It's too easy to be either an eye-sore or comparable to shit-brown.

Wasn't just me then that was thinking it looked like a dirty smear? XD

At 9/8/14 04:09 PM, PeterSatera wrote: Wasn't just me then that was thinking it looked like a dirty smear? XD

It's prob because test-object talks to me about it, but I think it's had its day.

I think the phrase is "kill your darlings"? I don't believe the orange is a significant part of NG that we need to retain it at the cost of the site's appearance.

At 9/5/14 02:19 PM, ZJ wrote: Looks slick. I'm one of the people who worry about NG losing some of its charm if it gets too streamlined, but the Tankman icon is a step in the right direction. I think that's your biggest challenge is making it very mobile friendly while keeping the "NG aura" around. I really do fear having this site lose its personality to be "modern". I have faith in you, though.

What are the plans for streamlining the BBS? Is that too far ahead into the future? I'd be curious to see what changes would be made on that front if any...

Newgrounds will not loose its charm in an aesthetic change because the soul of Newgrounds is in its people.

No other website is as creative and collaborative and challenging, that is worth keeping alive. There's a risk in becoming stagnant when one worries too much about losing something to change. But, if these refinements bring the site into a newer internet era and attract more people, then Newground's 'charm' will only grow further than it ever has.

I don't feel like I have anything new or original to add but I'm replying because you took your time to ask for thoughts and opinions.

At 9/5/14 02:23 PM, Ragnarokia wrote: I still can't say I'm much of a fan of the dark blueish colour scheme over the warmer orange one.

I am also a huge fan of our orange and warmer color theme, but that said, the color change does not take away from the layout. (Still user friendly, flows well) If you made it rainbow with sparkles, the newer layout samples are still nice.

I agree with those who said they favor the simplistic styles.

I agree with ZJ it is imperative we keep Tankman somewhere/everywhere/in our hearts.

At 9/5/14 02:35 PM, LoboF wrote: any chance to bring the user pages custom banners back?

I won't lie, I liked those too. I feel like the ability to really customize our user pages helps us compete with the social websites a little more. Even if half the headers were titties.

At 9/5/14 03:40 PM, TomFulp wrote: What was different with the old voting system that you miss - the voting animation and the blam and save animations?

While not necessary, I miss the blam/save animations.......I miss everything from like 2005. Tom can you just make a time machine and take me back to 2005?????

StrawberryClock is teh king of teh portal and such.....

I know it is a huge pain in the ass and a tremendous amount of work for you guys. You're on the right track combining your changes with mobile and changing things in steps.

The mobile layout looks fine, but I suggest keeping the black/orange palette that has been a part of Newgrounds visual identity over the years.

At 9/8/14 03:19 PM, PeterSatera wrote: They're meant to be 'in your face'.

inb4 popups

At 9/8/14 05:18 PM, AlmightyHans wrote: Newgrounds will not loose its charm in an aesthetic change because the soul of Newgrounds is in its people.

Absolutely this, 110% this. It's not some trend-based social network fad. It's about people, their passions and dedication to their trade or hobby.

if these refinements bring the site into a newer internet era and attract more people, then Newground's 'charm' will only grow further than it ever has.

On this topic... Will NG be getting an official mobile app?

While a web version is nice, smartphones have full HD screens now. A mobile web version isn't so important, provided the content maintains hierarchy and can be read comfortably (not having to zoom and scroll on every page). The main gap, I feel, is in the app market. This could easily be advertised elsewhere and promoted... If it gets featured in the app stores and so on, people will bite. Plus notifications and such would be sooo cool.

Also, by all means use colour-coding but please don't do this to the buttons :(

I like where that recent mockup was headed. I might be back in a few days with some of my own thoughts brutally hacked out onto one of these.

At 9/5/14 02:05 PM, TomFulp wrote: For the past few years we've been watching the web evolve around mobile and have been planning for NG's ultimate evolution as well.

I have been using Ng since 2012 its current layout is great.

