The mod_perl design contest's voting process took 12 days and is over now.
and the winner is....
# Design by Votes
----------------------
1. Thomas Klausner 86
2. Carlos Ramirez 50
3. Allan Juul 31
----------------------
Total 167
Congratulation to the three winners: Thomas, Carlos and Allan who took
the gold, the silver and the bronze medals respectively. All three
having very close results. Please stand up for the mod_perl anthem :)
Since Thomas' design has won the gold, I suggest that we incorporate the
constructive comments (attached) into his design, with David Harris'
suggestion to apply on top the colors and some other bits from other
ASF sites. Volunteers? Ideally if Thomas, Carlos and Allan could take
the best of each other's work and produce the "perfect" design, that
would be very cool. But if not, any real (not talking) contributions
to improve the chosen design will help a lot.
That's said I suggest that any further discussion on this topic is to be
made on the modperl-site list, so not to clutter the modperl users list
with unnecessary noise. I've originaly posted here, because I wanted to
reach as many caring users as possible. But now those interested in
the fate of the site please subscribe to
[EMAIL PROTECTED] and let's discuss things there.
Finally I want to thank again Thomas, Carlos and Allan for taking
their time to figure out how to adjust the templates and design a much
better site than we have now; Nat for pushing for the face lift up;
Eric for writing and hosting the voting script; And all the mod_perl
community for voting and submitting very constructive comments!
Thank you!
The following are the anonymous comments made by voters, sorted in 3
groups.
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Those in favor of Allan Juul (31/167 votes) said:
http://www.apache.org/~stas/site/candidates/allan-juul/
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few embellishments. simple and easy to read. intermediate levels of
navigation should be collapsed, and the entire table of contents
should be provided on every page, with an indication of current
place. but MUCH preferable to the other designs.
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Nice because its not blue or white, and does not have your typical
left-side or top navigation.
Allocating space for news or other types of blurbs in the left or
right might be an idea though.
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nice
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Very nice and simple
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Although Carlos' page is a little flashier, (and I probably would have
voted for it) I didn't like the fact that the links at the top of the
page ended up blue on blue (on my default netscape browser).
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The title page looks a bit sparse. In general, however, Allan's design
looks more professional and aesthetic than the others.
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Sometimes less is more.
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The Allan Juul one looks the best in `links`. So thats my choice. It
could use a bigger logo just on the first page, thought. Something
which is recognisable and let you think 'Yep, this is the mod_perl
site'.
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Hi,
Actually, I find this one to be the more pleasant, even if there is a
lack of efficiency since we can not go back to a "main menu" once we
are in some category (ie, from "mailing lists" to main page for
example). Another point, what does the word "sex" do in the keywords
of each page ?
Well, exept that, I do like the design, others are too commons.
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Line spacing should be a lot bigger and page should not be as empty,
but this is the best-looking design of all three.
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All three seem to render (degrade?) nicely in lynx, which (to me) is
very important. I find the second design to be nicest, but the third
is the most strightfoward, quickest to load, and the simplest to use.
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Simple and elegant design.
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It's less ugly than the other two.
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The most professional looking site of the three.
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no fuzz, really nice!
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For me, the stylish simplicity of Allan's design wins hands down.
Neither of the other two works at all well on Netscape under Linux, a
great pity as both of them would otherwise do the job very well.
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Nice clean no-nonsense design. Low-key. Good.
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Keep it simple ... is the best, if no fancy web-bureau interference
Good luck to Allan
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great to see the KISS idea is still alive and kicking ;-)
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author voting on himself (though he really likes the two other
designs)
minimum todo's: some styles should be fixed for netscape browser.
some agreement should be reached with regard to text-content
surrounding html - this to obtain 100% 4.0 html standards, but also to
obtain the same look & feel across the whole site (and across
browesers _and_ platforms).
possibly cut down on the "toc/top"-navigators.
possibly add a banner-section at the bottom (?)
