Luminous Landscape Forum
Site & Board Matters => About This Site => Topic started by: Kevin Raber on February 14, 2015, 07:52:46 pm
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Welcome to the new Luminous-Landscape website V2. It has been a busy 24 hours porting over the site to the new look. I want to thank the team at Swellfire for such a great job.
I hope you enjoy the new look and functionality. We took into account a lot of feedback and ideas from our readers and implemented these ideas where we could.
There is still a lot to be done and a number of finishing touches that we will add over the coming days and weeks. Please let us know what you think or if you experience any issues.
I am very excited about the potential of where we can now take the site for the benefit of our readers.
Kevin Raber
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Very impressive and clean at first glance, and the search function took me quickly to an article I wanted to read.
On some forum threads, images that used to show up don't yet. I suppose that may still have to do with the Internet learning the new addresses.
Thanks to all who made this possible!
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Let's give things 24 hours and see what happens. We're watching a lot of things right now and the site seems to be handling the stress really well. The Forum is a difficult beast. Very large and lots of content. Let's see if things get cleared up over the next 24 hours.
Kevin Raber
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Wonderful so far. Like the image options on the home page and the recent article layout.
Great work.
Dave
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The forum is unusable as of now. Images don't upload.
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The move has been done so well that the forums look exactly like they did previously :)
The one aspect that to me still needs refining is the front page images...
Whilst I love the way that you've got multiple images (in boxes) to select from, can that line of preview boxes be put under the main image?
But the only annoyance is the "make it bigger arrows" in the top right corner. Why? When that is activated, the mouse pointer ends up over the new big image and in doing so automatically zooms in on the image in question. It isn't until the pointer is moved out of the image that it is then all visible in the "larger format" without any specific part being zoomed in on.
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Welcome to the new Luminous-Landscape website V2. It has been a busy 24 hours porting over the site to the new look. I want to thank the team at Swellfire for such a great job.
I hope you enjoy the new look and functionality. We took into account a lot of feedback and ideas from our readers and implemented these ideas where we could.
There is still a lot to be done and a number of finishing touches that we will add over the coming days and weeks. Please let us know what you think or if you experience any issues.
I am very excited about the potential of where we can now take the site for the benefit of our readers.
Kevin Raber
Thanks for your service!
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love the home page photo choice to go full screen, site looks great, Logon not an issue after deleting cookies and reboot browser (Chrome)
All the best
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Let's give things 24 hours and see what happens. We're watching a lot of things right now and the site seems to be handling the stress really well. The Forum is a difficult beast. Very large and lots of content. Let's see if things get cleared up over the next 24 hours.
Kevin Raber
I know it's still only February but can I nominate that as understatement of the year? :D
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Hi Kevin,
The site looks great, I really like the new look, makes reading the articles much better than the old one. And in my iPad Mini it also looks great.
Just a comment, not sure if I'm getting this wrong. But I think the Rantatorials (love the idea) are not in the RSS feed. At least in my feedly subscription to your site I can not see there your article about the Book Stores or the article of Michael titled: "They Just Don’t Get It", even thought these articles have a younger date than other ones in the feed. I just commenting it in case, because I don't want to loose any of what I'm sure to be great articles.
P.D.: Nice for you to select wordpress as platform, it will help you to keep the backend software up-to-date for many years to come.
Regards,
David
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I love the new look!!
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First of all, congratulations on the new site design, good clean, uncluttered look that makes everything easy to read. As a webmaster of a big intranet and a public sector website, I'm well aware of how much work goes into something like this, so well done to you and the team. However, I'm also aware that some things get overlooked and the todo list never ends! Here's a couple of usability things for your long term wishlist once you've solved all the immediate issues.
1. You have no index to articles. If you 800 articles and the only way to view them is like a blog, in reversed chronological order, 3 or 4 articles per page and paginated with 180 pages, what are the chances that anyone is ever going to click through to page 134 to find the older articles? You need various ways to browse and sort (such as alphabetically, by some kind of tag or category) and it would be helpful to provide a view with just the titles without the bulky exerpts all on one page. If you rely on pagination or search as you do now, those older articles are not ever going to be found - which would be a pity for such a wonderful archive of content.
2. The auto rotating home page image slider/carousel. Some people love these kinds of automated features. However, there is a ton of industry research/testing that shows they cause problems. Many people associate attention grabbing moving, jiggling page elements as similar to spam - it is a distraction they want to blank out as it subconsciously reminds them of promises of having one a new ipad or the lottery if only they click through in the next 10 seconds.... Many people defend themselves against such unwanted distractions by mentally blanking out not just the animation but also the surrounding area causing them to miss important stuff.
Possible solutions are very easy - provide player controls such a stop or pause button. In fact, ideally you do it the other way around: have the slider choose a random static image every time the page loads and allow the user to choose whether to click through images or turn on the auto rotate function themselves. Empowering the intelligent user is very important on the web, similar in many way to having cameras with proper controls under photographer control rather having everything automated with an iA or green square mode....
These niggle aside, great job, Gang!
Regards
Dave
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It seems we have a number of things stabilized and working better overnight. My forum Login seems to be stable and working fine.
Dave . . . thanks for the ideas on search and browsing. We are looking at a number of ways to make the search feature more powerful and the team has some good ideas. As I have mentioned elsewhere give us a bit of time one.
As far as the top home page images, we wrestled on a good method to make that work and we believe the one we have now works best for what has been a major issue for us for many years. The new images took a bit of engineering especially because we wanted to have better page load times than the old site.
At this time we don't have the Ranatorials on RSS Feed, only NEW articles. Let's see how the new Ranatorials does and we can later decide if an RSS feed is needed. There is a Ranatorial update on the home page that will show when the last one was posted.
Watch for more features to be added as we move forward. Also, in a few weeks we will have the complete NEW Video section. I think you'll really like what we did with that area.
Please enjoy the new site.
Kevin Raber
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Good job on the new site.
Had a couple of issues yesterday, however all seems to be working fine now.
Stu
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The PDF is missing (http://luminous-landscape.com/articleImages/CameraScanning.pdf) from the Scannerless Digital Capture and Processing of Negative Film Photographs (http://luminous-landscape.com/scannerless-digital-capture-and-processing-of-negative-film-photographs/) article.
I saw that article when it first came out but didn't read the PDF at that time because I was preoccupied with non-photographic projects. I am just getting back into camera scanning and wanted to read the PDF.