At 9/8/14 05:18 PM, AlmightyHans wrote:

At 9/5/14 02:19 PM, ZJ wrote: Looks slick. I'm one of the people who worry about NG losing some of its charm if it gets too streamlined, but the Tankman icon is a step in the right direction. I think that's your biggest challenge is making it very mobile friendly while keeping the "NG aura" around. I really do fear having this site lose its personality to be "modern". I have faith in you, though.

What are the plans for streamlining the BBS? Is that too far ahead into the future? I'd be curious to see what changes would be made on that front if any...

Newgrounds will not loose its charm in an aesthetic change because the soul of Newgrounds is in its people.

No other website is as creative and collaborative and challenging, that is worth keeping alive. There's a risk in becoming stagnant when one worries too much about losing something to change. But, if these refinements bring the site into a newer internet era and attract more people, then Newground's 'charm' will only grow further than it ever has.

Yeah, what Hans said. You know I was thinking about this the other day. If the internet vanished tomorrow a lot of things would be gone. Youtube would be gone, facebook would be gone, but Newgrounds would still be here, because Newgrounds is not a site, it's a collection of people and ideas. VIVA LA NEWGROUNDS!

At 9/9/14 01:21 AM, deathink wrote:

...because Newgrounds is not a site, it's a collection of people and ideas. VIVA LA NEWGROUNDS!

Dude, yeah! ^5

My Feedback:

It was awesome when first unveiled, but as the web simplifies, NG starts to seem more garish and OTT - I also suspect it has adverse effect to advertisement revenue since the visual noise would compete with the visuals of the content and the ads. I REALLY like the direction of luis's mockups, almost in the 95%+ area, if it were only minor tweaks from there it'd be a really nice website, easy to see as both professional (for developers) and creative and fun (for consumers and the community).

One thing that has driven me insane for all time on NG so far though, is the terrible functionality of the audio player, and the lack of playlists for all content (sans-games). Just my nit-picking, as for everything else, I like the direction this is going in. Top bar looks good in the first mockup, I like where it's going! Keep it up, can't wait to see the next evolution of NG, and I love how transparent and inclusive you are of the process. Don't ever change that. <3

On the subject of the layout, am I the only one has always found it a little counter-intuitive to have half of the newspost functions at the top of the newspost and the other half at the bottom?

Talking about this:

Wow, new website layouts are looking pretty snazzy! Pretty much all of the mockups look good to me. I'll be waiting patiently. :D

At 9/7/14 12:50 AM, Lambtaco wrote: And with this adult content split. Is it strictly for porn, or does it include other A rated content? I ask because I have some cartoons that are definitely not kid friendly, but feature no nudity or directly sexual content.

This is the tricky tightrope we'll be walking... There will most likely be multiple satellite sites to cater to specific sorts of things that get shifted off the main site. My biggest example of a grey area is stuff like the Street Fighter collab, which ends with an amazing, hilarious, definitely rated A segment. Hard to imagine that moving off-site but we'll be taking small steps with this transition.

At 9/8/14 04:02 PM, PeterSatera wrote:

At 9/8/14 03:57 PM, test-object wrote: It does feel incredibly cluttered, though.

The P-bot, I'm afraid, does not work either.

Coolio. Well it was just an idea. Seems nobody likes it though, so just skip it. No biggy.

I enjoy looking it over and VERY MUCH appreciate that you made it; I would love to see more people with graphic design skills take a stab at it. You did a good job merging the Luis header with the "tight" header design, with lots of nice visual touches in there. One of my thoughts is we could try orange on the upload button, when we did the 2007 redesign I wanted orange buttons to represent anything where YOU the user contribute to NG, for example click an orange button to start a forum thread, reply to a forum thread, upload content, make a blog post, etc.

The color lines under thumbnails are kinda cool but it can add up to a lot of visual distraction. Works best for the P-Bot post since that is one area where the genres are mixed, I would say it could do color bars but not bother with the individual icons on each thumbnail (film projected, gamepad, etc.)

