[Catalyst] Re: Catalyst site design drafts feedback thread

[Aristotle Pagaltzis]

* Ali M. <tclwarrior at gmail.com> [2008-06-17 09:00]:
> One more thing I like about the grails site is that the design
> is really different! At least to me its like nothing i've seen
> before ... i will never confuse the grails site for another one

Honestly, I find the Grails site design quite ugly. I thought the
CakePHP site was quite fresh. Which just goes to show – to each
their own…

In general, I disagree that striking and different is something
one should aim for as a priority. If you can manage it, great,
but the content is much more important: getting people to the
information they need most (even if they don’t know what they are
looking for yet!) as quickly as possible. The design plays a role
here insofar as the placement of elements on the page is a
usability issue as much as it is one of graphic design.

> Tobias site uses a very common and seen-before button for the
> download link, feels cheap to me (no offense) , so I guess we
> should work more on this too

That doesn’t feel cheap to me at all. The advantage of a really
common download link button is that as soon as people see it,
they know what it’s for. Mindlessly making something different
just because you can is not a good approach; being different
requires a very careful balance that I think only few people
can get right.

Regards,
-- 
Aristotle Pagaltzis // <http://plasmasturm.org/>