I spent a good 50 hours on the few concepts that you see there and I'd love feedback. As the concept says, this design is all about placing the high quality staff/community generated content right at the front. As you'll notice I haven't tried to redesign every single page, that would be much too large a project (I'm doing this in the rare spare time I have!)
So again, take a look and let me know what you think! Would you guys like to see teamliquid get a facelift? Would you want the other websites (legends/hearth etc) also get a facelift? Let me know what you think
On May 26 2015 00:25 Jormundr wrote: Website feedback
I would like to keep this here since it is a shared forum across all the websites and getting as much user feedback on this as possible can only be a good thing. Website feedback isn't really good for that.
On May 26 2015 00:32 ToastedBagel wrote: Only thing I don't like is there is no blue in the background just plain white. I think this makes the website look more generic.
Yeah, I was about to mention this. Reading smaller black text on a white background on a computer screen for longer periods of time is problematic. Also, the forum headers should pop out more on the sidebar, which is why the liquidlegends one is better than the 'vanilla' site.
The streaming icons are too big and its going to be too much of a hassle to scroll through them for most people. Also in my opinion those comment speech bubbles under the spotlighted articles are too big and jump out more than the article headline itself (because of the colours).
All in all, its professional looking but too much like other gaming sites these days.
- streaming icons are too big especially when there are a lot of streams online. Currently on LL over 10 featured streams. - Would like to have a more SC or LoL feeling to it. Maybe make the background more game related instead of plain white.
On May 26 2015 00:59 Ctone23 wrote: It looks more tablet friendly so I definitely like that. I spend a lot of time reading TL on my couch and always misclick stuff ;<
I don't see an event calendar/upcoming events however, I think those need to stay for sure! Nice work
Yeah for 50 hours I don't think one has time to start considering all different platforms and all the different page templates. (Front page, Stream Page, Article/Forum thread, and so on) I like the more neutral feel of the page, whilst it doesn't shout TL in any way it does have a nice calming aesthetic to it.
EDIT: The only thing that went against this was the yellow, yellow with white text is pretty hard to read at the best of times, this very bright yellow didn't make it easy to see the interview text.
One of the things I like most about TL is that the blue (or green/red on hearthstone/dota) really stands out even though there's a white background. IMO this, combined with a number of borders being removed, takes a lot away from it and makes it less interesting to look at for me. There's also much more space being taken by a few things (news, streams) which does make them more noticeable, but is especially unnecessary for news and makes seeing everything on the front page a bit harder. Right now I can see featured articles, spotlight, hot topics, a poll, the featured video, and a few other things that other people almost certainly find important, but where's that going here?
On May 26 2015 01:24 JieXian wrote: Call me old but I don't want TL to change, at least not teamliquid.net
On May 26 2015 01:24 JieXian wrote: Call me old but I don't want TL to change, at least not teamliquid.net
The first redesign was already not good but this...ugh. I agree with the other guy, it's for tablets (minus the left side) and not something I would want to look at.
On May 26 2015 01:24 JieXian wrote: Call me old but I don't want TL to change, at least not teamliquid.net
Somebody needs to link pics of OLD TL. I'm sure some people didn't want it to change back then either
https://web.archive.org/web/20041204025635/http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/index.php. I was around when the website looked like this. I prefer the newer look, except for how certain parts of the websites are very hard to find. (like final edits). So touch ups are fine. Especially since TL allowed for customisation when someone grouped the forums differently.
The previous ones weren't a complete remake to some generic modern fancy startup website that sells some REVOLUTIONARY hipster crap or some poser's blog about stupid business advice (looking at the one with the gigantic picture) but were touch merely ups or facelifts. Some of the pictures even screamed GosuGamers and I'm sure none of us want that.
On May 26 2015 01:36 coolman123123 wrote: I honestly don't like it. I'd prefer a touch up of the current design.
Exactly.
Edit: Upon looking at it again, the homepage layout wasn't actually changed dramatically. It was only the article that had a giant imposing picture. It doesn't even look like a REVOLUTIONARY blog. It's just neither here (What TL is) nor there (a properly done modern design: very REVOLUTIONARY, much SLICK). I saw that circle in the upper right corner... TL definitely would not be better with 100 pictures of gamer guys in every forum page..
As for your design, the background definitely shouldn't be plain white. And looking at how you made a rookie mistake by putting that bright yellow background for a white font in a way that makes it illegible (for the homepage slide show "and exclusive interview with JD), you definitely shouldn't be the one redesigning TL. Definitely not ok with "liquidstarcraft" either.
I sincerely apologise for my attitude in this thread and I usually try to be nice with criticism (or just dont criticise) but this affects all of us. This is not simply some artwork you keep in your own computer.
I think the redesign doesn't respect the identity, image and look of TL.net. TL.net and its DotA, Hearthstone site already looks great and best of all, in its own unique way.
I hope you understand that if someone wants to redesign your (hypothetical) house you'd be making sure to get someone who does a good job. This is nothing personal and I appreciate you spending the time and effort. Just do something that respects the current design more.
I'm really surprised. I thought I'd dislike whatever was presented, because I'm very happy with the current design. But I really enjoy what Phil/Book's done aesthetically.
Very clean finish. It looks very professional and modern. Perhaps less of a 'homely' TL feel, but comes across very mainstream, feels like you could be reading about football or any sport.
I'm happy if TL never changes, but I think this looks really good and I wouldn't mind it changing either.
On May 26 2015 01:24 JieXian wrote: Call me old but I don't want TL to change, at least not teamliquid.net
Somebody needs to link pics of OLD TL. I'm sure some people didn't want it to change back then either
The previous ones weren't a complete remake to some generic modern fancy startup website that sells some REVOLUTIONARY hipster crap or some poser's blog about stupid business advice but were touch merely ups or facelifts. Some of the pictures even screamed GosuGamers and I'm sure none of us want that.
Haha. I guess I like the generic look in this case :D.
On May 26 2015 01:54 Subversive wrote: I'm really surprised. I thought I'd dislike whatever was presented, because I'm very happy with the current design. But I really enjoy what Phil/Book's done aesthetically.
Very clean finish. It looks very professional and modern. Perhaps less of a 'homely' TL feel, but comes across very mainstream, feels like you could be reading about football or any sport.
I'm happy if TL never changes, but I think this looks really good and I wouldn't mind it changing either.
On May 26 2015 01:24 JieXian wrote: Call me old but I don't want TL to change, at least not teamliquid.net
Somebody needs to link pics of OLD TL. I'm sure some people didn't want it to change back then either
The previous ones weren't a complete remake to some generic modern fancy startup website that sells some REVOLUTIONARY hipster crap or some poser's blog about stupid business advice but were touch merely ups or facelifts. Some of the pictures even screamed GosuGamers and I'm sure none of us want that.
Haha. I guess I like the generic look in this case :D.
Actually I clicked it expecting to be happy with it, since there are a lot of talented people on TL.
Anyway. I didn't think it was a well done modern mainstream look at all. But why would any one you want TL to look like any other website in the first place, especially since it already has a firm foundation?
Edit: I just took a look at NYtimes and it's not that bad, maybe I've just been to beautiful sites. I guess the current TL is just very nicely done. All it would need are some touch ups.
On May 26 2015 01:59 Faeny wrote: Anything that doesn't waste >50% of the screen space to the left and the right is an improvement for me.
Dunno why liquid sites still so stubbornly stick to this shitty fixed layout.
You have a point, but that can be solved with touch ups. As for me I just zoom in and enjoy the view. Upon thinking about it, I agree the TL mobile/tablet site could use some work, one that respects the old design more of course.
On May 26 2015 01:54 Subversive wrote: I'm really surprised. I thought I'd dislike whatever was presented, because I'm very happy with the current design. But I really enjoy what Phil/Book's done aesthetically.
Very clean finish. It looks very professional and modern. Perhaps less of a 'homely' TL feel, but comes across very mainstream, feels like you could be reading about football or any sport.
I'm happy if TL never changes, but I think this looks really good and I wouldn't mind it changing either.
On May 26 2015 01:43 JieXian wrote:
On May 26 2015 01:35 Sn0_Man wrote:
On May 26 2015 01:24 JieXian wrote: Call me old but I don't want TL to change, at least not teamliquid.net
Somebody needs to link pics of OLD TL. I'm sure some people didn't want it to change back then either
The previous ones weren't a complete remake to some generic modern fancy startup website that sells some REVOLUTIONARY hipster crap or some poser's blog about stupid business advice but were touch merely ups or facelifts. Some of the pictures even screamed GosuGamers and I'm sure none of us want that.
Haha. I guess I like the generic look in this case :D.
Actually I didn't think it was a well done modern mainstream look at all. But why would any one you want TL to look like any other website in the first place, especially since it already has a firm foundation?
Edit: I just took a look at NYtimes and it's not that bad, maybe I've just been to beautiful sites. I guess the current TL is just very nicely done. All it would need are some touch ups.
On May 26 2015 01:59 Faeny wrote: Anything that doesn't waste >50% of the screen space to the left and the right is an improvement for me.
Dunno why liquid sites still so stubbornly stick to this shitty fixed layout.
You have a point, but that can be solved with touch ups. As for me I just zoom in and enjoy the view. Upon thinking about it, I agree the TL mobile/tablet site could use some work, that respects the old design of course.
Haha fair enough. I can see where you're coming from, but I still like it. I enjoy what it is now as well, so I'm happy. I think the new look is a lot cleaner though.
On May 26 2015 01:59 Faeny wrote: Anything that doesn't waste >50% of the screen space to the left and the right is an improvement for me. Dunno why liquid sites still so stubbornly stick to this shitty fixed layout.
You have a point, but that can be solved with touch ups.
I mean, that just isn't true There isn't a simple touchup that effectively fixes the aspect ratio of the site from ~4:3 to 16-to-9, and thats before you think about ultrawide and 4K resolutions since TL uses fixed-pixel-dimensions which is a disaster.
On May 26 2015 01:54 Subversive wrote: I'm really surprised. I thought I'd dislike whatever was presented, because I'm very happy with the current design. But I really enjoy what Phil/Book's done aesthetically.
Very clean finish. It looks very professional and modern. Perhaps less of a 'homely' TL feel, but comes across very mainstream, feels like you could be reading about football or any sport.
I'm happy if TL never changes, but I think this looks really good and I wouldn't mind it changing either.
On May 26 2015 01:43 JieXian wrote:
On May 26 2015 01:35 Sn0_Man wrote:
On May 26 2015 01:24 JieXian wrote: Call me old but I don't want TL to change, at least not teamliquid.net
Somebody needs to link pics of OLD TL. I'm sure some people didn't want it to change back then either
The previous ones weren't a complete remake to some generic modern fancy startup website that sells some REVOLUTIONARY hipster crap or some poser's blog about stupid business advice but were touch merely ups or facelifts. Some of the pictures even screamed GosuGamers and I'm sure none of us want that.
Haha. I guess I like the generic look in this case :D.
Actually I didn't think it was a well done modern mainstream look at all. But why would any one you want TL to look like any other website in the first place, especially since it already has a firm foundation?
Edit: I just took a look at NYtimes and it's not that bad, maybe I've just been to beautiful sites. I guess the current TL is just very nicely done. All it would need are some touch ups.
