Slashdot CSS Redesign Contest Update

A few weeks back I announced that Slashdot was throwing open its design to the readers. An individual will win a Laptop, and hopefully we'll all win a Slashdot design that looks good. My Journal Entries have chronicled dozens of entries since the contest began, commenting on many of them. Today I share with you 3 of my favorites. These aren't necessarily "Finalists" but I think these are some of the strongest entries. First up is Michael Johnson's design, second is Jason Porritt's entry, and third is a design from Peter Lada. The contest will end around the middle of next week. Entries can be sent to redesign at CmdrTaco.net. Read my journal for extensive commentary on the many entries, to see what stuff has been working and what stuff hasn't.

Comments

Jason's design

[AKAImBatman]

Of the three, I'm really partial to Jason's design. It captures all the elements of Slashdot, looks clean, has everything well separated, AND it works without error across the browsers I've tried. I'm rooting for it to win.

A feature I'd like to see: the year

[raddan]

This is beyond just having a new stylesheet, but I think it would be pretty simple: can we get the year in the date for posts? Occasionally, I'll go through /.'s archives, or come up with something in Google, and oftentimes I have no idea how current that story is. I dunno-- maybe this is just a preference setting. Anyone know how to turn this on?

Re:What was the prize?

[ndansmith]

Honestly I think it would be courteous for Taco to mirror any entries he lists on the index page on Slashdot's servers.

Poll !

[earthstar]

Slashdot conducts poll for all sort of funny topics....

CmdrTaco , Use the Poll to get User Opinion - If you really want it,that is.

Seconded - fonts are too small

[wrong]

Respect the viewer's choice of standard font size, kids. Leave body text at 100%. The only thing that should be smaller is the fine print.

Re:Seconded - fonts are too small

[gfxguy]

It goes beyond that - there's plenty of sites that have a lot of text (news sites, in particuluar), where I just like to sit back and read, which means I'm farther away from the monitor. There's no reason someone shouldn't be able to select reasonably larger text sizes without sections running into each other.

Important for visually impaired (but not blind) people, too. This is one of the biggest faux-pas out there.

Designers should also always use relative sizes ("larger", "smaller") instead of absolute sizes for fine print and large headlines.

I expect problems with 90% of the websites out there (including ones I've made, I'm sure as heck not perfect), but when you have a contest and expect some professional results, I think we should remind some of these entrants that there's a functional design philosophy as well as a visual one.

Why do we need a 'winner'?

[irc.goatse.cx troll]

It's css, if the slashdot site is made properly you could just include alternative css files for all of these themes and let the users choose.
If most of this is hardcoded(I havn't checked), then the upgrade for web standards was pointless and whoever did it missed the point.

Re:When I actually get the fonts big enough...

[Eideewt]

It's about time someone mentioned this. My default font is a 13pt serif font, and I've always appreciated the fact that Slashdot respects my preference, unlike most sites on the web. Anything else would be a step in the wrong direction, in my opinion. Change the graphics and layout all you like, but leave my fonts alone.

Great attempts, but hamstrung by client

[thatguywhoiam]

Disclaimer: I clearly have work-related baggage in regards to this topic.

All three of these are valiant attempts at a Slashdot redesign. What hinders them is the Slashdot Coliseo wordmark and the goddamn stupid fucking green colour.

Which I gotta put on you, Taco. When clients do that to me (I am a graphic designer by trade), I know what I am getting into, which is a client who has nonsensical, nostalgic attachment to elements that simply do not work. That stuff doesn't typically end up in my portfolio.

Why don't you create a sub-category (for kicks at least) where the designers get free reign. You might be pleasantly surprised.

Parent poster is right

[The-Bus]

I'm not going to bash any of the designs. I think they're all very clean and clear. But I can bet that Taco picked them because they were basically Slashdot with some slight drop-shadows and some fades here and there. So, overall, they're kind of bland. Like your Grandma tells you she wants suggestions for new candy in her dried, crusty candy bowl and instead of getting something you like she gets the same thing, only wrapped so it doesn't dry as quickly.

Disclaimer: I design.

As such, I know it's not that these guys have no creativity. I am putting the blame on the client. Taco asked for little more than a fresh coat of paint on the site, and that's what he got. It would be nice if he was less constrictive and opened himself up to other ideas besides something that automatically constricted the contestants to have results almost exactly like the site you're looking at right now.

I also can't fault people for choosing the design simply because it's what a lot of other sites look like nowadays. But in a couple of years, when the whole "Web 2.0 Soft Gradients" thing loses its sheen, the site is going to look dated yet again.

I do think the finalists all have a strong, clear foundation on spacing and placement so the designs aren't bad. They're just not enough of a change.

(Take my criticism with a grain of salt as I haven't submitted anything).

Wow, big nothing

[sohp]

I thought from the original announcement that we were getting a redesign. If the "top 3" so far are the leading candidates for the final change, we get a few minor updates but overall a big yawn for a "new and improved" version with about as much change as the latest laundry soap.

Collapsible Containers

[BobPaul]

I like his design best of the three. It's stylish while retaining the feel of the original.

I think his design looks the best, but I like the collapsible containers that the other two have. In fact, I like them a LOT. If Mike's had the collapsibles I'd vote for him, otherwise I like Jasons. Peter's is just too green and flat. Sorry Peter!

Maybe I'm Missing Something, But...

[scovetta]

Maybe there's something I don't understand, but why can't they ALL be winners? Why can't /. (and other websites, for that matter) have a "skinnable" interface that lets the user choose how they want the content displayed? Drop down? Another page to set a cookie to the css file? There are many ways to do it technically. I'd even think that an "upload-your-own-CSS" feature would be nice (since you can't set cookies cross-site).

Re:When I actually get the fonts big enough...

[carou]

If you use a browser like firefox... then Ctrl - + increases the font size.

That's not the point! I've already set my browser up so it displays text at a comfortable size; The point is why the hell should your design mean I have to adjust it every time I visit slashdot? And put it back again every time I visit anywhere else.

Look people - for pity's sake leave the default paragraph text size alone, and use only relative changes for everything else: I know my monitor and my eyes better than you do!

Could we please make the headlines the links?

[Kopretinka]

I think the headlines should also be the links to the stories (same as "read more"), as they are so much bigger and easier to target for clicking.

Re:I Agree ! with some work

[drinkypoo]

Running your site against a validator won't help if you're using IE6, because if your code is correctly written, it won't work :P Anyway there is no substitute for testing, period. You must test in every browser you care about, starting with the one about which you care most. However, I admit that I develop for Gecko first, and then go back and fill in IE, because IE is the broken one and when it's unfucked then I can go back and rip out the hacks instead of having to rip myself down to hacks.