Topic: Tribulation Radio (Page 1 of 1)

My first attempt at an "interface machine". I needed to rework my web radio station site, so I had a bash at something different (for me) Whaddya think??

Pretty fancy design you got going there... I think you've got a little gray dot left over in the lower right hand corner of the navigation part. Um, yup, that's all I've got as far as graphics go (not really my field, to be honest).

As for the site itself, I would definitely recommend reworking the menu. I only discovered that those unlabeled spheres were menu items and not just decoration. Considering the complexity of the navigational section, you should really do something to make sure people know where and what the menu is. I'm not one for menus that force you to mouse over the items in order to figure out where they lead.

That's about if for now... sorry, but I just got interrupted, and I didn't get a chance to look at the whole site. Maybe I'll get back to it later.




Cell 270

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I didn't get a chance to look at the whole site. Maybe I'll get back to it later.

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That's OK - the rest of the site is text which switches in the main box on the right, except for the forum, which is based on Squishdot, and which I'm replacing with Ikonboard anyway - so not relevant.

I see the little gray dot, but can't find it in the graphics, so I've got a bit of fun rifling through the HTML and code to see if I can discover where it comes from (or I have to wait 'till Monday 'coz I left my good specs at work!!)

The comments about navigation were very usefum, and very relevant. I see now that it was something I didn't really think through properly. You know how it is ... you spend days looking at the graphical thing, and the obvious receeds into the background the more you look at the detail ... I guess that's why this sort of forum is so useful ... that plus the fact that there are so many real experts on here whose skills and opinions I respect greatly. I need constructive input, being so amateurish in comparison.

I think I've worked out how to improve the navigability without tearing the original design (which I like) to pieces, so now it's back to old PS 5.5 and a quick rework.

Sounds good. And I completely understand what you mean about getting too deep into the forest to see the trees... or was it the other way around?

Hehe... you're also right about there being a lot of experts hanging around. I just hang around here hoping to be mistaken for one of them occasionally.

I'm looking forward to see what you do with the navigation...

I think you live in a nice town.
By the way, the over hall design is more then positive.
good suitable technical content and first impact; but however,
is always possible to improve:

graphic resolution of the ?thing? is too low try to change it in PS.
the 2 bigger glass of the ?thing? should glow on roll over.
I miss some more images on the pages, same style as the ?thing? icons, dividers, (i.e. guru?s) Would be good fixed bg tables with transparency and text plus bg..

Something for the text as well: really small can be a problem and also not enough hints to the user. A ?web radio station? should be better described and introduced including first what the user can do and more kinds of offer. (the public intend a radio station).

Anyway, good impression and ideas.

Suho - I fixed the "non-informative" rollover buttons - I think the new pattern works a lot better. Thanks for the input. Now I have to make the two bottom "neons" a bit less klunky looking.

Nobodywebsite - Thanks for the input, and yes .. Den Haag is beautiful. I had my choices of anywhere in Europe to settle down, and I chose Den Haag. As you rightly say, I need to do something with all three "neon" tubes. i'll be working on them next. As for the text ... I consciously settled for a fixed 800x600 screen size, and 9px verdana is really the only choice for getting enough on the screen at once whilst still retaining legibility ... In the future, I might make the page resizable/scalable, and increase the text size a little. The same goes for the graphics. The same server is putting out 6x24Kbit radio streams 24x7x365, do I don't have a lot of bandwidth to deliver graphics intensive content. Hence the reason for saving it as a high-compression jpeg file. If I can ever afford a bigger pipe, I will need to choose between delivering more radio content or more visual quality. I think the radio will win though.

Rright now I think I'll put it to bed apart from the smaller tweaks ... My new priority is definitely to rework the parent Trib Design site - which looks bloody awful!



[This message has been edited by trib (edited 10-21-2002).]

I like the labels... and you even have consistent shadows! Nice work. My only comment would be that they might not be readily noticeable. You might want to think of ways to make the text stand out more. I wonder if there would be a non-intrusive, simple way to make the text part of the rollover? But these are just quibbles, and you have more important matters at hand (I took a look at the trib design site... ).

I wonder how the site would be on dialup? Then again, I suppose dialup users probably don't listen to much streaming audio.... Anyway, nice job. And that's some funky music.

Done ... I tried to incorporate the text into the rollovers, but they're to small. I kinda like the mechanical look of the labels enough to keep them and hope they work. I altered the neon tubes to give a more consistent feel too.

Now down to doing something with that muddy brown old Trib site, and getting Ikonboard configured for the listeners.

Re. Modem users - I actually keep the stream bitrate down to 24K especially for the modem users - and there's sure a fair proportion of dialups in my listener list - even one of the artists (Open Canvas/Alphawave Movement) is on a dialup - and he listens every day ...

Thanks to you both for all your help .. and for the comment about the music .. My collection keeps growing, and i'm even getting support (promo CDs) from some of the musicians as well now.


edit - the ikonboard is up so now it's only Trib Design to re-design .. groan !! - /edit

[This message has been edited by trib (edited 10-22-2002).]