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March 04, 2004
New Site Design!
We have updated the site design for www.unsanity.com. The old one served us well for almost 4 years now, and we felt it's time for a change. New layout should be easier to navigate, it should load faster, and it is powered by a whole new system we developed for web page generation. Please let us know (in the comments) how you like the new design, if there's any missing links or glitches you experience. =)   Posted by slava at March 04, 2004 05:22 AMTrackback Pings: TrackBack URL for this entry: Related:
Comments
Looks nice. A bit too bright. Too high contrast. I can't see past the little info, download, purchase buttons when I view the home page. They become pretty distracting. Posted by: seek on March 4, 2004 6:29 AMThat's a mighty fine site you boys & girl have here. I was a big fan of the old design, but the new one is nice too. One suggestion though: lose the Info, Download and Purchase textlinks. They make the site look crowded, designwise. Make one block with the three buttons and their meaning instead, and give that a prominent place on the main pages. :) On a different subject: there's a lot of Mint fans out there, who would like to see a pantherized version with some new goodie features. Will there ever be such a Minty? Posted by: ton on March 4, 2004 6:34 AMThe new design looks terrific. I don't see the "Panthet Compatibility" page anymore -- I used to check that frequently. Also, the comments box still has the old design ;) Posted by: brian w on March 4, 2004 7:03 AMWhere is the new favicon design? Awww, the little things...literally... Posted by: gorickey on March 4, 2004 7:08 AMThe "info, download, and purchase' links do look a little busy. You have room to the right of them so I recommend 1 of two things, or maybe both. Put some space between them so they are less busy. And get rid of the text and maybe but the words in the graphics so you have 3 small graphic links rather than 3 graphics and 3 words. Looks good so far. And when will an updated haxie be out? Posted by: David on March 4, 2004 9:05 AMI do love the site, very neat and organized. Nifty comes to mind. take a hint from Brittney and... Come on, man. I know you can build a valid XHTML site, so why didn't you? Posted by: Joshua on March 4, 2004 9:44 AMLooks great! But shouldn't the store have the same navigation menu / tabs as the other pages? Posted by: Ken on March 4, 2004 9:52 AMAll I want is for the site to use the entire width of my browser window (whatever that may be =p). I can't stand fixed width sites (either too narrow or too wide). Posted by: rincewind on March 4, 2004 10:47 AMMint Audio is being phased out. Cool player with potential yes, but too small of a market for it. :( brian w - the panther page is still there, same link: www.unsanity.com/panther.php seek, ton, david, saint - Info/Purchase/Download links - yeah, maybe we're a bit overboard there. We wanted the site to be very easy to navigate and use. We'll see what we can do to simply the visual end of that goal. gorickey - new favicon is there too - getting your browser to figure that out could be problematic though. Joshua - most of the site validates as XHTML 1.0 Transitional - we'll work on cleaning up the rest in coming weeks. Ken - the store will change in the not-too-distant future - bear with us until then. :) Rincewind - quit yer whining! ...okay okay, we'll see what we can do for ya next revision maybe. ;) Richard - Thanks! Posted by: Brian on March 4, 2004 12:57 PMI agree, it should make use of the space. I can't stand having to scroll down when it coould have used the rest of the horizontal space. Posted by: Joe on March 4, 2004 1:05 PMBrian: I see the new favicon (which is nice) on the main Unsanity.com page; however, not on the Weblog .org page.... Posted by: gorickey on March 4, 2004 1:10 PMNew design is fine. Gérald: Read above... http://www.unsanity.com/panther.php Posted by: gorickey on March 4, 2004 3:40 PMI'm sorry to have to say I hate the new look. The eye is confronted with WAY too much text. You are trying to convey far too much information in what ought to be no more than a simple and attractive welcome page that will grab the reader's interest by telling him what Haxies are and a bit about Unsanity's philosophy, making him want to dig deeper (this was more the philosophy of your previous layout, I think it worked just fine). Also, super-small size text + glaring white background = instant eyestrain, the viewer almost flinches when confronted with stuff like this, and it's an aesthetic turnoff. I don't see why you feel the need to move form a design that worked much better (unless you're planning on introducing a lot of new Haxies, then you might actually need to move on). Posted by: Dana Sutton on March 4, 2004 4:38 PMThe new design looks fine. But I don't see the "Panther Compatibility" and where is LABEL X for 10.3 ;-( Posted by: Michael Harnow on March 4, 2004 7:06 PMMichael: Wow, you haven't read a single post on this have you? Read above to find your Panther compatibility page... Posted by: gorickey on March 4, 2004 7:53 PMOh wow... that was unexpected to see. I totally dig it; very nice. I especially like the two columns on product pages. Much better than having to scroll and scroll down to see what's been updated and such. I guess this explains why blog updates have been slow. :P While I've seen it before in one or two places, I also want to say I love the new logo. Does this mean we'll be seeing it replaced in future versions of all the products too? I just *really* like