On May 26 2015 01:59 Faeny wrote: Anything that doesn't waste >50% of the screen space to the left and the right is an improvement for me.
Dunno why liquid sites still so stubbornly stick to this shitty fixed layout.
You have a point, but that can be solved with touch ups. As for me I just zoom in and enjoy the view. Upon thinking about it, I agree the TL mobile/tablet site could use some work, that respects the old design of course.
Haha fair enough. I can see where you're coming from, but I still like it. I enjoy what it is now as well, so I'm happy. I think the new look is a lot cleaner though.
I agree that it may look messy to people. But cleaning it up a bit can be done without a redesign as major (as badly done) as this.
On May 26 2015 01:59 Faeny wrote: Anything that doesn't waste >50% of the screen space to the left and the right is an improvement for me. Dunno why liquid sites still so stubbornly stick to this shitty fixed layout.
You have a point, but that can be solved with touch ups.
I mean, that just isn't true There isn't a simple touchup that effectively fixes the aspect ratio of the site from ~4:3 to 16-to-9, and thats before you think about ultrawide and 4K resolutions since TL uses fixed-pixel-dimensions which is a disaster.
Ok I studied CSS for a website before so I get where you're coming from. You misunderstand. What I meant by touch ups is from the user's perspective, not the front end developer's perspective. It is completely possible recode the CSS to meet your stated needs while appearing to have been a touch up from the user's perspective right?
On May 26 2015 01:59 Faeny wrote: Anything that doesn't waste >50% of the screen space to the left and the right is an improvement for me.
Dunno why liquid sites still so stubbornly stick to this shitty fixed layout.
This design seems even worse in terms of screen space left/right than the current design. The calendar is gone and streams are pushed down to make space for top story stuff, but you can just leave the calendar on the right since the SC2 site is already narrow as-is. No need to waste even more space as this redesign does.
Also, the LoL site has a "responsive" design where it reconfigures on narrower screens and it doesn't have a fixed layout at all, it's just only the LoL site and not the SC/SC2 site (don't know about the others).
The redesign IMO is rubbish for the simple reason it seems like it's designed for 4:3 screens and wastes all the space. Some other ideas might be good, but that's pretty much made irrelevant by the starting point being wrong. The current TL design isn't great for widescreen due to the wasted space as mentioned, but this seems to waste even more space.
I find the LoL site works for mobile devices in portrait mode using the responsive design, and also works on my 21 screen when it's set to use half the screen (as does the main TL site, but the main TL site doesn't work so well on a mobile device).
Any re-design should be along the lines of an upgraded TL-LoL site, IMO, using it as a starting point and considering what can be tweaked to optimise for all platforms.
(the TL LoL site is functional, but nowhere near perfect, and looks a bit of a disjointed mess due to inconsistent borders, random use of white spaces etc, it's a good starting point with many things that could be improved).
I dislike how the space for the livestream area takes space to show a little picture of what is going on the stream, would prefer it more like it is now with the names of streamers compact how it is now.
Also would like more contrast on the left bar to easier differentiate each section of the forums, like how the current design has the headers for each section (General, Tournaments, etc) surrounded in thick navy blue bars
teamliquid.net is a disaster to use on mobile devices, and seeing how much of browsing is done on mobile devices should be reason enough to change the layout. Mobile enhanced mode is not enough, if this change makes that happen I am all for it.
On May 26 2015 04:07 Imbajoe wrote: I dislike how the space for the livestream area takes space to show a little picture of what is going on the stream, would prefer it more like it is now with the names of streamers compact how it is now.
Also would like more contrast on the left bar to easier differentiate each section of the forums, like how the current design has the headers for each section (General, Tournaments, etc) surrounded in thick navy blue bars
The Stream section has taken away information that's currently presented, reduced the number of visible streams and uses less width than the current design. It's worse in pretty much every way.
The design, although could do with some more differentiation, does look more cohesive than some designs (especially the TL-LoL site which is disjointed as hell).
On problem that seems common on all websites, not this specific redesign, is the idea that if you are on a mobile device, suddenly everything needs to be 5x as big, rather than only 2x or whatever, meaning you see only a fraction of what you should be able to see, and then these sorts of ideas transferring across to non-mobile sites where everything is massive and you see hardly anything on your screen at any one time, but then there's ALSO masses of white space. Worst of both worlds on many website.
That's mostly good. At least better than what we have currently. And yeah ofc people are gonna be against it just because it changes things, stop being so afraid guys.
I like how it looks, but I do hope that it is not one of those fancy new designs that run horribly on less-than-flagship mobile devices. I have an asus netbook with a broadwell intel atom (EEEbook X205) and it cannot handle websites that are overly dynamic very well. What I like about the current state of tl.net is that it is very old-school, in a good way.
i just want to say I'm glad you guys are like making the whole teamliquid experience more cohesive.
Like if Team Liquid is in the LCS, and I'm a lol player, I'd probably like question why you wouldnt just call that team LiquidLegends since TL the website is all BW/Starcraft + smaller communities that you haven't expanded into heavily yet (website/forums-wise), like Halo/Smash/CS:GO.
The site looks very crisp. Are there any new features designed to launch with the redesign?
LiquidLegends has a nicer color palette considering the density of the colors used, with red being the most vibrant and the purples being more desaturated theres a good hierarchy of color thats really important that I don't think is there in LiquidStarCraft. The vibrant green, yellow, and blue are, firstly, different from the duo tone of LiquidLegends but also dont have a value hierarchy and aren't used enough to really warrant, for instance, how often does the green and yellow occur? Almost never, and when it does its only together. While the vibrancy is attention grabbing and the colors are pretty okay together its not doing too much to really establish a sense of visual hierarchy.
Those are my quick thoughts about the color anyways
EDIT: Iffy on the typography as well, I don't hate it or anything, but I have to admit that I associate TL with thinner type, the type under "THE NEW STRUCTURE" looks nice, I like that quite a bit, but not quite as sold on the typography on the website examples, it feels... okay, but it feels really distinctly okay rather than excellent. Maybe play around more with the type, its not awful, but it feels like it could be nice.
What fonts are you using? Sans serif + serif is always nice and is often a good way to go but I maybe two sans-serifs are the way to go for TL, but maybe its just my own relative vibe of the TL brand.
Also, unsure of what in particular this may be, is it referring to comments? Likes? I initially didnt think it was anything because of the way that it matches up with the rest of the information, it reads to me like a line of factoids about it and I'm not sure if the tail is supposed to be the indicator of whether or not its the likes, or views, or comments, or shares or whatever, but I don't think its visually distinct enough, and I think that relates to the lack of any real hierarchy in the information in that. The green/yellow/blue are all distinct things, and it looks like they're all descriptors of the article, so to me the number should be a color and the other three descriptors should be a single color, its visually a confusing situation in that area.
A mockup of how this would scroll would be great, I'd really like to see how everything is in motion, there are some elements I'm not sure how I should feel about until I see how the website actually navigates.
As far as people's concern about screen real estate being eaten up by the side bars, maybe have the calendar section be collapsible, I know that I dont usually need that information up at all times.
Also, since school is out I'd be glad to help if you really need anything on the art side of things.
Though I love TL's current design and usually the first to turn down any other designs, I have to say that I like what you've done. The colors used aren't too bad though an option to change background/fonts would be great. Needed changes: - The top bar is taking up a bit too much space- reduce the size - Live streams- considering shrinking them a bit more - Add more details under the title so maybe the first 1-2 sentences or something with ... at the end. Feels too bare - Might not be the best option but you need to differentiate further on the left side bar- consider underlining headings
There are more stuff that can be changed. I like how the article usually takes up more of the screen than it does currently. Also, ignore the hateful comments of the poster called JieXian
Somewhere out there R1CH just started twitching nervously and he doesn't know why.
The design seems cleaner. Though as others have mentioned the lack of calendar is an issue. Even if I don't login to post (being more of a lurker than poster) I'll often come here to see if there's any streams I want to watch. For me this is integral and one of the best features of TL - a global source for what's happening.
The livestream section seems a bit on the large side too, the compactness of the current method is more ideal in my most humble opinion.
I guess the only layout features that I currently don't like, is the narrowness, and split sidebars. But a lot of this can be reduced should one choose through settings. ClanBase was similar in this respect, though perhaps more guilty as there'd be a long sidebar, with not much meat in the middle, something I recall mentioning to Tal.
Have to add though I think the concept is great, clearly thought and time has gone into it, and that has to be a good thing. Good job!
I like the grey that we have more. It's easier on the eyes, looking at black on white (or white on black) is too demanding for the eyes.
I think the current design (speaking strictly of LD, I don't visit the other sites anymore) is perfect, my only gripe is that the website should be more customizable (i.e. allow me to drag certain parts of the website up or down - tl;dr change the order). Probably also optimized for mobile, but I don't use that so I don't know.
Don't listen to the people that don't want a redesign. Most people are always confortable with something that is familiar and are oposed to change, but a redesing of TL would not only be good, it is a necessity.
Now, the redesing not necesarily needs to be something extreme. I personally think using liquidlegends as a base would be pretty good, as that site looks very modern, while mantaining the familiarity of tl.net
Of course that site is not perfect. When you go there it looks nice, but once you scroll down it looks progressively worse and ends up with big unsuded spaces to the sides, just as this one.
The left sidebars don¿'t display as much info as this, therefore using the forums that don't appear there becomes 2 or 3 clicks more difficult, but that has the effect of having a considerable ammount of people not using them.
I liked your design in general. The calendar would be a nice addition, and on the featured articles, I think the top bar the one that says features, store etc, should remain in the color of the site.
Idk if you are TL staff, but since chances are they are reding this I'll say it anyway. Just redesigning each of the sites is simply not enough. Tl is decreasing in popularity and the other sites apart from liquiddota don't have a lot of succes, because of this TL needs to go back to the drawing board to re-create their game coverage sites. I want other people to experience the good experiences I've had on TL.net, but it is not posible right now with the unsuccesful site expansion tl has had. The rumored esporthub needs to come sooner than later.
On May 26 2015 06:39 [Phantom] wrote: Don't listen to the people that don't want a redesign. Most people are always confortable with something that is familiar and are oposed to change, but a redesing of TL would not only be good, it is a necessity.
Wow so many comments. Thank you guys so much, tons of great feedback. I posted this at 1:20am my time and crashed right away so just catching up now.
Just to clear this up: I'm not TL staff. As mentioned this is an unsolicited redesign. I'm getting the vibe from some comments that people might be 'waiting for this to happen'. Or you've worded your post like I'm part of the staff. I'm not
I've quickly realised that you guys like information density. Information density works very well once you get used to it. I've been using TL for 6 years and know it like the back of my hand. We should keep the first users experience in mind. This assists in growing a user base. For those of us that were here during BW's golden age, we can navigate with our eyes closed. But teamliquid can be so much more than what it was in 2009 (and more than it is in 2015 and so on).