TIA.
Wayne
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PLEASE NOTE
We will be closing the forum down for a few hours as we fix the issue folks have been having on loosing their log ons. When we come back live you will have to log back on but the problems being experienced should be fixed. Thanks for your patience as we work through this.
Kevin Raber
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I just tried to log in again and still had to clear cookies and cache from LuLa pages on Chrome to log in (https://superuser.com/questions/548096/how-can-i-clear-cookies-for-a-single-site).
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Login now works for me, at 5:18 pm EST.
But images don't appear in forum posts on either IE or Firefox.
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1. You have no index to articles.
This is a huge mistake.
The archive of Michael's old articles/reviews etc. is a treasure trove of information.
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This is a huge mistake.
The archive of Michael's old articles/reviews etc. is a treasure trove of information.
It's all still there. Either search by topic or browse under 'Articles' and all the sub-categories
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:) Well done with the re-design. Goodbye black and gray!!
It's a huge job with inevitable unforeseen bugs.
The front page and navigation look well resolved and mature.
-pw
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On the home page, the slider showing the featured images always shows the thumbnails. When I mouseover, I get the banner as well, but seems the thumbnails should also only show when I mouseover. Is this working as intended?
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I don't know for sure it's related but I noticed a few days ago that using the forum with the Tapatalk app stopped working. I hope this can be resolved as I usually browse the forum away from home on a mobile device.
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I think calling it a "huge mistake" is pretty unfair! There have been a lot of changes, and something is always going to be missed, give the guys time to settle in with the new site.
Going forward, it is something to look at because, although Chris is correct that you can still (sort of) find your way to everything, it is not very convenient, and on the web convenience is everything. There are a number of ways this could be addressed eg: a long list of article titles organised alphabetically, similar to the way it was on the old site; some kind of keyword tagging; google style ajax filtering of a search box that searches as you type character by character; a "search articles" page with a drop down list that allows you to switch the display a list of articles by various options in a drop down list. There are probably many other ways to do it.
One way to decide on the right option might be to ask the community - either using a poll or survey or by providing A/B test style random options and use stats to work out what people like best.
But the most important thing to do first is iron out the priority to bugs, let the site bed in for a while and let the guys have a breather to enjoy their efforts. Then the refinement can happen...
This is a huge mistake.
The archive of Michael's old articles/reviews etc. is a treasure trove of information.
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I'm currently viewing the site on a Microsoft SP2 with a pretty small screen - equivalent to many tablets - and using Chrome. The site seems to work just fine.
I'm glad the penny's dropped about white-on-black, finally. However I'd say that the sans serif font being used currently for the editorials is not very readable at all unless blown up a lot. Also its extremely light stroke combined with what looks to me like a slightly condensed style, means that it reads as grey text on a pale grey background; not good, that.
Having been involved in a few newspaper and magazine (print) redesigns the LL site job seems pretty modest to me. How much did you pay? I expect you don't want to say. Well, I hope you didn't pay excessively. You need a slightly heavier weight body text font.
Roy
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I tried to go my bookmarked LL yesterday and my entire computer went black and shut down. I suppose you now have the situation under hand as I received a personal message from the site this morning and was able to log on as normal. Please don't scare me like that again.
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At first glace, nicely done! But, I really think the slideshow on the home page is a mistake. A single, carefully selected image as before would be much better, IMO. And, if you must have a slide show, do not have it play automatically. The duration each image is displayed is always too long or too short! Let the user click through.
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Hi there, first of all congratulation for the new design ! Very refreshing and up to today's web and visual standards (at least !), while maintaining the LuLa look which is amazing.
I have encoutered a few issues, some of which have been mentionned already :
- 1 when clicking on the icon to go full screen with the main page photo, if the mouse is within the area where the image appears it instantly zooms on the image in an unconfortable way (it jitters and it's so fast it's disturbing to the eye, looks like a glitch). Otherwise, this full-screen icon is GREAT, I really enjoyed going into the details of Pleneau Bay by Michael.
- 2 On the mobile version (Android, Chrome Mobile) there is no way to go full screen on the main page photo, that's a shame because of the fixed ratio of the slideshow/preview : because of it and the fact that you can't go fullscreen, it's impossible to view the image on mobile, you're stuck with the preview.
- 3 On the mobile version (again, Android, Chrome mobile), I checked the case "request desktop site" in order to be able to view the images (see point 2), but the site stays in mobile view.
- 4 That's a personal one, but I would have prefered to see the whole image in the preview and only having to go full screen to see the details. Like in a gallery, you look at the image from afar and get closer because it interests you.
The Mobile version is GREAT, as is the new fron page image slideshow, thank you yo much for that, it just needs a little bit more polish IMHO. Otherwise the transition seem to have gone well, congrats !
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Yes - standard web good practice: always put the user in control else risk annoying her.
At first glace, nicely done! But, I really think the slideshow on the home page is a mistake. A single, carefully selected image as before would be much better, IMO. And, if you must have a slide show, do not have it play automatically. The duration each image is displayed is always too long or too short! Let the user click through.
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I think calling it a "huge mistake" is pretty unfair! There have been a lot of changes, and something is always going to be missed, give the guys time to settle in with the new site.
Going forward, it is something to look at because, although Chris is correct that you can still (sort of) find your way to everything, it is not very convenient, and on the web convenience is everything. There are a number of ways this could be addressed eg: a long list of article titles organised alphabetically, similar to the way it was on the old site; some kind of keyword tagging; google style ajax filtering of a search box that searches as you type character by character; a "search articles" page with a drop down list that allows you to switch the display a list of articles by various options in a drop down list. There are probably many other ways to do it.
One way to decide on the right option might be to ask the community - either using a poll or survey or by providing A/B test style random options and use stats to work out what people like best.
Hi,
First, congratulations on all the work you did to rejuvenate the site, it does look quite handsome. The main attraction to the Luminous Landscape is the quality of its content, the revised site's looks and new features will be an added bonus.
One feature that would be welcomed back is the index to the articles. The Articles / Categories are a much reduced Table of Contents and perhaps could be expanded. An Index would make the site that much more useful. I am not a web designer but I imagine that creating an index -- without it being a trivial matter -- should not be that difficult since all the data is already there. Part of what I do is design technical manuals and indexing is pretty much a mandatory component of such projects. Using "Search the site" works but it is a poor substitute to an index. So, if you can, in time, please bring back the index.
