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
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| 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 |
| |
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| 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.
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.