A lot of comments about streams being too big. Yes, they probably are. They definitely are when compared to what they're like now. Thing is, if you want a very low % of misclicks (especially on mobile/tablet devices) you gotta increase padding/heights for certain elements so it becomes a balancing act. But I probably overdid it
And don't worry, I was expecting this. It's very rare that a redesign is universally appreciated. I've been a part of a rebranding exercise and know what it's like It's the constructive criticism that's the most important. People aren't being disrespectful or unappreciative, they are providing very valuable feedback *looks at JieXian*
It's interesting some comments are about 'not wanting to look at it'. I believe the web is all about content. Strip away the words and images on any website and you're left with a hollow shell. This design makes content the hero. The brief is creating a design that celebrates that content. I didn't spend much time on padding for streams or where the calendar would sit etc. That stuff is more granular. I'm focusing on a more high-level overview of what a redesign may look/feel like.
So the vibe I'm getting is "less major redesign, more minor adjustments/improvements to existing site" instead right?
Edit: For you guys who've asked very specific q's I'll PM you so we don't clutter the thread.
I think Teamliquid does need an update, but I don't like these very much.
Maybe they look good to people because when you're looking at the pics on the website, the thing isn't over your whole screen.
What teamliquid does well, is that the forums work very well and are a lot more legible and easier to follow than say that of reddit. However, the front page, and most of its features, look quite underwhelming and outdated from an aesthetic point of view.
Holy crap, nice job! I love it, and really like your taste in design! Much easier to read than current system and really enjoy the main start page.
Things I like
We dont need a huge banner at the top that says teamliquid.
User on top right with avatar is a good idea, much cleaner. Im guessing FB connected?
I like the comments idea, and Id really really like an upvote system as well.
Things that need some thought
I still feel that this design, as well as the old one, suffers from a single, long horizontal column on the left that features all topics of all sections in a small space.
The forum is what made TL what it is today, and should be the main feature of the new design. A more readable solution of an assortment of threads.
I love the cleanliness of the design, but i also think it might look too serious. Maybe liven it up a bit?
Great job so far, and I really support a new design
i've not looked at the op's design, but if it is infringing the "if it isn't broke don't fix it" mantra that drives me away from 99% of sites upon a redesign then how about no
It looks "clean" but imo i dislike it because it makes me feel like im on one of those "news" sites with a billion ads running down the site and click-bait titles
looking at it more and more, i do really like the streaming thing for tablets that is super well done. Im just not sure how would the forums with posts look, also would our profile, blog, posts liquibet things stay at the top? would it be easy to search through the site, look for bans, old posts, posts by users? thats what im mainly curious about. The front page i prefer the one we have now (but i also remember being pretty meh about it during the first change) so maybe'll it will also happen if i use it more over time, i just really like the way the forum posts are pretty compact and simple.
I really like the idea of a redesign. I think it is also important for TL to invest in this if it wants to be relevant in the future. I think the current design is outdated and really not appealing to new users.
Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
On May 26 2015 08:20 BookTwo wrote: Wow so many comments. Thank you guys so much, tons of great feedback. I posted this at 1:20am my time and crashed right away so just catching up now.
Just to clear this up: I'm not TL staff. As mentioned this is an unsolicited redesign. I'm getting the vibe from some comments that people might be 'waiting for this to happen'. Or you've worded your post like I'm part of the staff. I'm not
I've quickly realised that you guys like information density. Information density works very well once you get used to it. I've been using TL for 6 years and know it like the back of my hand. We should keep the first users experience in mind. This assists in growing a user base. For those of us that were here during BW's golden age, we can navigate with our eyes closed. But teamliquid can be so much more than what it was in 2009 (and more than it is in 2015 and so on).
A lot of comments about streams being too big. Yes, they probably are. They definitely are when compared to what they're like now. Thing is, if you want a very low % of misclicks (especially on mobile/tablet devices) you gotta increase padding/heights for certain elements so it becomes a balancing act. But I probably overdid it
And don't worry, I was expecting this. It's very rare that a redesign is universally appreciated. I've been a part of a rebranding exercise and know what it's like It's the constructive criticism that's the most important. People aren't being disrespectful or unappreciative, they are providing very valuable feedback *looks at JieXian*
It's interesting some comments are about 'not wanting to look at it'. I believe the web is all about content. Strip away the words and images on any website and you're left with a hollow shell. This design makes content the hero. The brief is creating a design that celebrates that content. I didn't spend much time on padding for streams or where the calendar would sit etc. That stuff is more granular. I'm focusing on a more high-level overview of what a redesign may look/feel like.
So the vibe I'm getting is "less major redesign, more minor adjustments/improvements to existing site" instead right?
Edit: For you guys who've asked very specific q's I'll PM you so we don't clutter the thread.
I do apologise for my negativity and I hope you understood why. I have overreacted in certain parts. Most importantly, I did expect to like the redesign before I clicked on it. I am not a stubborn old dog.
I'm all for improvements (the mobile version needs it badly, as I have stated in the thread). And I'm glad you are experienced and have been part of a rebranding before.
I just took a strong stance because I didn't want a situation where everybody acts nice (when they don't like it that much) and the mods think everyone loves it and they are pressured into redesigning it that way and we are all sad pandas. However my opinion on the design in the OP still stands, other people only said it in a nicer way.
The other people who "liked it but had objections" probably aren't too different from me. They probably just felt the need to balance my negativity, that's what I'd do. And since you have been working in design long enough you'd know that people can be incredibly indecisive at what they want or like until they actually use it.
Either way I respect you for your reply because at least you have a good attitude to not go mad at me. I look forward to your next iterations (I don't think you're giving up that quickly).
On May 26 2015 07:20 Alabasern wrote: I feel a simple disconnection between the sites.
This too.
On May 26 2015 05:26 BigFan wrote: Though I love TL's current design and usually the first to turn down any other designs, I have to say that I like what you've done. The colors used aren't too bad though an option to change background/fonts would be great. Needed changes: - The top bar is taking up a bit too much space- reduce the size - Live streams- considering shrinking them a bit more - Add more details under the title so maybe the first 1-2 sentences or something with ... at the end. Feels too bare - Might not be the best option but you need to differentiate further on the left side bar- consider underlining headings
There are more stuff that can be changed. I like how the article usually takes up more of the screen than it does currently. Also, ignore the hateful comments of the poster called JieXian
Ignore BigFan, he is infamous for loving everything hahahahahaha
I am in love with how things are now. I've been here regularly since 2002, and the site now has a somewhat contemporary look while also keeping a lot of the original layout which makes the perfect balance of keeping up with the times and nostalgia / familiarity.
I'm not a fan of the giant pictures and fonts on the redesign, especially on the featured articles. I like that TL's current design looks similar to news website and Korean/Chinese website designs, its easy to find information and links, plus I can read longer articles without lots of scrolling, which I can never do on any of the "modern" designs.
I've been browsing TL for more than 10 years and this new design looks awesome, great improvement. Modern graphic style and responsive design. What more to want. Awesome job, I wish this would got implemented.
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Those are some interesting thoughts. I've been following a dozen of communities/news sites over the years. Not once I rushed straight to the message boards and forums to read and participate in community discussions. There's always a period of anxiety for new users when they are not active on the forums. The community aspect emerges naturally when users feel comfortable in the environment, but for that to happen you need some other incentive to visit the site on a daily basis. Now, if I'm a new guy visiting TL I would be like 'ok sure I get it, this is a community site, but give me a reason to come back every day and stay'. It's kinda like when you are 10 years old and your parents move to a new town and you have to go to a new school. You probably won't hurry up to introduce yourself and make friends - you will be scared at first. Communities become very intimate and personal over time - that's especially true for TL where ppl know each other for more than 5 years in some cases.
The community matters for, well, the community. Don't get me wrong - TL should always be about that. But we also need to present more useful features for the neutral visitor, more substance so there are reasons to visit the sites daily. For all non SC sites people just visit us cause one of our great articles gets linked on reddit, but when they are done reading they just go back to reddit cause they belong there. You won't create a sense of belonging by forcing the community on people. We will need something different if we want our site to grow (or even stop shrinking), if we want to serve our own needs then yea I don't think a redesign is needed at all.
The ad banner will be unbelievably obnoxious in the middle of the screen. Just saying, all your cool design work goes completely out the window when the most prominent thing on the page could be some awful pink and yellow and green anime MMO thing.
I second the guy that said white-on-yellow is an absolute no-go.
I'd appreciate some more delineation between the headers on on the sidebar, and also the ones at the top. Maybe some subtle grey dividers/bars/whatever. I don't mind the white, but it could use a touch of something else. Blue/black text on white also can't help but evoke wikipedia, which you might want to be careful about.
I'd be interested in a forum layout mockup as well.
On May 26 2015 16:50 Belisarius wrote: The ad banner will be unbelievably obnoxious in the middle of the screen. Just saying, all your cool design work goes completely out the window when the most prominent thing on the page could be some awful pink and yellow and green anime MMO thing.
I second the guy that said white-on-yellow is an absolute no-go.
I'd appreciate some more delineation between the headers on on the sidebar, and also the ones at the top. Maybe some subtle grey dividers/bars/whatever. I don't mind the white, but it could use a touch of something else. Blue/black text on white also can't help but evoke wikipedia, which you might want to be careful about.
I'd be interested in a forum layout mockup as well.
I really like the improvements to the left nav and top nav, but the home page content strips away too much functionality for me. As others have said, would like to see more familiar elements, but with a responsive design.
Also, I strongly feel that stream thumbnails on the home page are a bad call. It will cause that section to take up so much more space, that the number of streams displayed will eventually have to be reduced to compensate which is bad for the streamers. On the other hand I know that having the thumbnails will improve the number of views for the users who are displayed there, so its a trade off...
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Those are some interesting thoughts. I've been following a dozen of communities/news sites over the years. Not once I rushed straight to the message boards and forums to read and participate in community discussions. There's always a period of anxiety for new users when they are not active on the forums. The community aspect emerges naturally when users feel comfortable in the environment, but for that to happen you need some other incentive to visit the site on a daily basis. Now, if I'm a new guy visiting TL I would be like 'ok sure I get it, this is a community site, but give me a reason to come back every day and stay'. It's kinda like when you are 10 years old and your parents move to a new town and you have to go to a new school. You probably won't hurry up to introduce yourself and make friends - you will be scared at first. Communities become very intimate and personal over time - that's especially true for TL where ppl know each other for more than 5 years in some cases.
The community matters for, well, the community. Don't get me wrong - TL should always be about that. But we also need to present more useful features for the neutral visitor, more substance so there are reasons to visit the sites daily. For all non SC sites people just visit us cause one of our great articles gets linked on reddit, but when they are done reading they just go back to reddit cause they belong there. You won't create a sense of belonging by forcing the community on people. We will need something different if we want our site to grow (or even stop shrinking), if we want to serve our own needs then yea I don't think a redesign is needed at all.
I found that quite funny you mentioned that in the same paragraph.. Reddit is the perfect example of what you called "forcing the community on people". No one can argue that it succeeded in creating a sense of belonging.
Their design is way simpler and old school, and to quote neptunusfisk "worse than super ugly" but it doesn't matter because all you see is a page full of comments with a up/downvoting system and all that jazz. It makes people want to participate. In a way the voting system is a positive reinforcement method of moderating a forum as opposed to the negative reinforcement way of banning people. The tradeoff is of course that it makes reddit messy as hell. But hey it works fantastically well for them.
Making it into a fancy news site with gigantic pictures and all that reminded me of BNet 2.0.