Again, thanks for all your efforts and work.
Jean-Michel
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To my eye, the new site design is not only boring but significantly reduces the impact of the images displayed there. The site designer has also borrowed a page out of Jony Ive's playbook by switching to a medium gray, light-weight font on a light gray background. Anyone who thinks this new low-contrast design is easier to read should think again. I always thought the look of the old Luminous Landscape website complemented the thoughtful nature of the subject matter (as well as the beauty of the photographs) published there. The new Luminous Landscape website, on the other hand, looks just like thousands of other nondescript consumer websites that all seem to be based on variations of the same tired WordPress theme. My rating for the new website—content: 10, presentation: 2.
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To my eye, the new site design is not only boring but significantly reduces the impact of the images displayed there. The site designer has also borrowed a page out of Jony Ive's playbook by switching to a medium gray, light-weight font on a light gray background. Anyone who thinks this new low-contrast design is easier to read should think again. I always thought the look of the old Luminous Landscape website complemented the thoughtful nature of the subject matter (as well as the beauty of the photographs) published there. The new Luminous Landscape website, on the other hand, looks just like thousands of other nondescript consumer websites that all seem to be based on variations of the same tired WordPress theme. My rating for the new website—content: 10, presentation: 2.
Sorry you feel that way. Based on the emails we have received and most comments on the forum many would disagree. The content is the same and the images will be bigger and look better. Based on the old site I believe we took a big step forward.
Kevin Raber
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Is there going to be a mobile version of the forums? The text size is unreadable without have to scroll horizontally.
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Is there going to be a mobile version of the forums? The text size is unreadable without have to scroll horizontally.
The Forum remains unchanged. You can download an app called TapTalk to have a mobile access to the forum.
Kevin Raber
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Tried that, it isn't working. I'm guessing it's because of the changeover? If I may ask, why no native mobile version of the forum?
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Tried that, it isn't working. I'm guessing it's because of the changeover? If I may ask, why no native mobile version of the forum?
Because the forum is a canned software program and thus we can't control how it works on mobile. TapTalk seems to work for the forum. The forum as is works fine on the iPad and if you zoom and such it is OK on the iPhone. Maybe the forum software company will someday have an app that will work.
Kevin Raber
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Fair enough but Tapatalk isn't working. The error message says cannot connect to the server, contact the forum administrator.
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The Forum remains unchanged. You can download an app called TapTalk to have a mobile access to the forum.
Kevin Raber
Are you sure you don't mean Tapatalk (https://tapatalk.com/)?
If that's what you mean, that is what I was using before the changeover. The app now says it can't connect to the server.
Did you test with this app before cutover?
Jim
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Great new LuLa ;D
Best features:
No more black background = painful reading sessions
Images/photographs have nice formatting, no more 1995 HTML;
Your WP theme seems to be fast, responsive and just svelte :P
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The typos have not decreased (especially About Us section), though :-\
Anyways, on Kevin's gear page he might want to change this one,too
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Kevin you have a big problem. One that was anticipated. Are you going to hack off the members who like the new look by making changes to suit the members who don't like it, or are you going to hack off the members who don't like the new look by not making changes that they want? Or are you going to man up and tell everyone that you are doing it your way and upset all of the members? ;) ;D
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To my eye, the new site design is not only boring but significantly reduces the impact of the images displayed there. The site designer has also borrowed a page out of Jony Ive's playbook by switching to a medium gray, light-weight font on a light gray background. Anyone who thinks this new low-contrast design is easier to read should think again.
There is fairly well established research that dark text on a light background is easier on the eyes and to read than light text on a dark background. So I'd say that this website isn't copying Jony Ive rather they're both using the same basic research as the foundation for their design.
Whether they use a dark grey or black should not be of concern.
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Kevin you have a big problem. One that was anticipated. Are you going to hack off the members who like the new look by making changes to suit the members who don't like it, or are you going to hack off the members who don't like the new look by not making changes that they want? Or are you going to man up and tell everyone that you are doing it your way and upset all of the members? ;) ;D
No, I don't have a big problem. The NEW site is what it is. It was long overdue and we made the decisions on design, type, layout and functionality based on feedback from readers (not members) that we have received over the years. We spent a lot of time with the Swellfire guys to make sure we made a good design without all the fancy stuff that could have been added just for the sake of doing so. We kept the simplicity of the site, the content, and made it easy to find things. We didn't add pop ads, we didn't add google sense ads or other stuff that so many other photo websites have done. We are Luminous-Landscape and we are three guys who are passionate about photography and did our best to deliver a website for you to enjoy, read good content, learn good things and share with your fellow photographers. We worked hard for months to bring this new site to you and we believe we did just that. So, for the few that have issues with change and our new site I suggest you learn to adapt. And, for all of those that have sent a very positive thumbs up both in private emails and on the forums, Thank You!
We have a long list of ideas and you'll see new small changes as we move forward that will make it even a better site with even more functionality.
Now that I have so called manned up, I don't think I will upset all the readers (members). I do believe most will do what they have for years, enjoy Luminous-Landscape for what it is and always has been.
Kevin Raber
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Kevin...
All I can say is that your reply is much more mature and polite that mine would have been.
Michael
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I like the new site - it's so much more legible. Welcome, LL, to the 21st century ;)
I do have a problem with the slideshow at the top of the home page. When I click on the zoom-in icon at a picture's top right (the square with two arrows), the popup window is initially a zoomed in crop of the picture. But as I move the cursor around, parts of the popup window seem to be other parts of the image, as if they are loaded in other layers and following the cursor's position. It's a bit like you see in Bridge or Lightroom where you can move the cursor around a thumbnail to change which part of the zoomed-in main image is displayed. This is in Firefox 35 on a 13" Mac Air OSX 10.10.1. I don't get the problem using Chrome.
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Hi,
Just a note to repeat a thank you to Chris, Kevin and Michael for giving me, and to so many others, an amazing place to read about a vast array of information on photography, and a place to sometime contribute something useful to other readers. Complainers about the site or anything else for that matter consume too much energy from people who do the very best they can - the 80/20 syndrome.
Thanks again,
Jean-Michel
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Blah looking to me.
