Author Topic: Website  (Read 4094 times)

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Offline Defendi

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Website
« on: December 13, 2008, 11:03:21 PM »
So I'm talking with a web developer about revamping the final redoubt site.  I think I should look into doing it right.  What game company websites do you really admire?
The Echoes of Heaven:  Available for HARP and Rolemaster.  www.FinalRedoubt.com

Offline Mungo

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Re: Website
« Reply #1 on: December 14, 2008, 02:58:19 AM »
Hi,

No website I admire, but I think good websites are:

- www.kelestia.com
- www.ironcrown.com

I don't like:

- www.wizards.com (I don't find anything)
- www.sjgames.com (totally old design)
- www.columbiagames.com (totally old design)
- www.malhavocpress.com (confusing)

About your current website: one of my browsers (IE 6)has problems displaying it and the colors make it nearly unreadable to me in any of my browsers, so a remake would be nice.

BR Juergen

Offline ictus

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Re: Website
« Reply #2 on: December 14, 2008, 05:18:36 AM »
personally I'd shy away from something like the ICE or Kelestia sites, as they look a little on the full side.

You have a relatively simple product line, so a clear clean simple yet striking site would be best.

I'm off out now, but I'll try to get back with a few links....

here's one of mine for the time being:

http://sunandmoontours.com/



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Offline Nejira

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Re: Website
« Reply #3 on: December 14, 2008, 07:23:02 AM »
I agree with Ictus, keep it simple is the key to a good website design IMO. I think the core design of your current site is good (side navigation frame, main frame, and header frame). I would have the navigation frame to be constant, and and let the data load in the main frame. That way you got an easy way to navigate your site as the navigation tools are always availible. Try to keep the data in the mainframe down to one page as a very long frontpage with a lot of scrolling is annoying.

Cant really list a game company site that I think is good from a design pov. But Ictus site is a relative good example of what I mean (except the too long frontpage).
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Offline Rasyr-Mjolnir

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Re: Website
« Reply #4 on: December 14, 2008, 08:11:38 AM »
Yes, the ICE and Kelestia sites are a bit on the full side, but that only because there is a lot of data/information trying to be conveyed on both sites (I know that for a fact on the ICE site).

However, I think that Mungo isn't talking about the amount of information, I think that he is talking more about the presentation and style aspects. Both sites are pretty well organized, and are laid out in a clean manner, where it is relatively easy to find things (based on the amount of data on each site).

The biggest difference between the ICE and the Kelestia sites is that the Kelestia site is using a portal application of some sort to create a unified look/feel, where the main ICE website (not the forums) does it through CSS, HTML, and use of simple PHP.

Some recommendations:

  1. If your site has database capabilities, then make use of them by incorporating one or more DB driven applications, like a  News App for making posts on the front page without having to edit the  webpages each time (most apps have a web interface). This also helps to reduce the amount of front page scrolling -- having long scrolling pages is always a web design no-no.

  2. If you can, make use of PHP. It doesn't have to be anything fancy. For example, the main use of PHP on ICE's main website is to work with CSS to create the overall layout. The actual content is provided through URL arguments and a simple script which reads it and decides what page to include.

  3. Definitely use CSS (style sheets) they make getting the overall look and feel of the website to be uniform much easier. Note: sometimes, especially where forum software is involved (i.e. where it has its own sets of style sheets) it is difficult to get them to match unless you are using only that software and/or something that is made to be specifically compatible with it -- for example, Andrew's site uses SMF and TinyPortal to create a unified theme across his site).  

  4. A good site menu is always important as well. Here is a site where you can find a number of variation on a good menu -- http://www.milonic.com/ -- They are what we use on the main website as well.

  5. Readability is also something that should be considered. This includes font sizes as well as color schemes. Odd color choices can really turn folks off to the site.


The site that Andrew points to shows an okay example of using a portal application (Joomla in this case) with a customized template. It is nice, simple, and clean, but there is also very little actual data/information trying to be conveyed. On the bad side, the site uses grey text on a black background, which (at least for me) makes it difficult to read. With a dark background, the text needs to be bright and easily readable.

Offline ictus

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Re: Website
« Reply #5 on: December 14, 2008, 09:14:46 AM »
(back at Rasyr) in many ways the blue/grey on black is a good thing due to certain accessibility issues some people have with vision, though the main reason it's like that is the client liked it, as with any template it can be changed in an instant separate from the content. The example is not there to be picked over in detail, just as a basic example of something I threw together in about 3 hours for a friend starting a new company.

Back on topic:

In these new frontiers of web design, content management systems are king, equally so for simple or complex sites, and ICE's site has the look of a CMS as does Kelestia's and yes they are cluttered because they have a lot to say, though to me simplifying the message would allow for both faster loading and more easy of use (a personal opinion, so no flaming please).

As with most design what works for one person is hideous to another, and design by comity does not work, as I'd rather have a site that some people hated and other people loved than one people thought was ok.

try popping over to here: http://www.siteground.com/joomla-hosting/joomla-templates.htm and looking through the templates, it will give you an idea how versatile a CMS can be.

Not only that pop over to joomla.org and check out the extentions, you'll be surprised how easy it is to add amazing functionality without spending a penny.

Aside from Joomla, you have Typo3, E104, Wordpress, Drupal, Nuke and lots of others, if you want a great looking site, with great functionality without being a programmer they are the way forward, you also get to edit the content without needing the designer, which is a big plus.



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Offline markc

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Re: Website
« Reply #6 on: December 14, 2008, 09:35:22 PM »
 I allways remember one of the great statments, "Just because you can do a thing does not mean you should do a thing."