I can see you've put in a lot of effort and it looks nice, but I really dislike desktop sites designed to be mobile websites. It really, really annoys me. I don't use a tablet, yes I use a mobile phone sometimes but the current theme works fine with it. It's just desktop websites who aim to mobiles mainly have made it really horrible for me to browse online recently as everything is so pointlessly big and there's less information on screen.
On May 26 2015 18:01 Qikz wrote: I can see you've put in a lot of effort and it looks nice, but I really dislike desktop sites designed to be mobile websites. It really, really annoys me. I don't use a tablet, yes I use a mobile phone sometimes but the current theme works fine with it. It's just desktop websites who aim to mobiles mainly have made it really horrible for me to browse online recently as everything is so pointlessly big and there's less information on screen.
Yes, exactly. It's entirely possible to code the site to and target different layouts for different users. In fact, it's already been done, just that the mobile version looks so similar to the desktop version that needs improvement.
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Hey deth can you expand on this comment? To me the design feels like it is addressing community interaction a ton by maintaining the forum topics on the left side. I don't really see what other community interaction you may be referring to.
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Hey deth can you expand on this comment? To me the design feels like it is addressing community interaction a ton by maintaining the forum topics on the left side. I don't really see what other community interaction you may be referring to.
You should take a look at reddit. Their OP picture/video is shorter that your AD banner, and all you see are the comments. This redesign is making the picture cover the entire page.
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Those are some interesting thoughts. I've been following a dozen of communities/news sites over the years. Not once I rushed straight to the message boards and forums to read and participate in community discussions. There's always a period of anxiety for new users when they are not active on the forums. The community aspect emerges naturally when users feel comfortable in the environment, but for that to happen you need some other incentive to visit the site on a daily basis. Now, if I'm a new guy visiting TL I would be like 'ok sure I get it, this is a community site, but give me a reason to come back every day and stay'. It's kinda like when you are 10 years old and your parents move to a new town and you have to go to a new school. You probably won't hurry up to introduce yourself and make friends - you will be scared at first. Communities become very intimate and personal over time - that's especially true for TL where ppl know each other for more than 5 years in some cases.
The community matters for, well, the community. Don't get me wrong - TL should always be about that. But we also need to present more useful features for the neutral visitor, more substance so there are reasons to visit the sites daily. For all non SC sites people just visit us cause one of our great articles gets linked on reddit, but when they are done reading they just go back to reddit cause they belong there. You won't create a sense of belonging by forcing the community on people. We will need something different if we want our site to grow (or even stop shrinking), if we want to serve our own needs then yea I don't think a redesign is needed at all.
I found that quite funny you mentioned that in the same paragraph.. Reddit is the perfect example of what you called "forcing the community on people". No one can argue that it succeeded in creating a sense of belonging.
Their design is way simpler and old school, and to quote neptunusfisk "worse than super ugly" but it doesn't matter because all you see is a page full of comments with a up/downvoting system and all that jazz. It makes people want to participate. In a way the voting system is a positive reinforcement method of moderating a forum as opposed to the negative reinforcement way of banning people. The tradeoff is of course that it makes reddit messy as hell. But hey it works fantastically well for them.
Making it into a fancy news site with gigantic pictures and all that reminded me of BNet 2.0.
A fancy void devoid of a spirit.
I've been reading reddit for quite some time now - without upvoting or commenting in any posts. Reddit is my news source for a lot of things and I don't care about participating in the community.
And while on the subject of reddit the upvote system does present content in useful manner - even for outside users. With TL thats absolutely not the case - the left sidebar has no continuity and sometimes the thread titles lack in context (when was the OP made, how many comments it still has, what its relevancy now), in fact a lot of our general community discussion happens in mega threads. Do you think opening a thread with 200+ pages is any good for a new user? Reddit is great to keep up with stuff even if you are not a diehard reading every single OP, with TL thats just not the case and that has nothing to do with the community.
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Those are some interesting thoughts. I've been following a dozen of communities/news sites over the years. Not once I rushed straight to the message boards and forums to read and participate in community discussions. There's always a period of anxiety for new users when they are not active on the forums. The community aspect emerges naturally when users feel comfortable in the environment, but for that to happen you need some other incentive to visit the site on a daily basis. Now, if I'm a new guy visiting TL I would be like 'ok sure I get it, this is a community site, but give me a reason to come back every day and stay'. It's kinda like when you are 10 years old and your parents move to a new town and you have to go to a new school. You probably won't hurry up to introduce yourself and make friends - you will be scared at first. Communities become very intimate and personal over time - that's especially true for TL where ppl know each other for more than 5 years in some cases.
The community matters for, well, the community. Don't get me wrong - TL should always be about that. But we also need to present more useful features for the neutral visitor, more substance so there are reasons to visit the sites daily. For all non SC sites people just visit us cause one of our great articles gets linked on reddit, but when they are done reading they just go back to reddit cause they belong there. You won't create a sense of belonging by forcing the community on people. We will need something different if we want our site to grow (or even stop shrinking), if we want to serve our own needs then yea I don't think a redesign is needed at all.
That's true. But this is something I like about TeamLiquid (and this is coming from a low participation user). It feels like the old days of the internet. I don't feel like there's a community on Reddit because not everybody feels the urge to post quality content. You just point content. Here, you have to make that little step toward the community. No shitpost.
As someone pointed out, "Double sidebars is a thing of the past". Why would it be ? I like to have a quick views of the trending threads in the forum AND the events/streams both on my screen. I need these informations all the time on my screen, plus the news/part of the forum I currently want to watch.
I like to have this small entry fee for new user. It isn't that hard to join in and blend in, but you need to make a small effort. And I think that this is good for what TL.net wants to accomplish. It's not about having a huge community (and don't misunderstand me, It can be really great, and I'm an avid Reddit user), it's about having a quality community.
I'm all for a redesign of TL, but not with the goal of mindless expension, and keeping in mind what makes this website so great (including the easy access to absolutely everything)
Edit : However, Discipline's last point is really true. But the whole site doesn't need an entire redesign.
So, after taking it in a bit I'll try and offer my own thoughts and feedback.
First I like the current color pallet of TL a lot more, I get that the predominately white is cleaner and sorta gives it a more modern look, but it just doesn't feel TL any more. I kind of like the live streams section, but it can probably be compressed a bit too make room for the calendar and upcoming events. I think removing upcoming events in particular would be a huge mistake as it makes it easy to, at a glance, figure out how to plan/manage your time to consume what content. I like the featured articles section is expanded and adds room for a bit of a description, but I'd split that into two sections, Featured Articles as well as Spotlight (for the community news).
TLDR I sorta like some aspects of the new design, like giving the big front page news and featured articles more love, but I dislike the new color pallet and the removal of certain features like calendar and upcoming events.
If I visit a website with forum, I always appreciate no white color (stressful for eyes). The redesign seems to have more space with white color than the current one
If I watch a stream over current TL site, TL site is slightly expanded. I hope this doesnt happen anymore on new TL site.
I just posted this on reddit and thought it would be a good idea to post this here aswell. Feel free to contact me if you want to talk a little more.
Alright, there's a lot to say about this so I will try to work it in the same order it is shown on behance. 1.What exactly is "liquidpro" ? How will this structure be implemented? (1 Site with sub-pages? 6 Sites interlinked with each other? ...) 2. Where do the colors come from and why do you need so many of them? You should chose 1 per site.
3.There's a lot of basic stuff on the pages themselves that I don't really like, such as: Two menu bars positioned like this is too much and a little outdated nowadays. It destroys any kind of usability and easy orientation that you tried to establish by restructuring teamliquid. Use one Menu and make it work. Also give it more space, the one to the left feels tiny and cramped. Both lack any sort of visual guidance and contrast, they feel tiny, get squashed by the content and it takes a while to find what you are looking for. (This may be where you'd want to put color, a bigger font, less text, more space!! or some sort of graphic element.) Gray Boxes for article teasers are not a good idea. It's apparently the only place where you've got color in the background, thus making these little boxes the most important thing on the screen and while also reducing readability by a lot.
The typografie is all over the place: In article teasers on the main page: The line spacing of the serif headline font is too narrow while the subline spacing is too wide (I assume it's the same for both, if so, you might want to have a look at the font sizes) Also I have no idea why you use a serif font for headlines in the article teasers, but switch to a sans serif upper-case for the actual articles. Font size of main Teaser and the ones below seem to vary. Make them the same.
I like the web2.0 vibe your design get. I'm all for the current popular style used by new websites. No border: 1px solid, no fluff in weird 3D effect on buttons... All minimalistic and clear. The futur of web design is not how much effect you can add on an item on a website, but the less you can get to get thing clean. I also love all the webkit stuff from css3.
^Change is not inherently good. >_< Otherwise *Preferred political parties get voted out*-> HURRAY! IT'S CHANGE! IT MUST BE GOOD! Nup.
Just echoing many other posts. I wasn't so keen on the previous redesigns, more 'tablet-friendly" layouts tends to disgust me. Separate pages for tablets or go home. (I think some news site was implementing separate tablet pages, probably starting with t.[rest of site etc.].
While I do think TL could use a redesign, I don't think the proposed is what you want.
personal thoughts:
- reducing information density on the "main frame" is good for newcomers/ppl who want to maybe read "more". - keeping the left/right sidebars is fine for people reg'd. the "active threads" on LL is not enough, esp. for the main page worst case yould be: US poitics/ GoT spoilers / sc2 QQ/ heroes/ yokoKane blog (#freeyokokane). furthermore: left sidebar shows ppl that there is more to TL than the news they came here for. - remove poll/featured video: both don't get updated often enough. we have more or less successful YT threads. - remove shop add/sponsored threads: meh. - I'm torn how exactly I want the "main frame" to be. I'd love more focus on the featured articles, so that there is a list of featured articles with the latest being "extra big" like at LL. on the other hand I like "community news" and featured pieces from the community. Maye you merge those two and put them them below the one lead story (whose frame then would be wider, but slimmer) to the right. so you'd have lead story/s with a wider but less thick pic, and below that running two columns: one with past lead storys and one with "stuff from community" only fear I have is that we have 4 columns then. that's a bit much.
On May 26 2015 08:48 ZeroCartin wrote: ...and I'd really really like an upvote system as well.
Oh benevolent overlords, if you decide that a redesign is ever needed, please do not add any sort of upvote / points system.
Pretty please with sugar on top.
In an upvote system, opinions expressed which the community may not agree with would be downvoted into oblivion. It's OK to express a view or opinion which may not be the norm (within guidelines etc etc) Hitting a button 'pffft, fuck that shit, next', Isn't (for me) What this site with it's vibrant forums are about.
A points system would have people saying random shit trying to be edgy or funny just for the money.
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Hey deth can you expand on this comment? To me the design feels like it is addressing community interaction a ton by maintaining the forum topics on the left side. I don't really see what other community interaction you may be referring to.
I'm no expert when it comes to UI and never claim to know anything about graphic design. It's then quite hard to clearly convey my thoughts on the matter so bear with me.
I think I can best explain my thoughts by examining what we would lose with the proposed design.
We lose the calendar, accessible event information, as well as concise and minimalistic information about streams and events.
Top streamers benefit greatly from the design for self-evident reasons. We likely lose any semblance of easily accessible info on non-featured streams or other games (this is a subjective one, although I have thoroughly enjoyed my time watching niche streamers, and being one myself).
