Topic: Welcome To The New Luminous-Landscape (Read 19502 times)

Paul Wright · « **Reply #20 on:** February 15, 2015, 10:59:16 pm »

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

Wayne Fox · « **Reply #21 on:** February 16, 2015, 12:05:26 am »

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?

Torbjörn Tapani · « **Reply #22 on:** February 16, 2015, 12:35:32 am »

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.

Dave Millier · « **Reply #23 on:** February 16, 2015, 04:44:31 am »

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...

Quote from: Rhossydd on February 15, 2015, 05:51:08 pm

This is a huge mistake.
The archive of Michael's old articles/reviews etc. is a treasure trove of information.

OldRoy · « **Reply #24 on:** February 16, 2015, 06:58:56 am »

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

JohnBrew · « **Reply #25 on:** February 16, 2015, 07:19:19 am »

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.

PeterAit · « **Reply #26 on:** February 16, 2015, 09:02:41 am »

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.

John Hue · « **Reply #27 on:** February 16, 2015, 09:17:53 am »

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 !

Dave Millier · « **Reply #28 on:** February 16, 2015, 09:43:14 am »

Yes - standard web good practice: always put the user in control else risk annoying her.

Quote from: PeterAit on February 16, 2015, 09:02:41 am

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.

JeanMichel · « **Reply #29 on:** February 16, 2015, 10:41:10 am »

Quote from: Dave Millier on February 16, 2015, 04:44:31 am

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

alansky · « **Reply #30 on:** February 16, 2015, 02:29:15 pm »

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.

Kevin Raber · « **Reply #31 on:** February 16, 2015, 03:29:21 pm »

Quote from: alansky on February 16, 2015, 02:29:15 pm

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

Ed B · « **Reply #32 on:** February 16, 2015, 06:46:57 pm »

Is there going to be a mobile version of the forums? The text size is unreadable without have to scroll horizontally.

Kevin Raber · « **Reply #33 on:** February 16, 2015, 06:58:53 pm »

Quote from: Ed B on February 16, 2015, 06:46:57 pm

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

Ed B · « **Reply #34 on:** February 16, 2015, 07:07:28 pm »

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?

Kevin Raber · « **Reply #35 on:** February 16, 2015, 07:22:41 pm »

Quote from: Ed B on February 16, 2015, 07:07:28 pm

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

Ed B · « **Reply #36 on:** February 16, 2015, 10:07:02 pm »

Fair enough but Tapatalk isn't working. The error message says cannot connect to the server, contact the forum administrator.

Jim Kasson · « **Reply #37 on:** February 16, 2015, 10:36:21 pm »

Quote from: Kevin Raber on February 16, 2015, 06:58:53 pm

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?

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

bokehcambodia · « **Reply #38 on:** February 17, 2015, 12:45:50 am »

Great new LuLa

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

bokehcambodia · « **Reply #39 on:** February 17, 2015, 01:58:54 am »

The typos have not decreased (especially About Us section), though $:-\$
Anyways, on Kevin's gear page he might want to change this one,too

Author Topic: Welcome To The New Luminous-Landscape (Read 19502 times)