 For example I was just helping family members look fot LCD and DLP TV's for presents. On many sites they have animations, movies, etc and make it very hard for someone to just get the facts. i do understnd that it is a tool for advertising but the harder they make it to find the specs the more I do not like it.

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Offline craggles

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Re: Website
« Reply #7 on: December 15, 2008, 07:41:29 AM »
The websites that I like are..

http://www.welshwildlife.org/
http://www.sparshattsgroup.co.uk/
http://www.sewbrec.org.uk/
http://www.baysports.co.uk/
http://www.cjproductions.co.uk/

...but that's because they're some of the one's that I've designed. :P

Other than that, simple is best! As MarkC said - 'just because you can do something, it doesn't mean you should'. Anything you use for the site, needs to be in keeping with the target audience.
Lots of bells, whistles and flashing things seems to be the type of thing aimed at the younger audience but I have no idea how their brains can process the info - but then that's probably because I'm getting old! :)

I've not listed some of my other sites where the client has wanted everything! 'The client is always right ...even when he's not' (unfortunately). :(
Logo Rolemaster (Unified). Illustration of 2 Covers.
Logo Re-Vamp of Shadow World.
Illustration, Page Design & Layout of Shadow World Players Guide - The World.
Illustration of various other Shadow World products
Logo Design, Page Design & Layout of HARP SF & SFX
Feel free to browse my gallery

Offline craggles

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Re: Website
« Reply #8 on: December 15, 2008, 08:21:39 AM »
It was a shameless plug - I know.  ::)

But following on from Rasyr & ictus, The freely available Content Management Systems (CMS) like Joomla (http://www.joomla.org/ which can incorporate Blog systems) and Blog type sites like WordPress (http://wordpress.org/ which can incorporate rudimentary CMS) are very easy on-line web site creation tools that are not only FREE, but have a huge community ready to help, providing themes and plug-ins/extensions!
(it's putting me out of a job!)  :'(
Logo Rolemaster (Unified). Illustration of 2 Covers.
Logo Re-Vamp of Shadow World.
Illustration, Page Design & Layout of Shadow World Players Guide - The World.
Illustration of various other Shadow World products
Logo Design, Page Design & Layout of HARP SF & SFX
Feel free to browse my gallery

Offline vroomfogle

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Re: Website
« Reply #9 on: December 15, 2008, 03:20:57 PM »
Whatever you should do you should make sure it has loads of background images and flashing and scrolling text in a plethora of colors.   Oh, and pop-ups are good too.   Lots and lots of pop-ups.






In all seriousness....even though Rob didn't ask about portal s/w or CMS my recommendation would be wordpress, which in it's latest versions can very easily act like a CMS.   


Offline ob1knorrb

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Re: Website
« Reply #10 on: December 15, 2008, 03:56:00 PM »
Wordpress is what I'm using on my site as well, although I've tacked on alot of extra php code and an extra MySql database to handle the Product list.
Brent Knorr...
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Offline ictus

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Re: Website
« Reply #11 on: December 15, 2008, 05:22:05 PM »
I find the best way to do something like this is to start at the end....

work out what you want the finished thing to be, how it must work, what content it needs to carry and why...

Then work out how to get there...



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Offline Elrik

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Re: Website
« Reply #12 on: December 17, 2008, 04:19:29 PM »
Defendi,

http://www.cmsmadesimple.org (CMSMS)
 
Easy to setup, you can make sites complicated or just simple as a pie shell. I have about 200 sites up now just using CMSMS, 12 using Joomla!, and 8 using modx. You can do news sections, easily update and even develop blogs... manages files, internal upload system, and if you want you can create multiple templates, with different styles and handle multiple languages for different pages. Templates are easy, usually taking a minute or two to deploy. As with all things it will have to be tweeked, but that doesn't take long. They are currently at build 1.5.1.

CMSMS demands css and the more you know about css, the more you can do, which goes for pretty much everything.

Let me know if you want to try an sample and I will setup one up for you. Takes about 2 minutes to set it up.

Some starter advise - if you haven't already worked this out on your own.

1) Decide what you want to do on your front page. You have already looked around and keep it up. Get five or Six samples of what you like and try to explain why you like them.
2) The 5 second rule is a lie. The casual Net traveller will visit a site and if they do not understanding it, find it weird and some respects scary, they will leave. Most people will hang at your site and give your first paragraph or two a chance.
3) Don't bury your front page in images or product. Put your newest, bestseller or what have you on the front page, usually at the side, and make the "PRODUCTS" button very evident.
4) Black websites are harder to fill then light websites. It sounds weird, but if you have a dark site, it will look empty no matter what you do. So because of this, many people fill the site with images and text and more images. Restrain yourself. Empty can say far more then to much.
5) Space... everything should have it's own space. Try and keep at least 25px between anything, like an image and text. or text from the page wall.
6) For you and other businesses, SEO friendly names... are a MUST. Google hates "index.php?topic=7780.msg0#new". No matter what you use, make sure you can use Friendly Links/URLs. In many cases that means your Hosting Company has to allow you .httaccess. Some do, some don't. Take a moment and look into if you don't already know.

... and I think I have bugged this list enough. No matter what you do, look forward to seeing your site.

Good Luck.

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Offline markc

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Re: Website
« Reply #13 on: December 17, 2008, 07:58:08 PM »
 I also agree withe Elrik on moving away from darker color websites and simplicity of form.

MDC
Bacon Law: A book so good all PC's need to be recreated.
Rule #0: A GM has the right to change any rule in a book to fit their game.
Role Play not Roll Play.
Use a System to tell the story do not let the system play you.