Wonder how many comments the daily P-Bot post would get if it was positioned that prominently...

dear tom fulp, i think the the NG layout upgrade so that it can be viewed by mobile phones/smart-phones and tablets is a GREAT idea.
it will help the site to be more smartphone/tablet friendly, and thats a necessary update if we want newgrounds to spread it's wings out, and to be used by a wider audience of people... (aka the new generation)

BUT:

i have to tell you that while all of newgrounds movies play well on android smart phones, the i-phones and apple tablets, seem to not support the flash player/macromedia plug ins, thus, making it impossible to view a flash movie/or game via an i-phone....

maybe you should contact apple/someone from apple to enable flash playing programs on i-phones/tablets, so that people can view newgrounds from tehre as well?

or to even create an application/ (or a new program) in i-phones/tablets , so that they can play flash movies/games....

also, we could seriously consider getting this site's design back to it's 2008-2010 era layout, it was much simpler, and alot easier to view/use/handle (and thu it will be alot easier to use via smartphones, imho)
so, a step backwards on the site's design, could do wonders in this case. (especially the 2010-site-style)
it was easy-to-access, functional, and it had the ''flash portal (aka the ''classic'' portal in 1 single button)

i think that the ''classic portal'' should be more easy to access, because thats the heart of the site.
i liked it when back in 2010 (and before that), you could just click in the ''flash portal'' and go there and watch/vote the flashes in judgement.
nowadays, this new flash movies->greatest->latest->judgement->classic portal layout is a big diusctraction for anyone who wants to access the flash portal... and while its easy for me to use, it is NOT easy for some kids with smartphones to use, or to see the new stuff in the classic portal.

so yes, the ''flash portal'' single button on the front page should return.

and last but not least, we shoudl better intergrate the NG links to the facebook engine.
it would make our views more and this glorious site more popular.

those are my two cents, i hope that you will appreciate my advice, because i love this place and i grew up with NG in my heart....

oh and tl;tr :
THIS

1. enable flash in apple devices/smartphones/tablets
2. return to the 2010 site style layout
3. return the flash portal single button use. (read point 2)
4. get/improve the NG links in the facebook site, and intergrate them in a better way. (so that thubnails can be visible)

At 9/9/14 09:44 AM, Step wrote: On the subject of the layout, am I the only one has always found it a little counter-intuitive to have half of the newspost functions at the top of the newspost and the other half at the bottom?

Talking about this:

This should definitely get addressed, and is another area where I would like to see consistency in the visual language of "interaction" buttons such as Edit, Delete and New Post.

At 9/9/14 10:40 AM, TomFulp wrote:

At 9/8/14 04:02 PM, PeterSatera wrote:

At 9/8/14 03:57 PM, test-object wrote: It does feel incredibly cluttered, though.

The P-bot, I'm afraid, does not work either.

Coolio. Well it was just an idea. Seems nobody likes it though, so just skip it. No biggy.

I enjoy looking it over and VERY MUCH appreciate that you made it; I would love to see more people with graphic design skills take a stab at it. You did a good job merging the Luis header with the "tight" header design, with lots of nice visual touches in there. One of my thoughts is we could try orange on the upload button, when we did the 2007 redesign I wanted orange buttons to represent anything where YOU the user contribute to NG, for example click an orange button to start a forum thread, reply to a forum thread, upload content, make a blog post, etc.

The color lines under thumbnails are kinda cool but it can add up to a lot of visual distraction. Works best for the P-Bot post since that is one area where the genres are mixed, I would say it could do color bars but not bother with the individual icons on each thumbnail (film projected, gamepad, etc.)

Wonder how many comments the daily P-Bot post would get if it was positioned that prominently...

Thanks Tom. I agree orange to be used for an upload button would work. I'll maybe take a second look at this, to try and take the clutter out of it. Feedback on the lines for one could be taken out etc. I may even try a reskin of orange integrated. We'll see, what I have time for. :)

Just to throw in my two cents - as a content creator, a part of the site I'm particularly fond of is the "Under Judgement" list/portal. It and the voting system it includes are the things that truly sets Newgrounds apart from, say, Youtube when it comes to submitting work.

It would be nice if that page could be more readily accessible as it was in the previous site design rather than hidden underneath drop-down menus. I think having it out in the open helped me understand more quickly how Newgrounds worked, enticed me to visit the new submissions list more often (I sometimes forget it's still there), and also made the site feel more active and alive.

