[IAEP] Design for a.sl.o and sugarlabs

[Eben Eliason]

On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 2:01 PM, ,Josh williams <joshcwilliams at gmail.com> wrote:
> Eben Eliason wrote:
>>
>> On Wed, Mar 4, 2009 at 5:27 AM, Tomeu Vizoso <tomeu at sugarlabs.org> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>> Hi Josh,
>>>
>>> I'm wondering how we can move forward on this. I see two possibilities:
>>>
>>> - keep insisting to the Design team to give feedback on your mockups
>>> and reach an agreement with them after a number if iterations.
>>>
>>
>> Christian and I both gave some feedback on what must have been another
>> thread.  I think we should go through a few iterations if we could, to
>> bring the wireframe of sorts into a fleshed out design consistent with
>> the Sugar Labs web presence.  A few suggestions were: use an official
>> Sugar Labs logo and colors; use a solid white background; scratch the
>> gradients (which aren't part of our visual language); likewise no
>> bevels; and perhaps a design for the content areas that doesn't feel
>> quite as "enclosed".
>>
>> We should also discuss a bit the ways we want the site to work.  I
>> know that Josh has been designing to an XO-sized display, but there
>> are of course ways to make the page scalable as well, which we might
>> consider.
>
>
> Yeah, we could make the site a percentage based-width, with a max/min-width
> like the mozilla guys do it, or set the width with ems to have a truly
> scalable site (which I think is a very good option). The XO actually has a
> fairly decent resolution, so I don't think it would hurt anyone else's
> browsing experience to just have a fixed width.
>
> Regards,
>
> Josh

Yes, you're right. I was partially biased by the scale of your mockup,
which I now realize was smaller than actual size.  I think another
contributing factor, though, was the lack of space for content
relative to the size of the page, given the wide margins, thick
headers, rounded corners, and borders around all of the boxes, which
was particularly noticeable in those at the bottom. (Not to say all of
these are bad in themselves, but that together they add a lot of
spatial "overhead".)

I think giving them a little more breathing room (my mockups, without
"boxes", are just one possible example) will give us a lighter look
and can even allow us to use larger text while still fitting lots of
valuable content on the page.

- Eben

>
>>  Also, we should talk about the way we want to expose the
>> activities.  One approach is shown in the mockup—a single featured
>> activity—but I would actually lean toward something that looks a lot
>> like the activities page on the static portion of the site, with an
>> array of activities with icons and brief one-line descriptions in a
>> grid, so that it's easy to jump into any of a number of recently added
>> activities right from the home page.I actually think the static activities
>> page might be a good one to
>> build out from in terms of a design, adding components such as search
>> fields, category menus, etc.  I'd be happy to find some time to
>> iterate on the proposed design add my thoughts into this design space
>> over the next week or so.  Perhaps Christian will have insight as
>> well.
>>
>> - Eben
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> - implement your design in activities-devel.sugarlabs.org and ask the
>>> community for opinions before applying those changes to production.
>>>
>>> AFAIK, you will only need to modify two files in order to customize
>>> the look of the site:
>>>
>>>
>>> http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/slo-addons/repos/mainline/blobs/devel/site/app/webroot/css/sugar.css
>>>
>>>
>>> http://git.sugarlabs.org/projects/slo-addons/repos/mainline/blobs/devel/site/app/webroot/img/sprite.png
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>>
>>> Tomeu
>>>
>>> On Thu, Feb 19, 2009 at 17:10, ,Josh williams <joshcwilliams at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>> Hi, I'm working on the design of sugar labs add-ons with Mick Weiss.
>>>> I've created a mock up at http://sugarlabs.org/go/AddonsPortal/Design
>>>> but I've haven't been able to contact anyone on the design team as of
>>>> yet. I would also like to volunteer some of my time for other projects.
>>>> I'm primarily a front-end designer with XHTML/CSS JavaScript skills, but
>>>> I also know some PHP/MySQL and have a background in Linux. I also enjoy
>>>> creating icons, so if there are any activities developers that need
>>>> icons please contact me. My portfolio is over at http://tucsonlabs.com .
>>>>
>>>> If you're a member of the design team or have some use for my skills,
>>>> please let me know.
>>>>
>>>> Thanks
>>>>
>>>> Josh
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>>>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>>>
>>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>>
>>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> IAEP -- It's An Education Project (not a laptop project!)
>> IAEP at lists.sugarlabs.org
>> http://lists.sugarlabs.org/listinfo/iaep
>>
>
>