We lose a lot of information (without scrolling) regarding the most recent articles and highlights, displaying only the top 6 instead of the current ~20.
Tools like Liquipedia and TLPD are nowhere to be seen. I'd likely spend more time clicking through to a different section of the site to access it, losing efficiency in usage.
The current design feels like a glorious mess, functions and doodads thrown together to let a community interact across a broad spectrum of topics, events and ideas.
The proposed design looks prettier, but it's akin to a newspaper with a comment section tacked-on, rather than a community at the core.
Fundamentally: Teamliquid is and has been, at its core, a forum with news and features built into it over time. The proposed design appears to be news and features, at its core, with comments and community features tacked on. Hence the comment about emphasis on content and not community being a step in the wrong direction.
I'm not sure if I'm making any sense, but that's the best I can do. Might add more later if I collect my thoughts.
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Those are some interesting thoughts. I've been following a dozen of communities/news sites over the years. Not once I rushed straight to the message boards and forums to read and participate in community discussions. There's always a period of anxiety for new users when they are not active on the forums. The community aspect emerges naturally when users feel comfortable in the environment, but for that to happen you need some other incentive to visit the site on a daily basis. Now, if I'm a new guy visiting TL I would be like 'ok sure I get it, this is a community site, but give me a reason to come back every day and stay'. It's kinda like when you are 10 years old and your parents move to a new town and you have to go to a new school. You probably won't hurry up to introduce yourself and make friends - you will be scared at first. Communities become very intimate and personal over time - that's especially true for TL where ppl know each other for more than 5 years in some cases.
The community matters for, well, the community. Don't get me wrong - TL should always be about that. But we also need to present more useful features for the neutral visitor, more substance so there are reasons to visit the sites daily. For all non SC sites people just visit us cause one of our great articles gets linked on reddit, but when they are done reading they just go back to reddit cause they belong there. You won't create a sense of belonging by forcing the community on people. We will need something different if we want our site to grow (or even stop shrinking), if we want to serve our own needs then yea I don't think a redesign is needed at all.
I found that quite funny you mentioned that in the same paragraph.. Reddit is the perfect example of what you called "forcing the community on people". No one can argue that it succeeded in creating a sense of belonging.
Their design is way simpler and old school, and to quote neptunusfisk "worse than super ugly" but it doesn't matter because all you see is a page full of comments with a up/downvoting system and all that jazz. It makes people want to participate. In a way the voting system is a positive reinforcement method of moderating a forum as opposed to the negative reinforcement way of banning people. The tradeoff is of course that it makes reddit messy as hell. But hey it works fantastically well for them.
Making it into a fancy news site with gigantic pictures and all that reminded me of BNet 2.0.
A fancy void devoid of a spirit.
I've been reading reddit for quite some time now - without upvoting or commenting in any posts. Reddit is my news source for a lot of things and I don't care about participating in the community.
And while on the subject of reddit the upvote system does present content in useful manner - even for outside users. With TL thats absolutely not the case - the left sidebar has no continuity and sometimes the thread titles lack in context (when was the OP made, how many comments it still has, what its relevancy now), in fact a lot of our general community discussion happens in mega threads. Do you think opening a thread with 200+ pages is any good for a new user? Reddit is great to keep up with stuff even if you are not a diehard reading every single OP, with TL thats just not the case and that has nothing to do with the community.
Alright. I do not participate in reddit and I don't like their upvoting system too I admit (that's why I'm here on TL).
My point was that reddit has comments in the face of everyone, it's centered around comments I daresay. And omments make the community. Before you click the video or the picture what you see are the comments. And this redesign is going the opposite direction but putting a gigantic picture for an article
I actually like the left sidebar as it makes me click on stuff I wouldn't have otherwise. For example, clicking on a CS:GO thread because of an interesting title. If it were like a normal forum (phpbb) I'd never have ventured into many subforums. Maybe there's a way to improve this, like a slide-in sidebar or something but I'm not sure.
I don't think opening a thread with 200+ pages is good either. I don't know what to propose.
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Those are some interesting thoughts. I've been following a dozen of communities/news sites over the years. Not once I rushed straight to the message boards and forums to read and participate in community discussions. There's always a period of anxiety for new users when they are not active on the forums. The community aspect emerges naturally when users feel comfortable in the environment, but for that to happen you need some other incentive to visit the site on a daily basis. Now, if I'm a new guy visiting TL I would be like 'ok sure I get it, this is a community site, but give me a reason to come back every day and stay'. It's kinda like when you are 10 years old and your parents move to a new town and you have to go to a new school. You probably won't hurry up to introduce yourself and make friends - you will be scared at first. Communities become very intimate and personal over time - that's especially true for TL where ppl know each other for more than 5 years in some cases.
The community matters for, well, the community. Don't get me wrong - TL should always be about that. But we also need to present more useful features for the neutral visitor, more substance so there are reasons to visit the sites daily. For all non SC sites people just visit us cause one of our great articles gets linked on reddit, but when they are done reading they just go back to reddit cause they belong there. You won't create a sense of belonging by forcing the community on people. We will need something different if we want our site to grow (or even stop shrinking), if we want to serve our own needs then yea I don't think a redesign is needed at all.
I think you got it wrong. You see, the other sites, save for.liquiddota to an extent, compared to tl.net are failures in my opinion, and why is that? Well, there are a lot of factors, liquidlegends came late to the scene and that's certainly a major one, but o think another aspect is that they haven't managed to get a community of their own.
Yes, fancy articles and guides will make people watch your site from.time to time, but that is not enough to make them stay. And most of people just come read and article and go back to reddit as you said, but wouldn't it be better to have them be active members of the community, so they would be watching adds daily instead of just when an article is released?
That's why having the community at the front helps. Of course you can't force people to join it, and so you must make clear what the benefit of joining would be so they do so willingly.
If you think about it, there are lots of reasons why the sc2 tl community is desirable and the others not that much. Pro gamers used to commentate here, some.still do, and that was a big plus being able to debate and talk to your favorite stars. Then there are the constant giveaways, the TLMC, the TSLs and the other tournaments. Furthermore, community news and articles are given more.or less the same importance here as those that were made by the staff.
I'm writing on mobile so hopefully what I said makes sense. In short, having a desirable community is a big part of why TL is successful here.
Of course there are a lot of other factors. Brand magnament has a lot to do with it too. Ask any person in league of legends what TL is and they will say a pro team, ask them about liquid legends and they will say its the web page of the pro team. Ask a sc2 fan about tl and they will tell you it.is a pro team AND a community site big differerence.
I believe a redesing is not enough, but it wouldn't be a bad thing.
There's enough that's been said on the colour palette; for now though, I think it's far more important to get the layout right before we focus on the details. For me, the main problem with the redesign is that it's style over substance. The main page currently has far too much going on, and I agree that it needs simplifying for any redesign. However, I don't think removing the right sidebar is the correct thing to do by itself.
For starters, the article layout in the proposed redesign highlights six articles, but less successfully than the current design IMO. The front page box is an elegant option, and allows several things to be spotlighted one by one, rather than drawing attention all over the page. What's more, the community news tab has been removed (though the forum tab is still available on the left sidebar). Personally, I think that this demands greater significance, as these are the news stories that essentially pair with the articles. I agree that there's an element of redundancy at the moment, but I feel you've removed the wrong option here. As with others, the live streams section is far too obtrusive as well, while the key options currently available in the top left (PMs / Subscriptions / FPL / liquibets) aren't currently there, though there's space for them in the top right. I appreciate that this particular point isn't your concern, but I would hate for TL to have facebook integration to be honest.
My final thought is on the article presentation shown. Essentially, what I like at the moment is that the line between article and forum post is blurred; the only difference is the magic that the HTML and graphics gods can give us. I'm definitely against separating the two. After all, articles are essentially just threads for conversation based off some writing done by a forummer.
The only thing I think the site really needs is to be More mobile friendly like others have said. So annoying having to zoom perfectly to click certain things.
My personal pet-peeve with the proposed redesign (and all other 'new' websites) is that they are 'optimized' for touch (mobile/tablet). Even though there is nothing wrong with that, unfortunately most website designers disregard the other input device (mouse, keyboard and big monitor).
My primary use of TeamLiquid, or any other site for that matter, is with a keyboard + mouse. Having those large area's, big fontsize and other things really big is not very... user friendly. Way too much whitespace, needlessly large images, etc. A mouse is much more precise than a finger, so everying can be smaller. Plus, high-resolution & large monitors can contain much more information than a tiny tablet/mobile.
Please try to design a different style for traditional users.
No upvotes/downvotes please. I rarely go to reddit for dota because all the shitposts and shit comments are at the top. Pro player posts are always upvoted regardless of content and usually the puns/fun statements are pushed to the top rather than the informative discussions. Also, rarely are the posts in chronological order, I prefer more in-depth discussions. In lieu of that, I would rather have a thread searching tool directly in the thread itself.
In short, why turn ourselves into another reddit when reddit is a cesspool?
I have my own online marketing company and web design is one thing I do for a living. It's not a bad redesign. I love the stream look. An issue that immediately jumps out at me after scanning the examples is the transparent header/menu in the featured articles. Don't do that please. You will run into limitation issues where the featured image will have to not have certain colors on it or the menu will be hard to read. You could add a stylish overlay on the menu but I'd just scrap it and keep the normal header/menu for consistency.
Also, from someone who has used TL.net for 10+ years, please add the time zones somewhere. I can't tell you how many times the time zones on TL.net made it that much more simple to keep track of when I had a tournament.
I'm also curious as to whether this is going to be a boxed or full-width layout? If it's boxed, you will have trouble with all the white unless the dead space background is going to be something to off-set it like an egg-shell (nothing bold or it'll distract from the actual content). If it's full-width, you'll be fine but may run into functionality issues. For example: If you have a full-width layout the forum won't look too great because the grid will be too large and dwarf the average post size.
I'd start with exactly what you're doing, asking people their opinions. However, you need to be asking the right questions. Asking specific questions as to what layouts, functions, and features should be kept or changed is huge. I believe you all know the good ol' saying of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". This is very true and research is key for something like TL.net with such a strong following. There is so much traffic to TL.net I can guess the EV of the site and it's easily 6 figures. I wouldn't risk that without a lot of research. Example: When GosuGamers.net switched layouts, I stopped reading it because I disliked how everything flowed.
Good luck with the project, if you need any advice or technical help, let me know.
On May 26 2015 01:56 riotjune wrote: Can we finally get an option to set background to black with white text? It's easier on the eyes. Can't get the plugin to work anyway.
Background of what? (a forum post, the main background, the sidebar), I can write a plugin for you to do it in about 5 minutes if I know what you want
On May 26 2015 22:04 Hryul wrote: While I do think TL could use a redesign, I don't think the proposed is what you want.
personal thoughts:
- reducing information density on the "main frame" is good for newcomers/ppl who want to maybe read "more". - keeping the left/right sidebars is fine for people reg'd. the "active threads" on LL is not enough, esp. for the main page worst case yould be: US poitics/ GoT spoilers / sc2 QQ/ heroes/ yokoKane blog (#freeyokokane). furthermore: left sidebar shows ppl that there is more to TL than the news they came here for. - remove poll/featured video: both don't get updated often enough. we have more or less successful YT threads. - remove shop add/sponsored threads: meh. - I'm torn how exactly I want the "main frame" to be. I'd love more focus on the featured articles, so that there is a list of featured articles with the latest being "extra big" like at LL. on the other hand I like "community news" and featured pieces from the community. Maye you merge those two and put them them below the one lead story (whose frame then would be wider, but slimmer) to the right. so you'd have lead story/s with a wider but less thick pic, and below that running two columns: one with past lead storys and one with "stuff from community" only fear I have is that we have 4 columns then. that's a bit much.