On the whole, I definitely support the idea of slimming down the design to match modern standards, just so long as it continues to resemble the Newgrounds we all know and love! I've always really enjoyed the Newgrounds aesthetic, and I hope the cartoonishly grungy decor makes the transition.

This is still an ugly concept but on the topic of ultimately removing the dropdowns, we could link the Collabinator and the Wiki from the top header:

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/11bc04178423f73498c5f3a15839546b

Maybe order should be reversed to look like the natural sequence: Learn, Collab, Upload

Another general thought that I'm putting out there...

The site skins on the 2012 redesign were idealistic - we hoped things would pick up after the redesign launch and we would not have to go back to running skin ads down the left and right side.

The reality was that we needed to bring back the skin ads and they will be around for a while still. They also look really ugly on top of our existing site skins.

Ditching the "top-center" portion of the skin makes the site look less ugly when we are running skin ads on the left and right, since they inevitable conflict visually. Supporters don't have to see that, at least!

At 9/9/14 12:06 PM, TomFulp wrote: This is still an ugly concept but on the topic of ultimately removing the dropdowns, we could link the Collabinator and the Wiki from the top header:

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/11bc04178423f73498c5f3a15839546b

Maybe order should be reversed to look like the natural sequence: Learn, Collab, Upload

looks good to me.

Sorry for the double post but I can't find the edit button.

In the image posted by tom fulp there's no tankman on the tank. I think it looks better with it.

Also while I like the look and feel of the current newgrounds, I understand that design is going in another direction (see windows & word and a bunch of websites that preceded it), maybe also because on a small screen unnecessary decorations just create confusion since it's all small and hard to read already, so maybe the simplification that Ama cites would be a good idea, at least for mobile, but I'm not sure if it would affect the current feel negatively.

I think the 2005 layout was the best.

- Prominent, unsubdued site logo.
Even YouTube's logo has some width to it. Don't use a square 40x40 logo; it's too small and it hurts site identity.

- Links to site content with both logo and text.
Logo targets users who don't use English as first language, and text vice-versa.

- Search has toggle-able filters.

- Area for user controls.
Just a user icon, and maybe username. When clicked, an inline dropdown with links to user controls (account settings, creator panel).

Renew it with fresh graphics and we're all set imo.

---
I strongly recommend against hamburger menus. They aren't user-friendly at all. Link

I found another version of Luis's desktop layout. Is this newer, older than the design you presented to us?

At 9/9/14 02:41 PM, yetanotherjohn wrote: I found another version of Luis's desktop layout. Is this newer, older than the design you presented to us?

That one is older but the logged-in user status is correct I think - the screenshot I posted was a logged-out user.

The "latest submissions" bit of the classic portal should be right on the new front page. When sitting next to Facebook and YouTube, the important thing isn't that everything you see is stellar - it's that you always see new things right away. In this case quantity over quality, it's just the way it's come to be in this time. Also, it's really welcoming for participation to not have to dig for anything less than genious. I think a new user would feel more like they can jump in and create too. If this could be a thing, I think that would boost the site participation and activity very much.

Honestly, the only things I ABSOLUTELY HATE is the fact that you can't see the current buttons up in the header, and instead have to click on that dumb little menu button. I hate menu buttons like that in general (even reverted back to firefox 28 because of that, yes I know I'm stubborn), so what if it's modern and increasingly common, that isn't always a good thing. Plus, if you just keep the header the way it is, it's actaully easier to go where you want instead of having to click (or tap) few times. Sure that might seem trivial, but nowadays people are always in a hurry, and extra clicks/taps can have a great affect on things.

Also, I'm REALLY wondering why you just don't make a separate mobile design instead of dragging us web browser users into this. Too many sites seem to be ditching their old designs and making it completely based on mobile user's interests, and this worries me.

At 9/9/14 12:17 PM, Ama wrote: Maybe you guys should simplify the current design first, like what test-object made.

Thanks for mentioning that. It inspired me to fire up greasemonkey and make this. I'm not that great of a coder and I only tested this with the latest version of firefox, but I'm pretty pleased with the results anyhow. I think I'm gonna keep this until the new design launches.