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Allan's design is clean, concise, and fast, just like mod_perl itself.
However, I don't like how some of the links work. It's hard to get
back to the home page. Carlos's link structure is a bit better
because from any page you can get to any other page. I think they
should collaborate. But as far as the look and feel of the site, my
vote is for Allan; I like the simplicity. But I like the "Did you
know?" section in Thomas and Carlos's sites, so maybe that could be
incorporated into Allan's somehow.
I think all 3 should collaborate to make a site like the Apache home
page (www.apache.org).
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Juul's has nice clean design, easy on the eyes.
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Those in favor of Carlos Ramirez (50/167 votes) said:
http://www.quantumfx.com/modperl_site/
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Pretty & simple layout, makes access easy in first screen to important
parts of the site.
Also big +, works on Netscape 4.7x :)
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Nice clean look.
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Nicely done!
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This was by far the easiest one to read. Good work!
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All three designs have their good points. Klausner's was my initial
favorite with only the left side of the page devoted to navigation and
other `window dressing', but Ramirez's won out because it had similar
ideas, but the execution was slightly cleaner: Klausner's content is
enclosed within a table that does not fit the page (Mozilla 0.9.3)
while Ramirez's doesn't use such a table and so visually fits the page
better.
I like Juul's clean look with so few graphics, but the navigation
requires the back button to get between the major areas. This may
especially be a problem if the viewer is deep within one area and
needs to get out. The easiest way at that point is to edit the URL.
In the final design, I'd like to see some of the sparseness of Juul's
site combined with Ramirez's visual appeal (appearing to fill the
page) with Klausner's idea of navigation only on the left leaving the
rest of the page for content.
An alternative for the navigation would be to place it at the top of
the page with nothing on the left/right. This would be more of a
combination of Ramirez's and Juul's.
Of course, I think the breadcrumb in Klausner's is good and could be
the one thing that could save Juul's design in toto.
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Allan's design doesn't fit itself to the width of my browser window -
text goes past the right edge even with the window set to full screen
width.
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Pretty good. I'd say fix up the header matrix to look better, and go
easy on all the bold text in the main body. Perhaps make the bold
text be links. The factoids are a good idea. Hmmm, wonder if there's
a place in this universe for use.modperl.org :)
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nice, clean, not overly colorful or sub-dued.
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Wish we had more choices, but Carlos' isn't bad.
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This looks the cleanest to me, but I would request/suggest that the
background be a LITTLE darker than stark white... it's easier on the
eyes. Ergo, ya know. :-)
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I like Carlos's design for its clean appearance and consistent
horizontal sizing characteristics, resultant from the top navbar. His
design shares the left side navigation characteristics with the design
submitted by Mr. Klausner, which I like 'almost' as much, with the
esception being the dynamic sizing nature of his ceter-most content
area which varies dimensions with the content. A merge of these two
designs would be a NICE idea.
Mr. Juul's design also has merit in its minimal approach to display
characteristics. I also like the font size and color combinations.
The work well. However it's just a bit too sparse compared to the
other two designs, both of which give good eye candy and little to no
expense of performance and browser interoperablity. Incorporation of
Mr. Juul's font characteristics into the merged design resulting from
Mr. Klausner's and Mr. Ramirez's designs would be the ultimate
solution, given the solutions presented for consideration.
Thanks to all of you folks for your time!
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only one that looks relatively the same in 4.x and post 4.x browsers.
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CARLOS IS THE MAN
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Simply looks the best :-)
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This seems to be the cleanest design, although mixing it with some
visual things from Thomas' site would be interesting.
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Thomas Klausner's design is good too, but I hate the background color
on the links on the leftnav.
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All of them look reasonably good under Netscape and Lynx, but Carlos's
design is cleanest and easiest for me to navigate with a graphical
browser.
I'm in favour of sites that can be used effectively without graphics,
but Allan's design is harder to use in Netscape than the other two.
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great site.
