(no subject)
Okay, BRPS. A brief and angry pet peeve from a design snob.
So I am aware that the myth of the fold has largely gone the way of the Geocities page, and it's no longer necessary to pack as much content as possible into the very top of a page. On top of that, I would suspect that RPers are more likely to have newer computers with larger screen resolutions - on average, as a group, compared to the Internet demographic as a whole. I don't have any statistics to back this up, and I know there's lots of RPers who still use ancient dinosaur computers with dial-up . More power to them. This is just my suspicion from the general fanciness and optimum resolution of many of the forums I frequent. (This would make an interesting study, actually... a poll of what Internet speed and screen resolution RPers use?) Point is, forum skin designers have a lot of freedom to play around with sidebars and top bars and super fancy graphics everywhere and that's fine.
But please, for the love of all that is holy, this is not an excuse to sacrifice function on the altar of aesthetics.
Remember that folks come to your site to RP, not to stare at your header image every time they load a new page. Said header should not be 900 pixels tall. Optimally, when a user with a fairly modern screen resolution (I run 1920x1200, and I know a lot of people who have much less than that) loads up an RP thread they want to reply to, they shouldn't have to scroll more than one to one and a half page lengths before they hit actual content. Longer than that is tedious and excessive. And this is a less common offender but pay attention to your page width. There is nothing more infuriating than finding out that a page is wider than your screen resolution. Likewise, I tend to run my browser windows not at full screen, because I like to have a Word document open to write my replies in while I am simultaneously browsing the thread side-by-side. I am not the only person who does this. Your site does not need to be hueg like Xbox to be effective.
The same goes for low-contrast skins, tinyfont skins, and skins where the background is brightly colored/intricate/otherwise visually distracting. Ironic, really, that after spending ages making your site the prettiest spangliest forum on the Internet... the end result is so grating that it drives people away.
Did you know, folks with large monitors, that there is an option to go into your Appearances and Personalization from the desktop, and temporarily reduce said screen resolution? Try it sometime and have another look at your site. You might be surprised.
So I am aware that the myth of the fold has largely gone the way of the Geocities page, and it's no longer necessary to pack as much content as possible into the very top of a page. On top of that, I would suspect that RPers are more likely to have newer computers with larger screen resolutions - on average, as a group, compared to the Internet demographic as a whole. I don't have any statistics to back this up, and I know there's lots of RPers who still use ancient dinosaur computers with dial-up . More power to them. This is just my suspicion from the general fanciness and optimum resolution of many of the forums I frequent. (This would make an interesting study, actually... a poll of what Internet speed and screen resolution RPers use?) Point is, forum skin designers have a lot of freedom to play around with sidebars and top bars and super fancy graphics everywhere and that's fine.
But please, for the love of all that is holy, this is not an excuse to sacrifice function on the altar of aesthetics.
Remember that folks come to your site to RP, not to stare at your header image every time they load a new page. Said header should not be 900 pixels tall. Optimally, when a user with a fairly modern screen resolution (I run 1920x1200, and I know a lot of people who have much less than that) loads up an RP thread they want to reply to, they shouldn't have to scroll more than one to one and a half page lengths before they hit actual content. Longer than that is tedious and excessive. And this is a less common offender but pay attention to your page width. There is nothing more infuriating than finding out that a page is wider than your screen resolution. Likewise, I tend to run my browser windows not at full screen, because I like to have a Word document open to write my replies in while I am simultaneously browsing the thread side-by-side. I am not the only person who does this. Your site does not need to be hueg like Xbox to be effective.
The same goes for low-contrast skins, tinyfont skins, and skins where the background is brightly colored/intricate/otherwise visually distracting. Ironic, really, that after spending ages making your site the prettiest spangliest forum on the Internet... the end result is so grating that it drives people away.
Did you know, folks with large monitors, that there is an option to go into your Appearances and Personalization from the desktop, and temporarily reduce said screen resolution? Try it sometime and have another look at your site. You might be surprised.