The Noosphere

[Noosphere]

Originally Posted by CoffeeToki

The atmosphere is very mysterious. I like the colors and design. It may help to shorten your word count in the forum descriptions, maybe keeping it 20 words or less.

The TN Sphere and the Gallery seems to serve the same purpose, except that the TN Sphere displays the gallery in a sphere. Is that right, or did I miss something?

Thanks for taking the time.

On the forum descriptions, that's thought-provoking advice. Believe it or not, we've already cut them down from where they started. Will take the comment to heart and look at ways to pare them down more w/o losing the message.

As to the redundancy of the Gallery and Sphere, the answer is yes, they are. That's temporary though. The Sphere was a last minute add-on, mostly because we ran across it like a week ago and thought it was a cool toy. The intent, once we get with the designer on the how-to, is to incorporate it into an active front-page module that can serve as a kind of interactive 3D site index (individual pics will also link directly to various site components, etc.) Might prove to be more flash than substance, though, so not sure if it'll stick.

For the time being it's admittedly just a toy to play with.

Originally Posted by Schnee

Looks good to me.

Here are the things that might be considered criticism
As a designer, I always prefer a sans-serif font as the main font for the page because they are easier to read.

For example, on your page, you have JOINING TN as a link, and I thought it said JOINING IN.

That's bad. Will have to play around with that. Reason we chose Comic Sans was simply aesthetic preference---not a big fan of the default fonts. Still, readability and clarity have to trump appearances, so the advice is well taken.

Also, (gosh, don't be mad) I would add more space around the images in the news posts? They kind of butt up against the text and it is a little distracting/hard to read.

Please know, I am an older reader, and things like that bother my eyes. Could be your entire demographic has young and fresh eyes, in which case, these comments are moot

How could I be mad? I asked for this.

I think I agree on the spacing b/w the blog thumbnail pics and text. As an older reader myself you're talking my language. Will definitely work on that. As to the demographics, truth is we're simply aiming for an "adult" audience---be they 18 or 78. It's more about intellectual than chronological age. Meaning, ultimately, we have to find a graphic balance that works for eyes of all ages. I'm discovering that's a rather intriguing challenge.

My only other comment is to maybe home a more prominent link to your "What We're About" or FAQ thread? I finally found it because your content made me curious and it seems you invite all members, but it was really hard to tell what your site was about.

Excellent advice. Having stared at this thing for a couple months straight, it's easy to lose sight of how it looks to fresh eyes. Don't want to beat people over the head with the "what we're about" stuff, but don't want them to get frustrated and/or bored searching for it and drift away either.

The Plus side...
I LIKE IT AND WANT TO KEEP READING.

Most kind. Our focus now (beyond studying some recently-suggested structural tweaks) is on building content, and lots of it, so that when people do find us for the first time they might, if nothing else, be intrigued enough to bookmark us against a rainy day.

Again, thanks to both of you for drilling down into this and taking the time to write up your thoughts.

Invaluable.