Not really a fan. The W3C does so much that their past homepages have suffered from a mass of undifferentiated links. This design attempts to solve the problem by taking down the number of links, but the dearth of contrast and colour means it's still very hard to tell what's important, what's time-sensitive, and what's always there.
W3 gets new Look
11–20 of 29 posts
Re: W3 gets new Look
#12They're using PHP and Smarty, from looking at comments in the source code.
I find it highly ironic that the people in charge of web standards and consistency use the programming language with least consistent syntax.
Re: W3 gets new Look
#13The absolute worst web design trend of 2009 is this header background that extends beyond the container and makes it look like the header is on a piece of paper that has been folded around the background. Let me show you what I'm talking about: http://i.imgur.com/yP7CH.png
It's a silly and needless ornamentation that wasn't cool or interesting when the first person did it, and became even more worthless and boring with each successive use. Bahhumbug!
I'll hug it and kiss it and apologize if I see it used in a way even remotely relevant to the context of the content, or integrated into the visual language of the design (e.g. on a blog about origami), but until then, I'm a hater. I'd rather see drop shadows under blinking text; at least that would be quasi-original.
Also, the blue logo area pops so ridiculously hard it makes it impossible to keep my attention focused on the rest of the page. I'd tone it down to a smooth #80a7d3, like you see in the image I linked above.
EDIT: Don't get me wrong, I'm thrilled w3 finally redesigned the site; on first impression it appears to be a marked improvement.
Re: W3 gets new Look
#14The uppermost nav menu is a blob of text, the nav item "standards" is repeated (Standards, STANDARDS, standards, STANDARDS) like the date of a monster truck rally, and there's no obvious difference between left-nav and top-nav. It looks like a blog from 2005 viewed in a browser with the wrong fonts. Who designed it?
Re: W3 gets new Look
#15They're using PHP and Smarty, from looking at comments in the source code. I find it highly ironic that the people in charge of web standards and consistency use the programming language with least consistent syntax.
Does consistency in programming language somehow automatically translate to consistency in output?
Re: W3 gets new Look
#16They're using PHP and Smarty, from looking at comments in the source code. I find it highly ironic that the people in charge of web standards and consistency use the programming language with least consistent syntax.
Heh, I think it ties in very nicely with my experience of W3C specs!
Re: W3 gets new Look
#17why are the left and top menus (standards, participate, ...) the same? that seems very odd for an otherwise fairly professional-looking page. edit: and why have the "pointer" point to yet another instance of the word "standards" rather than the one in the top menu? i know it's way better than it was, but it seems odd to be so much better and yet still have odd things like that...
> why are the left and top menus (standards, participate, ...) the same?
Looks like the top menu is static, but the left menu changes as you navigate. Compare the two on this page: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/membership-benefits
Kinda falls apart on pages like this: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/fee-history
There's a lot of needless elements though. Go here: http://www.w3.org/Consortium/membership.html, then click on the drop-down under 'Fees'. The 'current fees' link takes you to the same page that the 'Fees' link goes to. And the 'fee history' link goes to a page that is also linked to from the page the 'Fees'/'current fees' links go to.
Same with the drop-down under "Join W3C" The "Join W3C" link and the "how to join" link both point to the same URL: "http://www.w3.org/Consortium/join
Re: W3 gets new Look
#18The uppermost nav menu is a blob of text, the nav item "standards" is repeated (Standards, STANDARDS, standards, S T A N D A R D S ) like the date of a monster truck rally, and there's no obvious difference between left-nav and top-nav. It looks like a blog from 2005 viewed in a browser with the wrong fonts. Who designed it?
It looks like a cheap bastardization of Drupal's default template that I think they launched with Drupal 5 several years ago.
Quite simply I think they tried too hard. The gradients and whitespace are extremely clumsy. It would look 10 times better with flat colors and standardized on some kind of grid and font size scheme.
Re: W3 gets new Look
#19The absolute worst web design trend of 2009 is this header background that extends beyond the container and makes it look like the header is on a piece of paper that has been folded around the background. Let me show you what I'm talking about: http://i.imgur.com/yP7CH.png It's a silly and needless ornamentation that wasn't cool or interesting when the first person did it, and became even more worthless and boring wi…
I dont really understand how you could dislike it so much, its a tiny flourish that gives a little visual hierarchy
Re: W3 gets new Look
#20The absolute worst web design trend of 2009 is this header background that extends beyond the container and makes it look like the header is on a piece of paper that has been folded around the background. Let me show you what I'm talking about: http://i.imgur.com/yP7CH.png It's a silly and needless ornamentation that wasn't cool or interesting when the first person did it, and became even more worthless and boring wi…
I dont really understand how you could dislike it so much, its a tiny flourish that gives a little visual hierarchy
Agreed. But I don't know what visual hierarchy means.