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Clean, simple but still inviting
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Simple and clean yet inviting
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Those in favor of Thomas Klausner (86/167 votes) said:
http://domm.zsi.at/modperl-site-domm/
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very neat :)
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Clean, and breadcrumbs are tasty!
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easier to navigate more intuitive nice layout and easy to view
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Please consider stealing some text from the "What is mod_perl"
description on take23.org for the front page. The one up here reads
pretty badly, and all the bold bits just look terrible.
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Allan's looks better but I can't see how the nav at the bottom will
work effectively
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If Allan had used strict HTML and CSS, CSS instead of tables to do the
[toc|top] effect, and a relative font-size I probably would have
leaned towards his aesthetic.
As it is Thomas has a very accessible site and nice clean design.
Nice job Carlos but I found the way your TOC was done less intuitive
than Thomas'.
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Why is download hi-lited on the home page
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I _really_ dislike the fact that the "main" window resizes all the
time - especially in cases like when clicking on the "Statistics"
link. If this can't be resolved, then I would move my vote to Carlos
Ramirez's design.
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Well, the other two were either impossible to navigate, or broke my
browser :-( It's a pity because they could have been good too.
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it's great that everyone is taking the time to work on this...
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I liked Klausner and Ramirez's, didn't care as much for Juul's.
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Well, maybe I am biased, but I like mine best!
Allan Juul's versions is IMO lacking some NavBars (i.e. if you are
deep in some subsection there is now way to switch to another section
without first clicking on "home")
In Carlos Ramirez' version some files are missing, so I can't tell how
he did e.g. the prev/up/next stuff
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All the submitters should be congratulated.
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Allan's site is quite nice but difficult to read because of the font
sizes chosen. Thomas' site is clean looking but I do have one
request--the title-bar of the page should incorporate the name
mod_perl so that About becomes mod_perl/About (or something similar)
so that one can pick out the appropriate browser page when it is
occluded by some other window.
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No comment
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Thomas' site barely beat out Allan's. Mainly becuase the links were
very visible and quick for me to jump to my destination. I usually
know where I'm going and having those main links in the same place on
every page is helpful. Allan's site compacted much into small spaces
and I like that, it was much cleaner looking. So I vote for Thomas'
even though it looks very php-ish.
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I like the look and navigation.
The pages that have not much content look a bit off though.
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Overall, I liked Thomas' design the best. It's consistent with other
mod_* sites and it's clear and understandable. Allan's design lacked
solid navigation. Carlos' design was nice, but the two tiers of
"tabs" are a little confusing and adding a new "area" breaks that
scheme.
BTW: Great idea making it a competition...
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I like this one best, but the right hand column size changing issues
need to be resolved somehow. Otherwise, it is a clear, easy to
navigate layout.
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This one wins because it is clearer. But it could be improved by
making sure the content box is always full width. E.g. on the
Statistics page.
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Not overly wild about any of them, but the first is cleanest.
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I have one major caveat. The size of the main text box changes from
page to page. It really needs to stay the same size on all pages.
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Easiest to follow
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All three designs are a big improvement on the current site! It's a
tossup for me between the Klausner and Ramirez entries... but I think
I like the former because the side navigation is more scalable to
future changes than the top banner. If we were angling for corporate
viewing, I think we'd need a new logo in general for mod_perl,
though. Perhaps when the new site is finished this will encourage
people to point out areas of the site they can improve. :)
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My only comment would be to make sure the right side content box is
always width 100%. Looks very strange when there isn't enough text to
stretch it out.
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I choice Thomas Klausner's site based on ease of use. I also liked
Allan Juul's site design. To me it had a cleaner look, but was
significantly slower and more difficult to navigate because of the
smaller font size used for links, and the lack of a standard
navigation bar in a fixed position. It would be a big win if the
refined look of Allan Juul's site could be incorporated with the easy
navigation of Thomas Klausner's site.