Real appeal is created by contrast of yang and yin, it's not really there. Everything is kind of flat looking, and grey fonts on an off-white background is hard to read. Regular text font size should be at least 1/2point bigger.
Overall not terribly impressed. It doesn't have any "wow" effect at all !
It's very bland....
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I spend 95% of my time on the forums so the front page is neither good, bad or indifferent to me. I did have the login problem reported on the other thread but it's resolved know in Firefox.
Alan
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Hello Kevin,
I think it looks better for sure..
I have a question ... I am in the forum right now and want to the homepage...
Both
"THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE" title
and
'THE DISCUSSION FORUM"
above
refer to the forum: maybe not intended ?
cheers PK
PS is notice now that also the HOME- button refers to the forum page
so 3 buttons refer to the forum page and none to the home page...
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I am impressed by the overwhelmingly positive response from forum veterans, with the worst being some suggestion for fine-tuning and bug reports. Indeed, the only overall adverse reactions I have seen come from two groups:
- Users who are so new or who post so little that I do not recognize their screen names.
- Isaac and Slobodan.
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Kevin...
All I can say is that your reply is much more mature and polite that mine would have been.
Michael
It's funny how people read and comprehend things in different ways. I read Stampers comment and saw no negativity in it - just a lighthearted paragraph about the difficulty the site owners have in trying to please everyone.
Anyway, despite liking the old site, I have to say I like the change!
Jim
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Hello Kevin,
I think it looks better for sure..
I have a question ... I am in the forum right now and want to the homepage...
Both
"THE LUMINOUS LANDSCAPE" title
and
'THE DISCUSSION FORUM"
above
refer to the forum: maybe not intended ?
cheers PK
PS is notice now that also the HOME- button refers to the forum page
so 3 buttons refer to the forum page and none to the home page...
That's partly correct. But there is also, over at the right, a link to "Luminous Landscape Home," which does just what you want.
Maybe this is new, but it works just fine.
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... the only overall adverse reactions I have seen come from two groups:
- Users who are so new or who post so little that I do not recognize their screen names.
- Isaac and Slobodan.
Huh!?
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Huh!?
Betcha didn't know that you and Isaac were a "group." ;D
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I've seen so many webpage designs that I'm not overly sensitive to them anymore, and as far as I'm concerned, the new one is mostly just fine.
I have two minor problems with it, and it's possible that they are something that I just don't know enough to fix myself.
1. The thumbnails on the featured photo at the top of the home page...they sort of damage the aesthetic experience of the photos. For example, on Michael's Red Mountain, the third thumbnail pretty well takes out the "red." I didn't know where the title came from until I took the photo to full size. I like the thumbnails, just not there.
2. I think the forum would be more readable if the background were a couple of shades lighter -- just a bit -- the type a couple of shades darker -- doesn't have to be absolutely black. I also think the type could be a couple of points bigger.
Basically, I think it was a pretty good job.
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It's funny how people read and comprehend things in different ways. I read Stampers comment and saw no negativity in it - just a lighthearted paragraph about the difficulty the site owners have in trying to please everyone.
Anyway, despite liking the old site, I have to say I like the change!
Jim
I agree with both statements. My post was a light hearted jest, trying to counterbalance the nitpicking. I am happy with what Kevin and Michael do with the site because it belongs to them and is free to view. If I don't like what I see then I am free to move on to another. Can anyone point me in the direction of a "perfect" site that I can view where nobody complains. :)
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My post was a light hearted jest, trying to counterbalance the nitpicking ...
And quite a humorous one too ...
It's a sad day when one has to 'explain' humour !
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There is fairly well established research that dark text on a light background is easier on the eyes and to read than light text on a dark background. So I'd say that this website isn't copying Jony Ive rather they're both using the same basic research as the foundation for their design.
Whether they use a dark grey or black should not be of concern.
Groan...
It's a waste of time trying to make points about typography here. I tried earlier - on this thread and previously. The biggest problem on the "editorial" section is the use of a sans serif, slightly condensed, typeface in an unsuitably light stroke weight. This reads (or otherwise) as grey-on-grey. The decision to use this typespec is typical of designers who have little or no experience of print media - where the psychological effect of different typography has been conclusively and objectively established for at least a century. There's no reason to assume that type appearing on a screen necessitates radically different criteria. But these people are now influenced, to put it crudely, by the notion "it looks kwool". When I see the words "Jony" Ive I usually reach for my delete key.
When I originally pointed out that white-on-black body text was known, by the 1950's at the latest, to be inherently difficult to read there was the inevitable chorus of denial; it's the interweb after all...
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Roy does your web browser not allow you to change the fonts that you see in a web page? Firefox does. If you have a problem with fonts get a browser that allows change. As the old saying goes....you can't please all of the people all of the time. The site owners should be allowed to pick the fonts?
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Chrome allows changes to the font style however these fonts are embedded in the site . Otherwise there'd be people out there trying to read sites in Bodoni Poster! It's not that big a deal except that there's so much counter-comprehensible site design all over the place (LL is not one of the principle offenders). The worst symptom is lines of text that spread out over 100 characters - mercifully absent here.
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Chrome allows changes to the font style however these fonts are embedded in the site . Otherwise there'd be people out there trying to read sites in Bodoni Poster! It's not that big a deal except that there's so much counter-comprehensible site design all over the place (LL is not one of the principle offenders). The worst symptom is lines of text that spread out over 100 characters - mercifully absent here.
In Firefox you can use the add-on Readability (https://readability.com/) with a few options that the user can control, even change to white letters on dark background, which I find useful when reading in a dark environment.
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Congratulations on Luminous Landscape v. 2. Things settled down quickly after the initial shake-down and now we have a better looking and much more functional site.
Regards,
Dale
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......and now we have a better looking and much more functional site.
Regards,
Dale
And that friends, is what it's all been about.
Among the many complaints ( some legit, and which will be taken under advisement) there have been a few from nasty people who lack the wit to express their ideas without barbs and sarcasm. But most comments have been from members who really care abou the site and who consider it a sort of home base, and to those we say thanks for your input. We'll continue to improve LuLa and to listen to your input.
Michael
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That's partly correct. But there is also, over at the right, a link to "Luminous Landscape Home," which does just what you want.
Maybe this is new, but it works just fine.
Ah, missed that one... ! thanks!
