New forum software.

[Québec]

Keep it clean, simple, and easy to read

(we're not going for a Design Award here, - are we?) -

Believe it or not, and contrary to common belief, Design Awards are occasionally given for clean, simple and easy to read!

 

I'm a designer by training, and was taught to work to the following principles of design:

 

Good design should:

enhance the user's experience

be logical (form follows function)

be aesthetic (should look good as well as work well)

be minimal (less is more, keep it simple)

 

"That which hath the greatest use hath the greatest beauty" (Shaker principle)

[DHutch]

Also, as feed back for when this is due.

 

I had hoped to get chance over easter to setup a test forum, satisfy myself with the change, and implement it, while i had time to fix and teething problems that may occur. However i thing that was a little optimistic on my part given the amount of course work i have to do over the holidays and the fact that i graduate in little over two months time (8weeks, ahhhhh!!) so rather than rush it and it go wrong, I expect it will instead be shortly after the end of the summer term.

 

 

 

Daniel

[imnogeek]

I think the default setting on most forum software is very often the one that pleases most, yes it can be a little plain and one may add a few finishing touches to it to make it different and individual but the reason it ended up as default is for the mass market to attract you to use it and show off how easy it is to use and read.

[DHutch]

might be a daft question but how easy/hard would it be to have a few live practice runs? (IT idiot asking question!) trial and error?

Been trying to work on this.

- Liam set up a nice install of the V2.3.6 software to add the database to an do a trial install on, but the database (650mb) appears to be bigger than you can add to the software using the easy and most direct route and while im sure theres anthoer way of getting it in there, we where stuggling!

- We then tried to do a clean install of v3.0.5 so atleast have a bit of a play with and use to tweak and test a higher contrast version of the v3 skin, but that just errored all over the place. So im now waiting for invision tech support to get back to me!

 

If it comes to it, they will perform the upgrade to the forum, and we will simply 'learn on the job' once its up.

 

 

 

 

 

Version 3 & moving to darker text would suit me...

Looking at the polls that seems to have been selected as the best option to me, certainly it will be the easiest and hopefully most stable option.

 

 

 

 

Daniel

[landroversforever]

Not sure if a decision has bee made yet. The land rover forum (www.lr4x4.com) I'm on recently upgraded to V3. initially it was a bit strange, but I'm now used to it and I think its now much nicer to use.

 

The only thing I dislike is the search isn't as good as before. I just use the Google site search instead.

 

I think the main reason that the forum was updated was because I think IPB are discontinuing V2 support? not sure how true that is though.

[DHutch]

The only thing I dislike is the search isn't as good as before. I just use the Google site search instead.

Apparently so, its a common complain about the IBP software in general. Very odd that they have not seeked to improve it.

[DHutch]

A request to update the forum software has been made, this should be processed within the next few days.

[DHutch]

Please see this thread for information and discussion about the new software.