A little while ago, Brad started talking up the upcoming refresh to WinCustomize.  He mostly talked about features and some cool stuff you could expect from the new site, but so far, all you've had are lines of text, nothing to really sink your teeth into.  Seeing as how we're all about the visual aspects of our computers, I thought it might be nice to give you a little taste of what the site is looking like at the moment.  Overall, better usability, and a slicker look and feel.

This is part one of the article series.  Today we're looking at the front page and the gallery views.  The next article will look at submitting work, and some of the personal page and account views.

Disclaimer:
This article won't even begin to address features or functionality since the site is still being worked on.  Even the visual elements and layout you will see in the screenshots below are considered to be under development still and are NOT FINAL.  Something you see here in a shot may not actually be on the site when it goes live.  These screenshots are based off of our internal test build of the new site and you shouldn't take anything you see here as a promise of functionality or features.

In a few places, I'll put up a side-by-side comparison of the new site with the old site to give you an idea of how drastic the improvements are.  For the most part you'll only be getting slices of the page at a time.  Eventually we'll be posting full screenshots as things become finalized and our web devs sign-off on pages as "done"  But until then, enjoy the little snippits below.

The Front Page

The first thing everyone sees typically when they come to WinCustomize is the main page.  A lot has been changed in how the information is presented.  Some people felt that the left and right navigation menus in addition to the header navigation links was just too much to keep track of.  The new design does a lot to streamline the main page to make it as easy to scan and navigate as possible.

The current WinCustomize header navigation space.  There are a lot of tabs to click through

The new and improved header navigation space.  A lot cleaner, and fewer sections to have to navigate through

 

Current Popular/Featured space on the main page	The new Popular/Featured space.  A lot more information is accessible but it manages to look less cluttered
Current News Listing	New News Listing

Gallery Views

Navigating the galleries on the site has always been a bit overwhelming.  There's a lot of information to scroll through and some times you need to dig through multiple pages to find what you're looking for.  The new gallery pages are designed to make it easier to quickly scan through what's available.

Current WindowBlinds Gallery view.  Notice how much space is taken up to show each skin, and how much information is tossed at you right off the bat	The new WindowBlinds Gallery view.  In less space than the old view, you see several times the number of skin previews.  Much better for quickly browsing a library
Current Detailed view for an item in the library.  A lot of whitespace and a blocky layout.	The new Detailed view.  Cleaner, uses screen space better, makes it easier to spot the rating and the download link.  Also puts comments on the detail view so you don't have to click a second link to view them like on the current site.

 

So there you have it, your first glimpse at the new WinCustomize.  Check back next week for another look at what nifty new things we're putting in.