PK
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When I originally pointed out that white-on-black body text was known, by the 1950's at the latest, to be inherently difficult to read there was the inevitable chorus of denial; it's the interweb after all...
I loathe websites that use reverse text. It's really hard on your eyes and when you go to another site of programme, the after image of the site hangs around on retina. Yuk!
"Good typography and the web" are words rarely seen in the same sentence due to the limitations of the medium.
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Chrome allows changes to the font style however these fonts are embedded in the site . Otherwise there'd be people out there trying to read sites in Bodoni Poster! It's not that big a deal except that there's so much counter-comprehensible site design all over the place (LL is not one of the principle offenders). The worst symptom is lines of text that spread out over 100 characters - mercifully absent here.
When reading LuLa articles prior to redesign, I would reduce width of my browser window to make line length acceptable and sometime reverse screen colours to make text a more user friendly black on white. The new site is so much better.
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BTW the favicon seems to be absent when on a forum page, but can be seen on the main website.
Chrome OSX, 10.8
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Roy does your web browser not allow you to change the fonts that you see in a web page? Firefox does. If you have a problem with fonts get a browser that allows change. As the old saying goes....you can't please all of the people all of the time. The site owners should be allowed to pick the fonts?
I think Oldroy has been pretty much on the mark with his comments about typography, and they're not at all offensive if you accept them as advice rather than demands, or information rather than arguments. Of course the site owners have (the right) to pick the fonts, but that's like saying a store owner gets to pick his location and merchandise. He does, and he should do it very, very carefully if he doesn't want to go out of business. The website is not really built to maximize the pleasure of Michael and Kevin, but rather to attract viewers (customers) to Michael and Kevin's website. I think Oldroy may also be suggesting (not to put words in his mouth) that the actual selection of designs and fonts was probably done by web designers, rather than by Kevin and Michael personally, rather as a well-off person may leave the decoration of his office to a designer, rather than do it himself.
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Your analogy is a poor one. A store owner is in business to make money. This site isn't in business to make money but takes some in to cover costs which I suspect runs at a loss. The site is clearly a labour of love which is valuable to tens of thousands of photographers. The problem with Roy's statement is if Michael was to change the font then whatever he chooses will bring a reaction from someone else. stating they don't like it? Damned if you do and damned if you don't.
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A lot of this agonizing over font styles and shades of gray might be avoided if those people who are highly sensitive to such things were to use a web plug-in like Readability, or the Reader mode of Apple's web browsers (including Safari for Windows AFAIK). Then you can get black text on white, fonts apparently chosen for readability, and an easy option for choosing font size -- and as a bonus, the advertising and other side-bar clutter vanish!
That would let Michael, Kevin and the rest of the LL team concentrate on what they are best at, and what most of us come for: the content!
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A lot of this agonizing over font styles and shades of gray might be avoided if those people who are highly sensitive to such things were to use a web plug-in like Readability, or the Reader mode of Apple's web browsers (including Safari for Windows AFAIK). Then you can get black text on white, fonts apparently chosen for readability, and an easy option for choosing font size -- and as a bonus, the advertising and other side-bar clutter vanish!
That would let Michael, Kevin and the rest of the LL team concentrate on what they are best at, and what most of us come for: the content!
I wasn't agonizing. I haven't thought about it for more than a couple minutes, and, basically, I don't care what they do. I can read the site just fine, and I like the redesign just fine, as I mentioned in an earlier post. But, Oldroy provided some information. If they don't want to use it, that's also fine with me, but I think he's probably right. A little bigger font, and little more contrast, would be good, if not really necessary. As for plug-ins, I don't want to hear about plugins or adjustments to my browser. I have enough crap on my computer without something like that. If I find a site unreadable, I just won't go to it. I don't find the LL unreadable at all, and will continue coming to it. As Michael said, most comments come from people who really care about the site, without barbs or sarcasm. I'm one of those.
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One feature i feel would make it easier to start a conversation on each article posted would be a link at the bottom of the article to the forum thread where an automatic entry/topic is posted. Right now users have to create article topics and sometimes we might open more then one for the same article. My $0.02 ???
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Good idea, but the forum software is hard to interface into from the site. Two different beasts. We are looking at a few things and we'll see if we can eventually pull something off that will be cool.
Kevin Raber
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One feature i feel would make it easier to start a conversation on each article posted would be a link at the bottom of the article to the forum thread where an automatic entry/topic is posted. Right now users have to create article topics and sometimes we might open more then one for the same article. My $0.02 ???
+1
Or should it be its own forum board with a topic created for each posting in that board regardless of if there is any comments? And limit topics in that board to just those with an attached/linked article?
That would of course not prevent people from starting threads in this or other boards about a topic but might provide an appropriate container aside from "About this Site".
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to BJL:
? What nonsense!
The web designers should make sure the site is readable, and pleasant on the eyes, the soul, etc.
We come here to read. We don't come here to take photographs. We come here to educate ourselves,and even to argue....
What Kevin and Michael do, photography wise, is a separate activity.
Presentation is as important as content.
You don't put great food on paper plates.
I still find the new design very bland, like a paper plate.
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to BJL:
? What nonsense!
The web designers should make sure the site is readable, and pleasant on the eyes, the soul, etc.
We come here to read. We don't come here to take photographs. We come here to educate ourselves,and even to argue....
What Kevin and Michael do, photography wise, is a separate activity.
Presentation is as important as content.
You don't put great food on paper plates.
I still find the new design very bland, like a paper plate.
Most readers, so far, find it readable? ::)
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I've enjoyed watching how this site has evolved and appreciate all the good information. I'm not surprised to see that now the site is done with Wordpress. I'm wondering if there is any purpose anymore for HTML editors such as Dreamweaver. So now that your viewers are on all sorts of devises including high resolution monitors and tablets, are you tempted to export your images with higher resolution than say 800 pixels? Again what really makes this site is the generosity of the experts outs there who regularly answer our questions on the forums. The big negative of this site is that I always want a new lens or piece of software. Keep up the good work.
Hugh
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to BJL:
? What nonsense!
The web designers should make sure the site is readable, and pleasant on the eyes, the soul, etc.
I agree that a site should accommodate the readability desires of the great majority of its visitors, and so widespread complaints should be acted upon, but since instead the great majority of comments on the readability of the new LL are favorable, I suspect that it is a relatively few highly sensitive guests who are bothered by it, and if that is the case, I stand by my recommendation to them of "assistive technology".
