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Which type of website do you prefer?

Printed From: Progarchives.com
Category: Topics not related to music
Forum Name: General Polls
Forum Description: Create polls on topics not related to music
URL: http://www.progarchives.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=26145
Printed Date: December 02 2024 at 06:36
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Topic: Which type of website do you prefer?
Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Subject: Which type of website do you prefer?
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 04:03
*Simple Looking Websites: Websites which try not to put too much content on each page in order not to overwhelm the user. The drawback of this approach is that users might deduce from this simplicity that the website isn't as advanced as websites which follow the second approach:

*Complex Looking Websites: Websites which try to put as much content on a page as possible, heavily making use of "Web 2.0" techniques. Examples would be: www.last.fm (the new version), www.myspace.com.


What's your opinion? I'm curious as to whether I should make my own website (www.ratingfreak.com) more complex & interactive/dynamic, or more simple. I might do both (two versions and users can decide which they prefer), but it would be much more work ...


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https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:



Replies:
Posted By: goose
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 08:51
Simple looking, definitely. For me the interface should be as simple as possible, so that it doesn't detract from the actual content . I've always despised the look of Myspace (see www.facebook.com for a much nicer looking place!) and from what I've seen of the new last.fm I prefer the old one, although the new one isn't so terrible. The same goes for AMG!


Posted By: goose
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 09:00
Just a thought: do you think the right side panel (on the main page, Recent Reviews without text) would look a little neater if it were aligned to the other two at the top?

Also, on Opera the text in the reviews looks a little too squashed up together vertically, more so than IE and Firefox on which it looks fine, but I think an extra pixel seperating lines could make it a little clearer on all browsers. Apart from those two points I think your site is designed excellently!
    


Posted By: Arsillus
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 10:02
As long as the website format is well thought out and organized, either way would be fine, but I guess to answer the question a more simple site would be better, but it all depends on the layout. Goose brought up a good point in that myspace.com is a bad example of a too cluttered webpage.
 
I also don't think a "simple" looking webpage means it's not as "advanced" as cluttered ones. You can still make a wepage look very "official" and fancy without bombarding the visitor with a bunch of junk.


Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 10:29
Originally posted by goose goose wrote:

Just a thought: do you think the right side panel (on the main page, Recent Reviews without text) would look a little neater if it were aligned to the other two at the top?

Also, on Opera the text in the reviews looks a little too squashed up together vertically, more so than IE and Firefox on which it looks fine, but I think an extra pixel seperating lines could make it a little clearer on all browsers. Apart from those two points I think your site is designed excellently!
    


Thanks for the feedback regarding my website ... I will do a major redesign this week. I will remove the "double sidebars" on the right side. I will add some of the "web 2.0" concepts that last.fm are using ...  but I will try not to clutter the pages.

BTW: You're right, I'm only testing my website with Windows Internet Explorer + Firefox ... I should use Opera every now and then to see how it looks on that browser. It's very nice, but also VERY rarely used by visitors. And most Opera-related "bugs" are often solved by the Opera developers which modify their browser to emulate Mozilla behavior - just like Microsoft are now doing with IE 7.


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https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:


Posted By: goose
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 12:57
Looking a bit closer, it seems that Opera renders nearly all the text and a couple of other elements slightly smaller than other browsers. It's only really a problem with the review_text and rating_r_14 classes though. If the Web starts to be used more on mobile phones you may get more Opera users, too!


edit: does that mean that one or other of these browsers is actually displaying your page incorrectly, or is there no consensus on exactly how the particular style should be shown cross-browser? If it's the former then someone at Opera or Mozilla and Microsoft needs to sort something out..!


Posted By: TheProgtologist
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 13:57
I like simple websites.

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Posted By: VanderGraafKommandöh
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 14:19
I agree with everyone so far (the votings prove this point as well).  Simple websites are by far the best.

I'm on broadband, but my computer's harddisk is rather full, so memory is being pushed to the limit.  I find last.fm and MySpace load slow for me and I believe if they both incorporated a simpler design, then they would have to do less maintenance to put things right.

Something I learnt whilst at University studying Computing and Information Systems, was to create simple looking websites.  True, it's not eye candy, but they have better functionality and I will always take better functionality over whether a website is aesthetically pleasing.

I also find Flash websites can be rather irksome too.


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Posted By: The Miracle
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 14:40
Simple all the way! Like Maddox or Google. Though there's a moddle between simple and complex, like the PA layout, which is also very nice.

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http://www.last.fm/user/ocellatedgod" rel="nofollow - last.fm


Posted By: mystic fred
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 14:56
The rule is simple....LESS IS MORE !

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Prog Archives Tour Van


Posted By: Open-Mind
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 15:03
Simple looking websites

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"I'm on a roll, I'm on a roll this time, I feel my luck could change.. "


Posted By: Viajero Astral
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 16:22
Simple looking allways works, but it had to be atractive to cause an impresion to the visitors.

Web pages like http://www.gamespot.com/ looks so bad with too much information and publicity, I found that kind of problem in that style of designs.

BTW, the new last.fm webpages looks great, not too complex and works fine IMO.


PA had a lot of information in the main page but the menu is well done.


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Posted By: AtLossForWords
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 17:20
I like simple layouts.  I hate how it takes forever for a last.fm and myspace page to show, and they seem to encounter numerous erros.  I like a webpage to look interesting, but I like to be able to view it.
 
Vbulltein forums in my opinion have a very nice layout.  They have an easy on the eyes look, and they load very very quickly.


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"Mastodon sucks giant monkey balls."


Posted By: Fitzcarraldo
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 20:13
Originally posted by MikeEnRegalia MikeEnRegalia wrote:

*Simple Looking Websites: Websites which try not to put too much content on each page in order not to overwhelm the user. The drawback of this approach is that users might deduce from this simplicity that the website isn't as advanced as websites which follow the second approach:

*Complex Looking Websites: Websites which try to put as much content on a page as possible, heavily making use of "Web 2.0" techniques. Examples would be: www.last.fm (the new version), www.myspace.com.


What's your opinion? I'm curious as to whether I should make my own website (www.ratingfreak.com) more complex & interactive/dynamic, or more simple. I might do both (two versions and users can decide which they prefer), but it would be much more work ...
 
 
Simple, uncluttered Web pages are my preference.
 
No offence intended, Mike, but I took one look at your Web site and it frightened me off. It looks very daunting and complicated to me. Sorry if that sounds harsh, as it's not meant to be.
 
 
 


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http://www.progarchives.com/Collaborators.asp?id=326" rel="nofollow - Read reviews by Fitzcarraldo


Posted By: MikeEnRegalia
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 20:21
^ but you're right! I'm trying to maker it more accessible, but it's not easy as the content is very complex. When did you have a look at it? I really improved it in the last couple of weeks!

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https://awesomeprog.com/users/Mike" rel="nofollow">Recently listened to:


Posted By: Fitzcarraldo
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 20:39

^Quite some time ago, but I have had a look just now and it still looks quite daunting to me. But I may not be typical, so don't take too much notice of what I'm saying.



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http://www.progarchives.com/Collaborators.asp?id=326" rel="nofollow - Read reviews by Fitzcarraldo


Posted By: VanderGraafKommandöh
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 21:11
I know a few people who were confused about how to get a signature in their profile and stuff, so an idiots guide to doing that maybe worth your while.

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Posted By: Bj-1
Date Posted: July 15 2006 at 21:20
Originally posted by The Miracle The Miracle wrote:

Though there's a moddle between simple and complex, like the PA layout, which is also very nice.
 
Agree!


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RIO/AVANT/ZEUHL - The best thing you can get with yer pants on!



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