it. I'll spare you all from asking when Mint Audio or ShapeShifter are due for an update. :P Posted by: Michael Salbato on March 4, 2004 11:14 PMA few brief answers: - Labels X. That is still being worked on (although I must admit it was on pause while we were working on the new site and while I was stuck in Halo [if any of you play Halo online, if you see Lemur++, say hi =]). I'll keep you guys posted, and thanks for the feedback! Posted by: slava on March 5, 2004 12:48 AMI was just wondering if anyone can tell me if Labels X will ever enable me to get rid of the unsightful colored bubbles around the text introduced in Panther and bring me back to the "easier on the eyes" tinted icon we have loved for so many years? And cheers on the new site design. I, too, enjoyed the old one but as a professional web designer (for way too long now) I understand the need for an occasional facelift - some very nice elements and a very modern breakup of space on the page. Good job. -Thomas Posted by: Thomas Cray on March 5, 2004 3:29 AMCongratulation for the new design. It looks more modern. I'm checking the Panther compatibility info page almost every day! Can't wait for the new Label X!!! Posted by: eclectica on March 5, 2004 3:47 AMWhere's the Panth... oh, just kidding... Anyway - with the new design, I could take it or leave it, I like The area up top where one particular product is highlighted, that's nice. The "Current News", "Feature Products" and "Quick Links" section heads seem a little anemic. The old site had a bit more personality, and I've always thought of Unsanity as being kind of a quirky, different company. This site seems a little more mainstream. It does seem to be a little more organized. I noticed someone say they liked it, saying it "looks more modern". I dont really get that. Is "modern" good? Posted by: Brian Warren on March 5, 2004 8:20 AMBrian: Yes it is, especially if you're in the computer/technologies field. You don't want to have a "1990s" look. Posted by: eclectica on March 5, 2004 8:36 AMWhere have all the flowers gone.... Whoa, you guys couldn't've waited & done this when I'm sober? I'm so confused..... [*ROTFL*] But seriously, I like it. (-: I think it looks neat. I like the round buttons under the "Quick Links" a lot more than the blue/orange/red buttons included with every news update. The headers ("Current News", "Feature Products") are a litte strange, since they fade out and then appear again. I think they'd be nicer without fading. Finally, I wish it would take up the entire window, since it is a little thin (half of the window is completely blank): Good work though - it's neat! Posted by: ryang on March 7, 2004 2:52 PMI see what everyone's talking about.....I don;t mind the pic/text link trio after each item in teh product column...but on each news item? Come on now! It doesn't even make sense. Can I buy and download news updates? I'd nix them there, but leave them on the product list. If I had to do it, I'd use little icons underneath the product picture. No words, just an arrow to download, a $ for purchase, etc. Posted by: Jim B. on March 7, 2004 9:30 PM...I miss the orange... I start every day with a glass of orange juice. I follow it up with a cup of black coffee in a white cup. I spend every working day staring at black text on a white background. In the evenings, in order to relax my retinas, I stare at amber beer in brown bottles. While I sleep, white words on a black background etch themselves across my subconscious. I awake, and I start every day with a glass of orange juice. ...I miss the orange... Posted by: Fred on March 9, 2004 10:07 PMI don't know if this will be seen but anyways... I like the freshness of the new website... and I like the logo. Now for the rest of site... it is way way way too cluttered. There is also way too much text on the front page. It reminds of me of Microsoft.com, OfficeMax.com etc... You don't need a paragraph of text for each of your featured products. There's no focus on the front page so it's likely people will be lost. For the products page, take a hint from Apple (http://www.apple.com/software/). They have featured products well displayed and then a nice organized listing of all their products, one sentence each, giving you an idea about each one. Aesthetically speaking... there's no personality to the page except for the logo. Try to push a nice simple theme. Font-size is too small and the page could benefit from increased line-height/leading (I've found this just increases legibility in general). On the products page, the featured ShapeShifter icon and the explanatory text have no link, they just seem to be thrown on the page... Then you have the "show free/commercial unsanity products" toggle button... that's unneeded and too confusing. If you simplify and organize then you can have either a free/commercial section within one page or just a label. A small annoyance is the feature products, current news, quick links etc... bars... they look cliché with the stripes and the fading and all that. Something that nobody will probably notice but... you're going for the "modern website" motif then a more extensive use of CSS and XHTML would be nice... The tabs could easily be made into an unordered list and the overall two column layout plus header isn't too hard either. Just some opinions I had regarding the page, it may or may not suck ;) Posted by: syn on March 14, 2004 7:55 AMI whole-heartedly agree with syn's comments above. It rings true for my impressions. Posted by: Brian Warren on March 14, 2004 11:01 PM
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