Also, I for one prefer the slightly less high contrast of a "black on very pale gray" display to the most extreme "(0, 0, 0) on (255, 255, 255)" that some seem to be advocating.
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... I for one prefer the slightly less high contrast of a "black on very pale gray" display to the most extreme "(0, 0, 0) on (255, 255, 255)" that some seem to be advocating.
Indeed.
Apple's own reader uses 251 for the "paper" background, 75 for the "black" fonts and 230 for the sidebars.
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I agree too! 0,0,0 to 255,255,255 is too much in most modern monitors; its a recipe for a headache. (even the readability add-on does not use that extreme contrast)
One suggestion I have about the new site is to increase the font size of the sub-menu under "Articles" , which I think is too small (see attached screen capture)
Regards,
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Yes, that's what i was thinking; worst case Kevin/Chris have to open the threads manually;
+1
Or should it be its own forum board with a topic created for each posting in that board regardless of if there is any comments? And limit topics in that board to just those with an attached/linked article?
That would of course not prevent people from starting threads in this or other boards about a topic but might provide an appropriate container aside from "About this Site".
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WordPress sites can get really slow when templates are overloaded, have too many features, etc.
Otherwise it's a great choice with a custom template like the LuLa now uses;
it's fast for me, looks neat and the editors can easily create new articles (publish them privately for review etc, then to the public), handy image gallery and management features;
A custom HTML 5 site would surely cost the LuLa WAY more, and might not serve their needs any more. Their web team did a great job IMHO.
I've enjoyed watching how this site has evolved and appreciate all the good information. I'm not surprised to see that now the site is done with Wordpress. I'm wondering if there is any purpose anymore for HTML editors such as Dreamweaver. So now that your viewers are on all sorts of devises including high resolution monitors and tablets, are you tempted to export your images with higher resolution than say 800 pixels? Again what really makes this site is the generosity of the experts outs there who regularly answer our questions on the forums. The big negative of this site is that I always want a new lens or piece of software. Keep up the good work.
Hugh
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+1
finicky to hit the right spot, make the font larger;
I agree too! 0,0,0 to 255,255,255 is too much in most modern monitors; its a recipe for a headache. (even the readability add-on does not use that extreme contrast)
One suggestion I have about the new site is to increase the font size of the sub-menu under "Articles" , which I think is too small (see attached screen capture)
Regards,
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The text overlay at the gallery slider is also not pretty for longer text...
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Early in this discussion, on page 2 ?, I saw a comment about visiting Lula thru Tapatalk.
I use Tapatalk on an Android phone to visit a number of Forums. While Tapatalk is not better than the full browser access thru a PC it is handy.
Unfortunately I have never gotten Lula thru Tapatalk (I am typing this on a Laptop) and, I just checked, the situation has not improved.
Is there a problem with Tapatalk + Lula and will it be corrected?
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Yes, Tapatalk issue is amongst those things being worked on
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Frank Assessment From a Longtime Fan and User...
This is one of the most graphically incoherent homepages I've seen in a while - so sad that it's Luminous Landscape. It's what we call in the design world sometimes..."the jumble sale". Kevin I don't know why you were tasked with this - and why you chose "the Swellfire Team" but you have not pushed LL forward - only backward.
You cannot say that you are interested in functionality in your "desire for progress" soley - you must first and perhaps foremost consider the visual and graphic impact in the development of a new site. This is in one important sense...a visual medium. You did not apparently consider this well, and neither did the Swellfire guys (you only need take one look at their homepage - to realize they are the worst people for the job. I'm not sure if this page is Wordpress...looks like it. Wordpress is your enemy here - and you didn't even realize it.
LuLa has been for a long time one of the best sites of this type - and I really never had much of a complaint. It was graphically cohesive, clear typography, color work, all the way around. Maybe the functionality of the article database...not alphabetized once you go into a subgroup...and some other aspects...but minor in the scheme of things. That said, like DP Review...it had a very clear graphic personality. Now this is gone and what your left with is like something generically produced for a small Winnipeg copy-shop e.g. - just like every other bad Wordpress type ready-made.
We need less mediocrity in the world and LuLa has stood apart from that. What you have done Kevin however, is the difference between some amateur snapshot of a farmyard water trough and one of Michael Reichman's images of the Pelouse, you have made it more mediocre...visually. This is not the way forward.
(I would not normally put so fine a point on it...but it is so incredibly disappointing...I don't even look at the home page anymore)
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Frank Assessment From a Longtime Fan and User...
This is one of the most graphically incoherent homepages I've seen in a while - so sad that it's Luminous Landscape. It's what we call in the design world sometimes..."the jumble sale". Kevin I don't know why you were tasked with this - and why you chose "the Swellfire Team" but you have not pushed LL forward - only backward.
You cannot say that you are interested in functionality in your "desire for progress" soley - you must first and perhaps foremost consider the visual and graphic impact in the development of a new site. This is in one important sense...a visual medium. You did not apparently consider this well, and neither did the Swellfire guys (you only need take one look at their homepage - to realize they are the worst people for the job. I'm not sure if this page is Wordpress...looks like it. Wordpress is your enemy here - and you didn't even realize it.
LuLa has been for a long time one of the best sites of this type - and I really never had much of a complaint. It was graphically cohesive, clear typography, color work, all the way around. Maybe the functionality of the article database...not alphabetized once you go into a subgroup...and some other aspects...but minor in the scheme of things. That said, like DP Review...it had a very clear graphic personality. Now this is gone and what your left with is like something generically produced for a small Winnipeg copy-shop e.g. - just like every other bad Wordpress type ready-made.
We need less mediocrity in the world and LuLa has stood apart from that. What you have done Kevin however, is the difference between some amateur snapshot of a farmyard water trough and one of Michael Reichman's images of the Pelouse, you have made it more mediocre...visually. This is not the way forward.
(I would not normally put so fine a point on it...but it is so incredibly disappointing...I don't even look at the home page anymore)
The old LuLa was dreadful, hard on the eyes and difficult to read because of the poor design. So whilst the new version isn't exactly pushing any boundaries, it's a massive improvement in getting the usability basics right.
Reverse text and text that spans the entire width of monitor are two design no-nos as both make for difficulty in reading. This is not an opinion, it's how our eyes work.
