I like that it spans the whole screen. I think this would be a problem on really big screens, but that probably can be tuned with a simple CSS media query.
I agree with @jasonrobinson, pleasing everyone is impossible, and the design should be made by the design team, based on the feedback - as opposed to incorporate step-by-step different ideas we receive: this will lead us to the Frankenstein monster of social networks, instead of something beautiful and integrated.
There are a couple of suggestions I want to make:
the structure of the site could be more streamlined (or maybe a more exact word would be the navigation; you know, where the links to various parts of the site are, in how many steps can someone reach the profile editing page, and so on so forth) - maybe we should gather some metrics on how exactly we should do that, but at the moment is quite a mess.
the chat should be a more prominent feature. That’s one of the feature I use the most, alongside with browsing the stream for pictures of silly cats. This means it should not be hidden in a drawer on the right - it’s barely discoverable this way.
Also, from a technical standpoint, and UX - we have some problems with the conversations feature of the platform, because now it has feature overlap with the chat. @jhass - maybe we should drop conversations altogether? XMPP is an old, federated, and pretty solid protocol.
I take the oppotunity of this discussion to propose a new design for the header. It seems like the few design changes I made on it are one of the blocking point of my PR.
So, I want to take the temparature on this. If the feedback is not globally positive, I’ll open a proposal so we can vote.
Here is how it looked like before :
and here is how it looks now :
The key design changes are :
no more shadow at the bottom of the header,
the searchbar is higher and squared like the bootstrap’s button are,
the notifications dropdown is bigger, each notification has more padding, the profile pictures are bigger,
the user menu is now white with blue links.
All these changes have been made to unify the header design with the rest of the changes introduced by the port to BS : the stream page is larger, the buttons are squared with a radius of 4px, etc…
@dumitruursu I think the navigation would improve a great deal if we bring consistency across all sections. Right now, they are all different and that makes the UI look jumpy.
I want to develop a single rock solid main layout that will endure across all sections. One idea is to bring the left bar to all sections, so you will always have the top bar, the left sidebar and the main content. So we will end up with a 3 layer hierarchy to play with: top, left, center.
That’ll be something I strongly suggest doing BEFORE porting to Bootstrap 3: get the main foundation solid across all sections, using the same layout for all of them. Then begin porting.
We still have to deal with large screen size, but it’s quite easy limiting the main container width. I see it as a possible option in the future (a boolean preference on the user side).
I think it’s not about really getting each mockup / idea people has, but I’m sure the overall will bring some insights.
Anyway, you know how these things are, maybe we’ll get a lot of likes, and comments, and “hey! I’ll send a mockup”, and then… nothing happens and you get 2 crazy mockups, redefining the whole world. That could happen too.
Let’s just throw the ball out there to see what happens.