Sounds like you want the feature story/sub articles thing done a bit like Arstechnica and Anandtech have it, with a dedicated "most recent feature" and main story bit, and then other stories below (pipeline on Anandtech, Radar on Ars, Community News here).
I love TL just the way it is, but I appreciate your work, at least for a tablet use.
To me, the only thing I can think of to improve TL is just to merge the column from left and right in one column only to the left so there is less white space. Nothing more.
On May 26 2015 01:56 riotjune wrote: Can we finally get an option to set background to black with white text? It's easier on the eyes. Can't get the plugin to work anyway.
Background of what? (a forum post, the main background, the sidebar), I can write a plugin for you to do it in about 5 minutes if I know what you want
the current white space (especially left and right) in light gray. white is the horror for my eyes If I have to read something.
It's a modern look while still maintaining that traditional TL feel. We can't keep this old layout forever! I also can't stand how inefficient those white sides are now.
On May 26 2015 09:09 Cambium wrote: I don't know 90% of the new people on TL anyway, if we change the design altogether, I probably just won't visit =/
Same here...which is funny, considering I had this one set as homepage for five years now.
This redesign adds no value for users. There's no calendar/upcoming events and no stream list. (the reason I first came here..) If you make the stream list with those preview-windows I might as well just go to twitch to choose a stream as there is no usability benefit here on TL. You say you're community focused yet community news and forum spotlights have been removed from the front page. I don't hate change but please don't change just to change removing good things in the process.
On May 27 2015 06:40 FueledUpAndReadyToGo wrote: This redesign adds no value for users. There's no calendar/upcoming events and no stream list. (the reason I first came here..) If you make the stream list with those preview-windows I might as well just go to twitch to choose a stream as there is no usability benefit here on TL. You say you're community focused yet community news and forum spotlights have been removed from the front page. I don't hate change but please don't change just to change removing good things in the process.
Agree 100%. Which is why it's just a concept.
One of the largest aspects of the community is events and streams. Removing them makes no sense whatsoever and any good redesign will retain and improve on these features.
I simply didn't have the scope (read:time) to redesign everything so I went for a more high-level view to generate discussion. From the feedback it's obvious that a lot of liquideans use Events/Calendar and like where it's positioned (top right).
On May 27 2015 03:05 G5 wrote: I have my own online marketing company and web design is one thing I do for a living. It's not a bad redesign. I love the stream look. An issue that immediately jumps out at me after scanning the examples is the transparent header/menu in the featured articles. Don't do that please. You will run into limitation issues where the featured image will have to not have certain colors on it or the menu will be hard to read. You could add a stylish overlay on the menu but I'd just scrap it and keep the normal header/menu for consistency.
Also, from someone who has used TL.net for 10+ years, please add the time zones somewhere. I can't tell you how many times the time zones on TL.net made it that much more simple to keep track of when I had a tournament.
I'm also curious as to whether this is going to be a boxed or full-width layout? If it's boxed, you will have trouble with all the white unless the dead space background is going to be something to off-set it like an egg-shell (nothing bold or it'll distract from the actual content). If it's full-width, you'll be fine but may run into functionality issues. For example: If you have a full-width layout the forum won't look too great because the grid will be too large and dwarf the average post size.
I'd start with exactly what you're doing, asking people their opinions. However, you need to be asking the right questions. Asking specific questions as to what layouts, functions, and features should be kept or changed is huge. I believe you all know the good ol' saying of "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". This is very true and research is key for something like TL.net with such a strong following. There is so much traffic to TL.net I can guess the EV of the site and it's easily 6 figures. I wouldn't risk that without a lot of research. Example: When GosuGamers.net switched layouts, I stopped reading it because I disliked how everything flowed.
Good luck with the project, if you need any advice or technical help, let me know.
On May 26 2015 09:09 Cambium wrote: I don't know 90% of the new people on TL anyway, if we change the design altogether, I probably just won't visit =/
Same here...which is funny, considering I had this one set as homepage for five years now.
Yes, TL is my effective homepage too. I won't move if there's a just a redesign, not after all these years, but I might if I'm totally lost or it totally sucks. But I'm sure it won't be happening
Either way, it's about time I created an account on reddit, it actually is a good place.
Haven't seen anybody post it yet, but this is full width responsive until it's regular size. Did this within 15mins of just messing and cleaning up some of the html/css (a lot can actually be done in terms of front end development). I'm pretty busy, so you guys only get a full screen view for now!
I currently like the layout cause it really is simple and every forum has it's place. Where as the design proposed is really plain and looks like every other grid framework (don't mean to be rude or anything, but I sense you're more of a UI Developer for applications?)
On May 27 2015 16:55 ShoCkeyy wrote: Haven't seen anybody post it yet, but this is full width responsive until it's regular size. Did this within 15mins of just messing and cleaning up some of the html/css (a lot can actually be done in terms of front end development). I'm pretty busy, so you guys only get a full screen view for now!
I currently like the layout cause it really is simple and every forum has it's place. Where as the design proposed is really plain and looks like every other grid framework (don't mean to be rude or anything, but I sense you're more of a UI Developer for applications?)
This isn't a redesign but an optimisation for wider screens and keeping up to date with the current requirements (not fashion) --- but it's BRILLIANT and this should definitely be done at the very least.
A lot of websites nowadays look like apps anyway >_> hideous on PCs/laptops
I just noticed that the first 4-5 slides were fluff and Mr BookTwo could've easily saved the time or spent the time in making his design look better.
That might have been a good idea when used to present to corparations because in all honesty the first few slides of fancy fluff looked reaaally sleek, but I think it was a waste of your time since all we care about are the other 3-4 slides.
This is kind of good (objectively since i just hate those new responsive design modes) but the only thing i REALLY dislike is the lack a feeling of the site.
For exemple you can clearly see the difference entre TL and TLheartstone today because colours. Here it's like too subtle for me.
Dude, this is aweful. You wasted hundreds of hours man. I would hate this. Teamliquid please for the love don't even consider this crap. Its disgusting. The background is way too bright it hurts my eyes to look at it. The community news is my favorite part of teamliquid. The community news not even there. Its harder to see the separation between subsections. Its harder to look for what i see. The whole layout looks cheap. I love the awesome teamliquid header with the horse as the first thing you see. You don't have the awesome teamliquid header. The only thing i like is the fonts are a little larger and the streams have preview images. Other than that it looks cheap and hideous to me. I definitely do not like it.
On May 26 2015 09:09 Cambium wrote: I don't know 90% of the new people on TL anyway, if we change the design altogether, I probably just won't visit =/
Same here...which is funny, considering I had this one set as homepage for five years now.
same, TL has been my hopepage for years now and I dont want it to change, No offence to the author or anything, but it doesn't feel like I'm reading TL when I see that, I feel like I'm looking at The Daily Dot.
Couldn't you also just offer it as a part of the user preferences? Like TL Classic and TL Modern layout settings?
On May 27 2015 16:55 ShoCkeyy wrote: Haven't seen anybody post it yet, but this is full width responsive until it's regular size. Did this within 15mins of just messing and cleaning up some of the html/css (a lot can actually be done in terms of front end development). I'm pretty busy, so you guys only get a full screen view for now!
I currently like the layout cause it really is simple and every forum has it's place. Where as the design proposed is really plain and looks like every other grid framework (don't mean to be rude or anything, but I sense you're more of a UI Developer for applications?)
There's a limit to how wide you want a text column to be. At some point, it becomes awkward to read when a line goes on and on across the entire screen. You could probably make it slightly wider than it is now, and wider sidebars could be nice as well, but the middle column in your example is really too wide.
I must say that it's better than I'd expected it to be. I think interaction will benefit from it, but it's less of a page that stands out amongst others. But you're always going to lose a bit of identity, so naturally people will oppose change.
I'm really ashamed to admit that I did not know what LiquidDota or LiquidLegends looked like. But I agree the structure should be more clear. I'd even suggest to reserve the 'team' tag for the proteam, as it's really the only team around here, and not drop it like in the design.
teamliquid pro -> proteamliquid? teamliquid -> liquidstarcraft liquiddota, liquidhearthstone, liquidpoker, fine. I'm not too enthusiastic about liquidlegends, at first I thought it was about old SC players when I read the title (some kind of liquipedia with BW players like Kim Dong Soo, Guillaume ). I even like liquidlol better. liquipedia should indeed just be a part of liquidstarcraft (and should probably be renamed as well, liquidstarcraftwiki?)
i guess u cud make current TL scale more for higher resolutions/larger screens that wud get rid of the white sides and also preserve the ability to zoom in for people with shit eyesight like increase maxwidth of the inner/centre box
I'd welcome a new design. Seeing new ideas makes me realize how dated this version truly is. This is coming from an old member who previously never wanted this site to change. But as many others said: keep the blue. Changing things up is a useful talent toi have.
Well there are some nice ideas. But as others I don't like that completely bright white. This "grey area" in the current version is nicer somehow... but I don't know if that clashes with the other colors...
The Livestreams on the side are too big! I prefer a simple, short list. Also where is the difference between "normal" streaming and Event streams? I really like this difference here! Don't know if it's just for tablets/mobile, but the live streams in a window-wide screen is nice. But please keep the "pop out stream" button! I really like it!
About the "head font". I like the "transparent" version better. But I wouldn't take people as picture; well maybe for TL-Pro. But for the games I would use ingame units or something other recognizable.
the new design doesnt address the forum at all, it just makes the splash page white???
what change is this
it looks good but so does the current thing unless u hate grey and want everything white or whatever
this is like painting ur walls white instead of beige coz u think white looks nicer . next you will chuck ur desk out coz it looks like wood color and buy a plastic white one instead to match ur white google iphone obsession.
u want a white website well go to http://www.teamliquidpro.com/ and someone already made it white. just pretend the grey bit is white and that's your new design. this doesn't address anything other than the fact that everyone is jacking off over the colour white
teamliquid.net - "now everything is fucking white"
While I wouldn't mind a redesign or some upgrades to the site, this redesign looks kinda... boring and generic. Part of it is the white background. Not exactly easy on the eyes. And what's with the bright yellow? I mean... why? And why put white text on it... that's just... o.O The design also doesn't represent Team Liquid very well in my opinion - and the colours for the Starcraft part don't look "starcrafty" at all. When I clicked the link I actually expected that the new design would capture the "TL feel" somehow, but this could be any website, there's nothing special or familiar about it. Much of it looks just like any generic news website that flashes oversized images around.
Having a different / improved use of space for the pages' content seems like a neat idea, but i don't think that this new layout truly improves that much. Where did the calendar disappear to? Not a fan of the bigger streams list. It just gets stretched by showing screenshots, looking less clean. Maybe there's another way of giving it a small visual upgrade without making it look like a youtube playlist?