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Betcha didn't know that you and Isaac were a "group." ;D
My surprised reaction was not to that, but to BJL's claim that I have "adverse reaction" to the new LuLa design.
BJL, I would appreciate if you could point out where I had such a reaction.
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Frank Assessment From a Longtime Fan and User...
This is one of the most graphically incoherent homepages I've seen in a while - so sad that it's Luminous Landscape. It's what we call in the design world sometimes..."the jumble sale". Kevin I don't know why you were tasked with this - and why you chose "the Swellfire Team" but you have not pushed LL forward - only backward.
You cannot say that you are interested in functionality in your "desire for progress" soley - you must first and perhaps foremost consider the visual and graphic impact in the development of a new site. This is in one important sense...a visual medium. You did not apparently consider this well, and neither did the Swellfire guys (you only need take one look at their homepage - to realize they are the worst people for the job. I'm not sure if this page is Wordpress...looks like it. Wordpress is your enemy here - and you didn't even realize it.
LuLa has been for a long time one of the best sites of this type - and I really never had much of a complaint. It was graphically cohesive, clear typography, color work, all the way around. Maybe the functionality of the article database...not alphabetized once you go into a subgroup...and some other aspects...but minor in the scheme of things. That said, like DP Review...it had a very clear graphic personality. Now this is gone and what your left with is like something generically produced for a small Winnipeg copy-shop e.g. - just like every other bad Wordpress type ready-made.
We need less mediocrity in the world and LuLa has stood apart from that. What you have done Kevin however, is the difference between some amateur snapshot of a farmyard water trough and one of Michael Reichman's images of the Pelouse, you have made it more mediocre...visually. This is not the way forward.
(I would not normally put so fine a point on it...but it is so incredibly disappointing...I don't even look at the home page anymore)
Well what can I say. It is my site and based on all the comments about the previous site this is a huge move in the right direction. We have had tons of positive remarks about the new site. Only a few like yours that take issue. The time is to move forward and that is what we are doing. The Swellfire Team is a good team and took our ideas and executed them well. The site is much easier to read. For those that visit only once and while they now can see home page images they have missed. Once the video portion is complete it will totally integrate our video content into the site. The logic of the home page keeps the most recent articles at the top and the other articles move downward and all articles from today to day one are available on the article page. There is a search function now that will find articles you may be looking for. As stated in our intro article a very cool advanced search function coming. We now have a new section called Rantatorials. Related articles is a new feature that allows you to visit other related past articles. If you don't call this moving forward than I am not sure what moving forward is.
I did consider typography, color, functionality, navigation and a ton of other things, all very carefully. And, over the years we have had hundreds of emails asking us to get rid of white type on black. Readers wanted larger images in the articles. They wanted to see larger home page images. All of this is now part of the NEW Luminous-Landscape. Everything we did was a move forward. It
s shame you can't see that.
This is the new site. That is all there is to it. It is now a platform to grow and offer more for our readers. If you don't like it than so be it. Maybe you can find a site offering more content in a design you like.
Mediocrity by the way was our old site. And, it does not enter into the vocabulary of Michael or myself.
Too bad you feel the way you do.
Kevin Raber
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Favicons are now working again in Forum BTW. :)
And I'm very grateful for the changes to the site.
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Favicons are now working again in Forum BTW. :)
And I'm very grateful for the changes to the site.
Thanks JJJ. So much more to come. We are fixing things bit by bit. The list is getting smaller.
Kevin
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Given the size of the task, you're moving pretty speedily I'd say.
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I wonder how many millions of people avoid the bbc news website because of headaches :-)
BBC background is indeed 255, but the blacks are 51 text and 80 for headlines.
Had my monitor not been profiled for printing (i.e., lower luminosity than default), I would have serious issues with such a bright background.
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Isaac, just changing from screen width text/reverse text is without doubt an improvement in readability. Surely all your studies will back that up?
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These days, we test.
To try and disprove what years of studies have already proven? ::)
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Hello,
two things I recognized when using old article.
- there is no space betweenbold printed keywords or links in the article ( see example1.jpg )
http://luminous-landscape.com/1ds-field-notes/ (http://luminous-landscape.com/1ds-field-notes/) - there is just an info that a plugin is needed, but no hint on the required plugin ( see example2.jpg )
http://luminous-landscape.com/vj8-1ds-critique/ (http://luminous-landscape.com/vj8-1ds-critique/) - some old articles contain strange letters ( see example3.jpg )
http://luminous-landscape.com/canon-1ds-field-report-2/ (http://luminous-landscape.com/canon-1ds-field-report-2/)
These are only examples - all little problems occur in several different articles, if not in all ! The used browser is Firefox 35.01 running on Windows 8.1.
I want to make sure that I'm not complaining about anythng - this is just meant to be informal to help optimze the new site.
For m the new site is 100% improved to the old one, much cleaner and it is much easier to find the content needed.
Robert
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Good idea, but the forum software is hard to interface into from the site. Two different beasts. We are looking at a few things and we'll see if we can eventually pull something off that will be cool.
Kevin Raber
Lots of Wordpress to SMF bridge options out there to check out, also it's not that difficult to directly interface with SMF via the database.
Overall pretty good stuff guys. One thing to note, you might want to have the devs look at what used to be private articles as I think pretty much everything is now public and can be both navigated to directly and found via search.
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Tapatalk is still broken, at least for me.
BTW, is there a posted bug list we can check to see if a problem we see is a known one? It would be nice if it contained a list of recently fixed problems so we can check and see if the fix cured our instance of any given problem.
Thanks,
Jim
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When someone asks you if it's a nice day, Isaac, do you test first or just answer?
You can have an opinion without testing, and there is plenty of user feedback to support that particular opinion.
Undoubtedly, you were born to test :-)
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... Undoubtedly, you were born to test :-)
...our patience?
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You can have an opinion without testing, and there is plenty of user feedback to support that particular opinion.
Everyone has an opinion and people like to quarrel.
These days, pdf "Usability testing on 10 cents a day" (http://sensible.com/Downloads/DMMTchapter09_for_personal_use_only.pdf)
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Some people like to quarrel...
Bad link - at least for me - can't download it.
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Hello,
two things I recognized when using old article.
