minimalistic style of nexialys.net on review

Ok, first time seen i think, a minimalistic style for vBulletin...

i was planning a redesign of my style for a long time, but the sudden loss of my main client this weekend made me speedup this development step for my company.

so here it is: http://vb.nexialys.net/

it's a MINIMALISTIC style.. if you do not like pale, skinny minimal styles, please do not post your review, i know what kind of comments can come from this.

Web 2.0 to its best, blog-style based, as you can see from my blog: http://blog.nexialys.net/ ...

it's also a work in progress, that's why i request a review right now, it's time to add or drop some details, and i know that some guys here LOVE to comment on complex styles...

for the curious, there is only 3 templates edited on this site, besides the customisations i apply on my site -- my business... the default vBulletin 3.7.3 you see is what you would have if you apply my style on your site, but you do not have the budget to make it worthy!

If you want infos about the icons etc, like a ton of people already asked, the details are in the Colophon...

[gfxhelp.com]

I would maybe make the background of the forum not alternate, it gets a little confusing as far as what's a title, what's alt1, and what's alt2. If it was white titles with all yellow or blue bg it may be easiest to see what's what.

Also for the right nav, the titles are very visible, but the actual content (Welcome on the new...) gets a little washed out since it's the same bg as the body bg. Actually now that I read it, shouldn't it be "Welcome to the new..."?

# Accessibility
# CSS2 + some CSS3
# xHTML Transitional
etc etc
The text for this area looks very strange in FF3.

http://blog.nexialys.net/category/articles/ , the login button at the top has a strange border.

In the Share and Enjoy: list it's going alphabetically which makes the print icon blend it. It should probably be separated in some way.

Anyways I like it bug it needs more of a color scheme in the sense of each "class" or type of elements needs consistency.

And then of course add a fav icon and have the logo link back home, I noticed the slide show at the top has an alt of "Return Home", I assume that's going to link to the appropriate article once complete.

The links at the very bottom go to http://vb.nexialys.net//index.php and give you page not found.


Edit: actually looking at it again, I would huck the blue bg and make all the forum bgs orange. The blue is a little too cold.

[RedeemedWarrior]

not bad at all, rather classy reminds me of wordpress:P

*notices Redstiletto posts there and waves*

Thanks Sam, all these critics are important to me, thanks for the details.

some of the details are out of my control, example:

1- the login button is part of the original theme, i will fix it anyway.
2- Share and Enjoy is a plugin of wordpress, i do not plan on editing it as it's updated often, but anyway, their print icon will be disabled, nobody print anymore these days!

i'm with you on the color scheme, i was unsure of what would be the final color, but you are right... it gives me help on deciding which... blue?!. .lol

typo corrected in the right nav, but i have a ton of typos, i'm french first, was teached english by a scotish, imagine the mix. (a chinese cow would have been the same). the bg of the right nav was not activated because i did not know yet what would be the global color .. i will see the result by playing with the theme.

favicon, damn, forgot it.. lol

and the links, sure they will fixed, i have to finish these details... it's a beta theme, as said and indicated in the header... if i forget nothing, it would be a perfect beta, so i would need no critics.. lol

oh, and FF3, on PC... have to install that, IE 8 too... i have just added Windows Vista Ultimate on my other Mac for testing the look (and play a little Halo 2 game) ... i will check that side of the dark world too...

a follow up of Sam's post...

added a favicon, changed the alt colors to fit, a global color scheme, changed some fonts to be more readable...

[Shelley_c]

wow a new favicon. *shelleys officially been dazzled*:up:

what was you old favicon like nexy I never got to marvel at that 16px by 16px piece of art.

Shelley, you were unavailable for creating me a new favicon, sorry, had to take something left on the shelf.

[Princeton]

PROS:

• site colors
• post icons

CONS:

• text color (no contrast or very little offered)
• font size
• right column (my right) - it looks like you just added a bunch of text to it; it just doesn't read well

For a support site, I would think you would target your design for the "older" crowd.

It's the "older crowd" that pays the bills. For this reason alone, you should offer more contrast; increase font size.

At the very least, you should design for everyone. The only people who "may" like the design are the younger crowd - which doesn't imply that it will be successful.

[Shelley_c]

Originally Posted by nexialys

Shelley, you were unavailable for creating me a new favicon, sorry, had to take something left on the shelf.

One of the few styles of your I quite like... Well, it's more the colours I like and the post icons. The text on the right hand side is very difficult to read (screenshot below) enlarge the text perhaps so that it's a little more readable?

I'd also think about designing a new logo. The state of your current logo does not really compliment the style at all. yes, I'm aware you want to keep it simple but you can still retain the simplicity and visually improve upon the logo.

Because of my laziness I haven't went beyond the index page to see what the other areas are like. But like i said, colour usage looks good and the layout even better.

Still can't make out what your favicon is supposed to be though.

the favicon is for me a gadget of no use other than replacing the white file icon usually shown...

for the right sidebar, yeah, i'm going to change it, it's supposed to be a place for banners and late news, but i have no idea how to finish it... remember the beta stage!

for the logo, hum, that's something i'm not sure either, i change my logo like 10 times per year, it's just a place where i show what i do with typologos... but yes, you are right, it is not representing the style in any way.