Feedback requested

Members have been giving some excellent feedback on other designs, and I'd appreciate some on mine. A little was given in another thread, but as I rather hijacked someone else's thread, I think my suggestion got slightly lost. I'm looking for feedback on http://www.librarything.com/profile_zengarden.php?viewstyle=markbarnes-5

Because I've coded it in CSS, I don't have the flexibility I would if I had done it in Photoshop (ie some things I'd like to change I can't change). But it's good enough for you to let rip!

Here are some screenshots in case browser issues cause problems:







Clicking the image should bring the full-size version.

I like the header/tabs better than the current version, but the color is....very pink.

I feel like I got accepted to Harvard :)

Can you get that look consistently on various browsers?

I like it a lot in principle. I mean, I like it in fact, too, but I would like it even better if it weren't quite that color red. I agree with legallypuzzled that it's a bit Harvardesque.

ETA: I just wanted to note that I am crazy about everything except the color at the top. I even like the pink, which is not too pink. And the layout is great for Talk.

Suggestion: I'm exploring a little more with this, and the profile page looks good too, but the text in the top right-hand box, "Put your library on your blog" and "Invite friends to LibraryThing" run to a second line. I don't know if it's possible with this to make the font in that box a little smaller, but I think that would be an improvement.

Thanks guys. The design is shamelessly ripped from Cork'd, not Harvard (following a comment from Abby). Any suggestion on colours? I've tried a dark red rather than the deep burgundy. If I change it too much I'd have to change all the colours.

I'm made the suggested tweak on the profile page. It might have a knock-on effect elsewhere because of the way LT is built. Thanks for the feedback. Keep it coming.

I like it, but one remark from the point of usability: with the links, it is not clear that they are links. I mean the links from the members with your books-part, member connections and random books from your library.

It's not so pink on my desktop. #2 was posted from my laptop.

>7 royalhistorian: I struggled with this. In the end I felt there was just too much red in that top half of the profile. I mean, virtually everything is a link there. There are hundreds of them! When you mouseover, the cursor changes, and the link becomes underlined, so it is clear they are links - but admittedly not at first glance.

This is a problem in various places on LT. Take the Zeitgeist page, for example. There's so much blue there, that the black text seems to be the 'highlight'. As I glance at the page, it's the unlinked black text that catches my eye. It ought not be that way.

#1

I like it a lot, especially the background colour and the font of the "librarything" logo in the banner. I agree that the colours of the top banner and the tabs could be somewhat lighter.

I hope no blues or greens (except maybe for pale grey-greens) show up on this style.

I really like your design, although I agree with #7 about the lack of contrast for links. I understand your description in #9, but I think it would be nicer if there were more of a contrast. I also might go one shade lighter in the page background color - just a bit less pink.

I must admit, I don't like the change in logo. I've always loved the LT logo - I'm not sure what the font name is, but I like the juxtaposition between the old "typeset" font with the idea of a totally digital library. Mark, your logo is nice, but a bit "cutesy" for me.

Otherwise, though, I really like the general color palette and the way the tabs and the subnavigation links look.

The background doesn't appear pink to me, more beigey.

ETA: I'm neutral on the book in the logo, it could stay or go.

I really like the color scheme, myself. To me, dark burgundy and dark hunter green evoke the old leather bound books in a classic library, and then combined with a "parchment" background, it's very library-esque.

That is to say, I like the color scheme in your screenshots - when I look at the scheme in my browser, it's much too red. I assume you've tweaked it since then.

Yes, I tweaked it following the earlier comments. I agree, I prefer the original version which is now here: http://www.librarything.com/profile_zengarden.php?viewstyle=markbarnes-4

I like the overall look of it, at least at this computer--I'll check later on my laptop, where a lot of colours look too pale and beiges tend to be pink.

There are a couple of things I really don't like, though. First, everything is too narrow; I'm not sure whether that's intentional or just necessary to make it work on all screen widths.

Also, I really don't think serifs are good for reading on a screen. I'd rather have Arial everywhere, and I think it's especially necessary in Talk.

A more minor issue is that I much prefer the darker red colour of clicked-on links to the lighter red of the unclicked links.

Serif is certainly a breath of fresh air. But I'm not sure it works. We user Verdana; I much prefer it.

I'm not sure what it is, but there's something visually fatiguing about both the original and the tweaked. I'm finding I can't read the screen very long without taking a break from the pages or even the computer.

#17> It's the mass of red hyperlinks drawing your attention away from the black text, although the darker than usual background makes for some contrast difficulties. That said an in browser rendering will read better than the .png screenshot does. If readability is the primary concern, making all the links olive colored (as they are in the second column) could help - the benefit of a lighter background color being obvious.

This is definitely the only worthwhile color alternative I've seen thus far.

I like this one, but I haven't used it because I don't like the fact that I can't see the link tabs across the top when I'm on my "library page."

>19 j.ayers: I'm afraid there's nothing I can do about that at the moment. This feature doesn't let you style all the pages correctly, and I suspect fixing this is not high on Tim's agenda. Moreover the specific problem is caused by the library page using frames which Tim seems to like for some reason. We've tried to change his mind here, but to no avail so far.