That said, I do believe that the site could use an overhaul, but unless it keeps the "TL feel", I'd rather keep the current version, if only to protect my eyes from all that white.
On May 27 2015 16:55 ShoCkeyy wrote: Haven't seen anybody post it yet, but this is full width responsive until it's regular size. Did this within 15mins of just messing and cleaning up some of the html/css (a lot can actually be done in terms of front end development). I'm pretty busy, so you guys only get a full screen view for now!
I currently like the layout cause it really is simple and every forum has it's place. Where as the design proposed is really plain and looks like every other grid framework (don't mean to be rude or anything, but I sense you're more of a UI Developer for applications?)
This isn't a redesign but an optimisation for wider screens and keeping up to date with the current requirements (not fashion) --- but it's BRILLIANT and this should definitely be done at the very least.
A lot of websites nowadays look like apps anyway >_> hideous on PCs/laptops
I just noticed that the first 4-5 slides were fluff and Mr BookTwo could've easily saved the time or spent the time in making his design look better.
That might have been a good idea when used to present to corparations because in all honesty the first few slides of fancy fluff looked reaaally sleek, but I think it was a waste of your time since all we care about are the other 3-4 slides.
PS: You're caught redhanded using adblock
Not using adblock at all actually. I just have my javascript settings to require me to "allow" certain scripts. Helps with the load of certain pages and security. If it's just an image, the ad will show up and TL get's their view :D
On May 27 2015 16:55 ShoCkeyy wrote: Haven't seen anybody post it yet, but this is full width responsive until it's regular size. Did this within 15mins of just messing and cleaning up some of the html/css (a lot can actually be done in terms of front end development). I'm pretty busy, so you guys only get a full screen view for now!
I currently like the layout cause it really is simple and every forum has it's place. Where as the design proposed is really plain and looks like every other grid framework (don't mean to be rude or anything, but I sense you're more of a UI Developer for applications?)
There's a limit to how wide you want a text column to be. At some point, it becomes awkward to read when a line goes on and on across the entire screen. You could probably make it slightly wider than it is now, and wider sidebars could be nice as well, but the middle column in your example is really too wide.
Yea, I thought that too, I had made the left column a bit larger (can definitely go larger here) and the right one I kept the same because I saw it would have a lot of negative space inside the column if I made it larger. The middle column, will be one tough one to figure out in terms of trying to make it responsive but not weird for reading. Just wanted to show what a large screen TL would look like if it was built like that.
On May 27 2015 21:00 Kaeru wrote: People hate change. But change is necessary.
Is it necessary to be spice up your life and be an outlaw like Jesse James? Is it necessary to change the Swedish government into a Neo Nazi one an incompetent monkey? Is it necessary to be to paint your house completely white and use only white furniture and white doors and dye your hair white?
These are all lifestyle changes. Are any of these necessary? No, because things can change for the better or change for the worse.
We have been part of this community for many years. We want to ensure things improve instead of regress.
To everyone who has said similar things as Kaeru, please don't regurgitate some quotes you heard blindly and think for yourself.
Nice try, but not really an improvement in my opinion. As others have said before, it makes the web site a lot more generic. In other words, it's good but not distinctive.
On May 26 2015 09:09 Cambium wrote: I don't know 90% of the new people on TL anyway, if we change the design altogether, I probably just won't visit =/
Same here...which is funny, considering I had this one set as homepage for five years now.
Yes, TL is my effective homepage too. I won't move if there's a just a redesign, not after all these years, but I might if I'm totally lost or it totally sucks. But I'm sure it won't be happening
Either way, it's about time I created an account on reddit, it actually is a good place.
To be fair, it wouldn't be just this. TL has changed quite a lot over the years...from a homely place to a (subjective) generic multigaming forum. Before, you knew most of the faces but these days...definitely not. The only unique thing here is the BW section but that's all. I'm also interested in SSBM (but there is a dedicated website + larger general forums) and Dota 2 from time to time but that wouldn't be enough to keep me here, especially with a design change which is so displeasing on the eye. Not just the colors but the layout as well. I'm a PC user and want to see all the options and content immediately. I don't need drop-down menus, gigantic pictures for one single livestream and the likes. It's funny that in these days when everything needs to be more efficient, design goes the complete opposite way.
As someone who regularly uses the live events/upcoming events section (on liquiddota), not a big fan as they seem to be gone or so far down, that scrolling is necessary. I also don't really see the need for a preview picture, I can guess already what it is that's being streamed, and the picture takes way too much space.
Edit: This is all on desktop, though I guess the point still stands on mobile. A redesign for mobile I would understand though, seems a little awkward at times, though the mobile version should be independent of the desktop one anyway.
On May 27 2015 21:00 Kaeru wrote: People hate change. But change is necessary.
Is it necessary to be spice up your life and be an outlaw like Jesse James? Is it necessary to change the Swedish government into a Neo Nazi one? Is it necessary to be to paint your house completely white and use only white furniture and white doors and dye your hair white?
These are all lifestyle changes. Are any of these necessary? No, because things can change for the better or change for the worse.
We have been part of this community for many years. We want to ensure things improve instead of regress.
To everyone who has said similar things as Kaeru, please don't regurgitate some quotes you heard blindly and think for yourself.
1. Mad much? 2. Your arguments are beyond stupid. 3. I didn't say anything about his design or what my thoughts on his design was. Simply because I don't think the design present enough solutions. I've worked professionally as a web designer - at top agencies for a long time kid... And no matter if it is better or worse - people still hate change.
Do you remember Facebook when they changed from v1 to v2? How much people hated it? From v2 to v3? from v3 to v4? Do you remember the status updates? The chat updates? How much hate there was?
Well I can tell you this much - all these changes were for the better. But still there was a lot of hate.
Exactly, the arguments were made to make your 2 liner look stupid.
Yes, people hate change, sometimes because they don't want to change, sometimes because it's for the worse
I merely gave you a few examples of changes for the worse.
Some people resist change for being change but don't group all of the resistance from TL members in that category, that's just having a superiority complex as a designer and disrespectful to people.
Some people don't like to change but some people really think that the proposed idea was bad, just like how you thought my proposed lifestyle changes to you were "beyond stupid". I'm surprised I have to explain this to you.
If you read my post as being mad or like I was yelling, don't worry I was calm and I don't have anything personal against you It was just an insulting choice of words because of the statement that make us look like stupid change resisting sheep. I was against your statement.
I'm happy for your to have been in top agencies, no idea why you brought that up. BTW I've heard of the hate but I was happy with the facebook and youtube changes. They added features but didn't rebrand anything.
I didn't say anything about his design or what my thoughts on his design was. Simply because I don't think the design present enough solutions
stop making this about you again. I did not once question you on your thoughts about the design. Now you're even being disrespectful to BookTwo who actually put in the effort, because "he didn't present enough solutions". wth man.
Now I'm saying that you're really a fancy professional designer (which I highly doubt based on the immaturity of your reply as compared to the one by BookTwo) you could contribute more than fancy 2 liners.
What was the point of that quote? The concept of impermanance has been around at least since the days of Buddhism in 600-400 BC, way before the time in the wiki link. We all know that. And it is irrelevant.
TL is already going to change whether it gets a redesign or not. It has already changed a lot for a lot of us who were around 10 years ago and it will keep changing.
First I want to say, great job. Also, I'm totally a lurker because me and the written word are mortal enemies (at least it's always kicking my ass.)
Second, thanks. The time you spent shows in the design. No one asked you, you just did it for the love and that's awesome. You also started the talk about what people like and don't like about the current design. That's the information needed to make an actual attempt to redesign. I love the specific feedback that people are giving.
However, this is one hell of an onion to unfold. I would write down my thoughts but no one wants to read a 50+ page spec. Keep refining the idea. Just remember that the community doesn't just read and post and share, it creates the content as well. A lot of the writers, streamers and designers volunteer and do it for the love. The site needs to be a stage for those individuals who are creating the content. The redesign should be one that considers this. It should be more about the tools it gives those creators and the tools that facilitate content production and distribution. For both the community and content to interact with low friction. That's usually a UI/UX task before graphic design.
What was the point of that quote? The concept of impermanance has been around at least since the days of Buddhism in 600-400 BC, way before the time in the wiki link. We all know that. And it is irrelevant.
TL is already going to change whether it gets a redesign or not. It has changed a lot for a lot of us who were around 10 years ago.
Yes TL has changed, TL is changing, and TL will continue to change as long as it's "alive". The only thing we can do is try to bring positive change to it, which is where constructive criticism is one good tool, but so is daring to dream big and put your thoughts out there for others to criticize.
And in this case I mean ... if we were to release this as a stand alone webapp called LiquidNews or whatever. Ithink there would be a whole lot of people who would like and use it, since it's aimed for a very specific demographic and usage pattern.
What was the point of that quote? The concept of impermanance has been around at least since the days of Buddhism in 600-400 BC, way before the time in the wiki link. We all know that. And it is irrelevant.
TL is already going to change whether it gets a redesign or not. It has changed a lot for a lot of us who were around 10 years ago.
Yes TL has changed, TL is changing, and TL will continue to change as long as it's "alive". The only thing we can do is try to bring positive change to it, which is where constructive criticism is one good tool, but so is daring to dream big and put your thoughts out there for others to criticize.
And in this case I mean ... if we were to release this as a stand alone webapp called LiquidNews or whatever. Ithink there would be a whole lot of people who would like and use it, since it's aimed for a very specific demographic and usage pattern.
Yes, BookTwo has balls of steel. Not many of us can do that.
Yes if you release an app I have no idea if it will work but it's worth a try.
On May 26 2015 01:24 JieXian wrote: Call me old but I don't want TL to change, at least not teamliquid.net
Pretty much my sentiment right there :3 I don't mind experimentation on relatively new offspring (HS, Dota, Lol) but the main portal has it's allure as well.
I just want better support for CS:GO. Just looking the right over there -> you can see it's the majority of viewership these days. XKCD and co. do a great job on the sub (dope infographs), I just wish it had more frontpage support.
On May 27 2015 21:00 Kaeru wrote: People hate change. But change is necessary.
Is it necessary to be spice up your life and be an outlaw like Jesse James? Is it necessary to change the Swedish government into a Neo Nazi one? Is it necessary to be to paint your house completely white and use only white furniture and white doors and dye your hair white?
These are all lifestyle changes. Are any of these necessary? No, because things can change for the better or change for the worse.
We have been part of this community for many years. We want to ensure things improve instead of regress.
To everyone who has said similar things as Kaeru, please don't regurgitate some quotes you heard blindly and think for yourself.
I've refrained from commenting until now but why the hell are you obsessed with this? You can not want the redesign but making neo nazi analogies towards those who would welcome a new layout is really really fucking stupid.
Yea; everyone in the last 7 pages understands that you don't like this proposed change. We get it.
It's funny cuz after some 6 years on TL I still remember first coming to the site and back then I thought it looked awesome. Now I've more or less migrated entirely to liquiddota and whenever I go back to TL.net it's striking how bad it looks in comparison imo. A facelift would be well deserved. TL is nostalgic, but not pretty
On May 27 2015 21:00 Kaeru wrote: People hate change. But change is necessary.