- there is no space betweenbold printed keywords or links in the article ( see example1.jpg )
http://luminous-landscape.com/1ds-field-notes/ (http://luminous-landscape.com/1ds-field-notes/) - there is just an info that a plugin is needed, but no hint on the required plugin ( see example2.jpg )
http://luminous-landscape.com/vj8-1ds-critique/ (http://luminous-landscape.com/vj8-1ds-critique/) - some old articles contain strange letters ( see example3.jpg )
http://luminous-landscape.com/canon-1ds-field-report-2/ (http://luminous-landscape.com/canon-1ds-field-report-2/)
These are only examples - all little problems occur in several different articles, if not in all ! The used browser is Firefox 35.01 running on Windows 8.1.
I want to make sure that I'm not complaining about anythng - this is just meant to be informal to help optimze the new site.
For m the new site is 100% improved to the old one, much cleaner and it is much easier to find the content needed.
Robert
Hello Robert - thanks for pointing out links as you did. The issue with the strange letters is a problem with current HTML editors and old ones. It seems that whenever a long dash was used in an old article it presents a series of crazy letters when it was ported over. We'll try to fix those issues as we see them. These will only appear in older articles.
As far as the plug in goes that will be something that can't really be fixed as we are moving to a new video system. We'll try to patch things up to new videos as we go. The new video system will be finished this week if all goes well.
The no space between words happens when a word runs into a bolded word or sometimes a link. No easy fix except to fix those as we see them. One of the challenges with a big site like this is the transition from some old articles. The content is still good and may have to be worked through. We are looking at pages getting the most hits and making corrections on those. It will take time for stuff like this to get it all fixed.
Kevin Raber
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Lots of Wordpress to SMF bridge options out there to check out, also it's not that difficult to directly interface with SMF via the database.
Overall pretty good stuff guys. One thing to note, you might want to have the devs look at what used to be private articles as I think pretty much everything is now public and can be both navigated to directly and found via search.
Thanks Mark, we'll be working on a number of forum topics and features in the coming weeks. We are just now finishing up a major new video interface and we should launch that this week. Then we can move onto some bells and whistle items. I'll get the guys looking at the private topics. Then finally we will be introducing a more advanced search and results option. Your feedback is appreciated.
Kevin Raber
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Tapatalk is still broken, at least for me.
BTW, is there a posted bug list we can check to see if a problem we see is a known one? It would be nice if it contained a list of recently fixed problems so we can check and see if the fix cured our instance of any given problem.
Thanks,
Jim
Tapatalk fix is being worked on. The lists of things being worked on is ever changing and fixes are being made pretty quickly so there is no public list. For now we will apreciate folks letting us know issues etc and we'll work on them.
Kevin Raber
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Tapatalk is working for me but to put it bluntly, it sucks. There doesn't seem to be a way to browse forums, just posts.
Is it possible the forums don't play well with Android because it's an older, outdated version of the software? It seems the devs have stopped supporting this version according to their website. Canon Rumors uses the 2.x version of this and it scales much better in Android.
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We will eventually update the forum software but it's not broken and I like to give new versions of software a chance to work the kinks out before switching over. We will look at in the next month or so. Still have lots of projects on the list for the current site. You can always look at the forum with a regular browser and bypass Tapatalk.
Kevin Raber
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Thanks for the response Kevin. I've attached a screenshot of how the forum looks on my phone (a pretty big one actually) with my preferred browser. I think it's about lifesize and as you can see a forum upgrade can't get here quick enough for me.
On another note, aren't you concerned about security patches for the software? I've seen other outdated boards brought down by hackers because of outdated security. BTW, keep up the good work, the front page looks great on my phone.
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Ed B,
Have you tried using your phone in landscape mode?
This site is then tolerable for me -- and it seems appropriate!
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Yeah but it's still pretty small, it strains my eyes.
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I'm perhaps an old fuddy-duddy, but the old site was easier to scan quickly, easier on the eye, and it was clearer what you (the owners) thought were the important headline articles. The new site offers a democratisation of layout that mimic's any other site that doesn't have it's own editorial opinions. And it was having an opinion (shown in a criteria led layout) that was so good about the old LuLa. And it looked far different to the 'drag-n-drop' design of other sites. Now it is an anonymous bland offering that copies (other site layouts) rather than informs, it was never a problem instantly recognising a new article to read in the old LuLa, now I can hardly be bothered to try and find one.
Steve
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Yeah but it's still pretty small, it strains my eyes.
True; I only said "tolerable", and I do a lot of zooming and panning.
Perhaps we must to submit to the trend of ever bigger phones!
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I'm perhaps an old fuddy-duddy, but the old site was easier to scan quickly, easier on the eye, and it was clearer what you (the owners) thought were the important headline articles. The new site offers a democratisation of layout that mimic's any other site that doesn't have it's own editorial opinions. And it was having an opinion (shown in a criteria led layout) that was so good about the old LuLa. And it looked far different to the 'drag-n-drop' design of other sites. Now it is an anonymous bland offering that copies (other site layouts) rather than informs, it was never a problem instantly recognising a new article to read in the old LuLa, now I can hardly be bothered to try and find one.
Steve
[/quote
Well let's see. All new articles are at the top. Bigger photos with articles, read a few lines of the new article, click to read more, bigger home page pictures that are expandable, easier to read type. What's so bland and hard about that? There aren't any other sites that look like ours. Our old site was boring and worn out and we couldn't move forward without a change. We had more requests to go away from white on black for many years. The new site isn't a drag and drop site, let me assure you of that. Time for a change like lots of things in life. Based on what we are hearing there are a lot of people that like the new look. Hope you continue to visit. I think you'll find the site will be easier to use in the long run.
Kevin Raber
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... The new site offers a democratisation of layout that mimic's any other site that doesn't have it's own editorial opinions. And it was having an opinion (shown in a criteria led layout) that was so good about the old LuLa. ...
All new articles are at the top. Bigger photos with articles, read a few lines of the new article, click to read more, bigger home page pictures that are expandable, easier to read type.
Kevin,
you are just going to have to accept that having the great majority of feedback being positive is a rare degree of success for a web-site but achieving unanimous praise only happens in police states!
And what says "having an opinion" better that a new top-of-the-front-page heading for "rantatorials"!
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True; I only said "tolerable", and I do a lot of zooming and panning.
Perhaps we must to submit to the trend of ever bigger phones!
It's the panning part that drives me nuts.
Sadly, I have a Nexus 6, it doesn't get much bigger than that. :D