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Looks great
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the content box could use a minimum width. (it looks a little anemic
on the mailing lists page, for example.) the upper-left logo
desperately wants to be redone.
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I like the Major navigation stuff at the top of Carlos' layout better.
But Thomas' execution is just much more astheticaly pleasing.
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Thomas Klausner had a very clean interface and it was clear what was
available to me.
Carlos Ramirez had an interface which was a bit more difficult to
follow. I didn't like the topbar navigation.
Allan Juul - way to spartan
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Clean, easy to read, large text body area. Pretty. :)
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Best and clearest navigation.
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Looks very clean, yet professional, and is easy to navigate.
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Nearly perfect! :-)
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Allan's fonts are *way* too small, even in Linux/Mozilla, Carlos
commits two crimes in my book: (1) putting a button bar on the top is
bad, that's the "ignore me" zone, thanks to banner ads; (2) He abuses
<table> tag for magazine style layout. Though on the plus side, both
sites look great in lynx... not sure how Carlos managed that: serving
up different html based on the user-agent string? Cute, but an
unnecessary complication, in my opinion: just keep it simple, and you
don't need to worry about that kind of thing.
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It doesnt completly comply to html 4.01
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Thomas and Carlos' designs are almost too similar to choose between.
Allan is obviously very young and thus still has youthful eyes since
his font is way too small.
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seemed the most consistent all the way through (one of the others
lacked links to go back and the menus kept changing)
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This one actually specifies the text color, instead of relyin g on the
system default. Good job, since I use a dark background with light
text, other's that define the bgcolor to white, but not the text
really screw up my browsing.
Might want to try putting the bgcolor in the very back to be other
than white, this would provide some good contrast, be a little easier
on the eyes when reading a lot.
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Most logically built. Main subjects are always accessible... Looks
friendly ;)
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Clean and ballanced.
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simple and easy to navigate
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Easy on my eyes
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clean but familiar and comfortable
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I like the navigation and the looks better.
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If you could make the white boxes on the left have the same width, the
Thomas Klausner entry would be much better (and I'm voting for it
anyway).
The Allan Juul entry had text that was far too small for me to be able
to read with my Netscape on Linux.
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I liked Thomas' general design the best, but the implementation looks
pretty bad in Netscape 4.75. I think it's trying to use dynamic
layers for the various design elements, but they frequently get
displayed in the wrong places, on top of each other, etc.
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Feels a bit more normal, like the left hand side bar motif...
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To be honest, all 3 dont strike me as a great solution, but the first
one seemed to be the closest to it.
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oops, was being paranoid and didn't put my proper e-mail address the
first time, 8^)
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I would suggest mod_perl have 2 groups one for beginners and other for
advanced users,so that the amount of questions related to each group
will surface.This is to save time and efficent working of the mailing
list.
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I don't emphatically love any of them, but if I had to choose, I'd
pick Klausner's design. Many bugs though in every one though.
Can't we keep the old site? And you can't say, "You're too
traditional," because I just got introduced to mod_perl less than a
week ago, and I like the current site's design... useful for
instructional purposes.
Quickly, couple of bugs in Klausner's design (have to get back to
work):
* Boxes for the main content area resizes strangely/awkwardly.
* About section (http://domm.zsi.at/modperl-site-domm/about/about.html)
has those "Up", "Download" blue bars... 1) they're not on the other
sections 2) they are strangely sized too
* News@Take23 link does not indicate to visitor that s/he is leaving the
site.
Can I fork my own version of the site? :) (When I have time)
Regardless, kudos to the designers for volunteering, they probably
used their sparse free time to make these designs (mod_perl fun taking
up the rest).
_____________________________________________________________________
Stas Bekman JAm_pH -- Just Another mod_perl Hacker
http://stason.org/ mod_perl Guide http://perl.apache.org/guide
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://ticketmaster.com http://apacheweek.com
http://singlesheaven.com http://perl.apache.org http://perlmonth.com/