Is it necessary to be spice up your life and be an outlaw like Jesse James? Is it necessary to change the Swedish government into a Neo Nazi one? Is it necessary to be to paint your house completely white and use only white furniture and white doors and dye your hair white?
These are all lifestyle changes. Are any of these necessary? No, because things can change for the better or change for the worse.
We have been part of this community for many years. We want to ensure things improve instead of regress.
To everyone who has said similar things as Kaeru, please don't regurgitate some quotes you heard blindly and think for yourself.
I've refrained from commenting until now but why the hell are you obsessed with this? You can not want the redesign but making neo nazi analogies towards those who would welcome a new layout is really really fucking stupid.
Yea; everyone in the last 7 pages understands that you don't like this proposed change. We get it.
On May 27 2015 21:00 Kaeru wrote: People hate change. But change is necessary.
Is it necessary to be spice up your life and be an outlaw like Jesse James? Is it necessary to change the Swedish government into a Neo Nazi one? Is it necessary to be to paint your house completely white and use only white furniture and white doors and dye your hair white?
These are all lifestyle changes. Are any of these necessary? No, because things can change for the better or change for the worse.
We have been part of this community for many years. We want to ensure things improve instead of regress.
To everyone who has said similar things as Kaeru, please don't regurgitate some quotes you heard blindly and think for yourself.
I've refrained from commenting until now but why the hell are you obsessed with this? You can not want the redesign but making neo nazi analogies towards those who would welcome a new layout is really really fucking stupid.
Yea; everyone in the last 7 pages understands that you don't like this proposed change. We get it.
I think you've misunderstood me because you seem like a level headed person. If "neo nazis" were the problem, I'll swap it for incompetent donkeys, and my analogy still stands. All I meant with neo nazis was an example of the epitome of a bad change (of government). And there analogies were meant to demonstrate how change can be bad.
Not one word against the design or anyone in that post.
On May 27 2015 21:00 Kaeru wrote: People hate change. But change is necessary.
These are all lifestyle changes. Are any of these necessary? No, because things can change for the better or change for the worse.
I assume the neo-nazi analogy was a sensitive issue that you couldn't see past so I hope you can see that all I mean was changes can be good or bad, that Kaeru's 2 liner was dismissing everyone who didn't like change for being stubborn old dogs, instead of the reality which is some welcome change but not this particular one, because this is bad in our opinion, and I gave examples of "bad changes" to show how changes can be for the worse.
I have nothing against people who liked it. I disagree with them but I have to respect their opinions, especially BookTwo for his effort. Or else I'd have said some shit to other people like proper artists that I respect a lot like ZeroCartin, who happened to like it. And if you read my post properly it was directed towards people who regurgitated quotes blindly, not towards people who liked the design. Kaeru, however was being disrespectful, and I called him out on it.
Please dont change the current layout too much when you do decide to redesign. Sure TL does look somewhat like a mid 2000s website, but exactly this design differentiates it from various other gaming websites. I think a new layout should incorporate the basic structure of the current TL because this is a big factor on the 'home' feeling. Oh, and please please please dont add a Upvote/Downvote or Like system, in my opinion they give false incentive to comment, plus, i'd rather judge a comment or article based on its content than on its (possibly) biased reviews.
Sorry but I like my TL.net just how it is. The old minimalistic look is easy on the eyes, and I don't care much for phone/pad compatibility since I don't use those. Never really liked the tiles much.
On May 28 2015 07:19 SpunXtain20 wrote: I can't believe the amount of negative comments. This guy has done a fantastic job, and I'd push to action it immediately. TL looks so 2000'n'late.
What's wrong with that though? The current trend seems to be to draw the attention to all the bells and whistles instead of to the actual content (i.e. the text).
I hate how distracting web design has become: extra-large images, enlarged quotes, ads everywhere .. I'm still waiting for a "reader" option in IE that filters out everything that is not text.
Yeah caves were perfect. You only had a rock you had to move to open and close it, it really had no bells and whistles, only raw material that worked. You could stay in it and being salty about everything and shout to everyone who wants change. Change is a part of life.
I think TL should embrace the suggestion of change. This guy put in a ton of free time and did a great job in my eyes. The suggestion that TL should never change and the past has been always better. come on guys, you can't be serious, with that attitude we will make TL in relevant because no new people will visit.
On May 28 2015 21:36 BartCraft wrote: Yeah caves were perfect. You only had a rock you had to move to open and close it, it really had no bells and whistles, only raw material that worked. You could stay in it and being salty about everything and shout to everyone who wants change. Change is a part of life.
I think TL should embrace the suggestion of change. This guy put in a ton of free time and did a great job in my eyes. The suggestion that TL should never change and the past has been always better. come on guys, you can't be serious, with that attitude we will make TL in relevant because no new people will visit.
So personally preferring more information over big nice looking pictures now makes you a caveman. AND all change is always good. Can't be that in his personal opinion the big pictures push way too much information offscreen and he dislikes that. Nah, he is against change.
Btw. I also dislike those pics. Same goes with the preview for the streams. On desktop at least. On mobile, on the otherhand I'd understand the change.
Love this new layout, looks very nice and modern. Not a graphics person so I can't provide in depth guidance. I, too, can't believe how many people here are flat out hating on the guy. He's making a proposal. If you don't like it, then say so, but with the appropriate respect.
On May 28 2015 21:36 BartCraft wrote: Yeah caves were perfect. You only had a rock you had to move to open and close it, it really had no bells and whistles, only raw material that worked. You could stay in it and being salty about everything and shout to everyone who wants change. Change is a part of life.
I think TL should embrace the suggestion of change. This guy put in a ton of free time and did a great job in my eyes. The suggestion that TL should never change and the past has been always better. come on guys, you can't be serious, with that attitude we will make TL in relevant because no new people will visit.
He did a great job at designing something he thought would work and spent a lot of hours into it, which was his own decision, but as a person who works in this field, you can't just completely redesign a site that has A LOT of visits a day and not expect backlash.
This is a long process, it takes time to really change a design to suit everyones needs, you have to test and keep testing to make sure it will work. Currently the format of how the threads are and the colors are great, but the box layout though, maybe not so much since more less everyone has a smart phone. They're still on tables and don't use current front end development techniques when they can. I'm positive everyone on this site is using a modern browser (if you're a gamer and still using IE, I'm sad [should say it in the analytics]), so updating directly to HTML5/CSS3 will work no matter what.
In my opinion, the front end should be the first to be updated so it can later start picking up design changes. The design should be the last thing on their mind if they're going to change anything about the site.
Personally I'd love to see a dark theme for TL as the default style or the one in the concept for that matter is just a bit too bright for night time browsing.
If Teamliquid is a generic organization I would praise the proposed design. Honestly I like teamliquid.net as it is. There is no need to conform to the trend of pop-ups and tiles.
For mobile platform the proposed design will be better (for clicking). The current design is more condensed.
A compromise then. Perhaps keep the current model for computers/laptops. But then apply this new design to tablets and mobiles. Perhaps that would work, though some may prefer consistency.
The tl.net grew tremendously and the technology (platforms, browsers, frameworks) changed drastically. I loved old TL.net for being minimalistic and traffic-friendly but today this is not the case anymore and also not an issue too. A new design would not be a bad idea. Peace!
I really like the style you chose and the use of type in the design. though I always look to add extra style to the side bars and still try to keep it simple as well...i suggest the same here.
I think the design is great. So far as I can tell any changes would be purely cosmetic? If that's the case then it should be possible for users to have it as a skin option in their profile settings or something. I know a lot of people don't like change in any shape or form so forcing it on people might not be the best option.
As long as you get rid of the meaningless white space left and right(fuck 4:3, all i wanna s and introduce compatibility to mobile devices, I am in. I believe it should be possible to revitalize the site without changing the spirit so it may require some roll back. Just don't get too influenced by "new meta".
Would you guys like to see teamliquid get a facelift?
it isn't broken so don't fix it. there are few things that annoy me more than unnecessary redesigns.
(edit - i did actually post this before, didn't notice this is a week old or so)
as far as your design goes, it makes it harder to see the content. too much white, too much space allocated to pictures, i don't know why you're even looking at stream designs as i just click straight through to twitch anyway and doing anything else is insane.
On May 26 2015 13:12 deth wrote: Teamliquid has been, and should be, focused almost entirely on community.
News and articles are part-and-parcel of that, but your redesign puts them into the forefront, and community interaction and forums are shunted to the background.
Too much emphasis on content and not enough emphasis on community or events/streams is a step in the wrong direction.
Those are some interesting thoughts. I've been following a dozen of communities/news sites over the years. Not once I rushed straight to the message boards and forums to read and participate in community discussions. There's always a period of anxiety for new users when they are not active on the forums. The community aspect emerges naturally when users feel comfortable in the environment, but for that to happen you need some other incentive to visit the site on a daily basis. Now, if I'm a new guy visiting TL I would be like 'ok sure I get it, this is a community site, but give me a reason to come back every day and stay'. It's kinda like when you are 10 years old and your parents move to a new town and you have to go to a new school. You probably won't hurry up to introduce yourself and make friends - you will be scared at first. Communities become very intimate and personal over time - that's especially true for TL where ppl know each other for more than 5 years in some cases.
The community matters for, well, the community. Don't get me wrong - TL should always be about that. But we also need to present more useful features for the neutral visitor, more substance so there are reasons to visit the sites daily. For all non SC sites people just visit us cause one of our great articles gets linked on reddit, but when they are done reading they just go back to reddit cause they belong there. You won't create a sense of belonging by forcing the community on people. We will need something different if we want our site to grow (or even stop shrinking), if we want to serve our own needs then yea I don't think a redesign is needed at all.
Agree. I visit TL almost daily since a long time ago and I don't post quite often ("don't post often" is quite an euphemism, check my registration date and the number of posts). I come here mostly for content/events/streams. From my perspective, the "events" + "streams" sections deserves big screen real estate, alongside a huge articles + featured + news section.
But I say "from my perspective" because I'm also a website developer (being working on this for 6 years now) and, despite not being specialized in UX/UI and instead work mostly on programming, honestly I don't think design and UX problem is something that can be discussed and solved by a large amount of people.
From experience, I'd say these things are decided by a very small group of people who can identify the current needs and also envision the way the ship is going. If you have a website with 10000 users and ask them for feedback on design, you'd mostly likely end with 10000 versions of the website.
I think UX and design are extremely important for a product. Not only it outlines how people perceive it at the current moment, but also defines what it is going to be in the future. Yet it has a strong subjective component to it, so it's too open and too sensitive a subject for general discussion.
I say all that because TL's UI always bothered me. It kinda gets in the way of actually navigating and consuming from it. It isn't surprising since it evolved from an old, battered, hacked, customized forum.
I think that's the issue: TL was a forum that got several appendages. One day the annexes became bigger and heavier than the core itself and started to be too cumbersome.
So, tl;dr:
* I think TL needs a clear direction (is it a forum? is it a content/media site? is it a purely community site?) * Its redesign needs to express this direction * Direction is hard to discuss among too much people, specially involving subjective topics such as design * Community feedback helps define direction, but shouldn't become an endless discussion and a problem itself
tl;dr II: it mostly comes down to project management issues.