New typographic approach to posts?

[JensS]

Hey,

I don't know if you ever read articles on medium.com, but they are an absolute pleasure to the eye.

They respect many typographic principles … especially the line length (characters per line). Secondly its “the big web“ approach in webdesign (bigger elements).

While the latter may be hard to implement in an conservative bulletin board, I guess the never ending lines on the board layout can be changed in the next major version?

Example: https://medium.com/better-humans/271ae5edf93e

Some further articles on the subject:

- http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2013/05/17/typographic-design-patterns-practices-case-study-2013/

- http://webdesign.tutsplus.com/articles/typography-articles/typographic-readability-and-legibility/

- http://alistapart.com/article/on-web-typography

(dont just push the looks :tongue: )

Cheers

[bfarber]

One "problem" here is that the author is the person in control of the content. There is of course nothing stopping YOU from posting in such a manner, but what is going to make your users post in a manner that matches the style of writing you find to be best?

In terms of the design, a fixed width content area, large font sizes, etc. is all just CSS and can be done easily, even on the current version.

[JensS]

I doubt that it's just CSS. I guess, a different approach to how the posts text is layouted would influence the rest of the discussion design.

It may be only me but I think this is an area where bulletin boards really can get a push into a more modern appeal and feel.

[JensS]

Ok, I did a real quick mockup of how I could imagine this. Just for the inspirational purpose ;)

This is the original bulletin board layout of the conversation (dont judge the topic, I just really quickly wanted a non tech subject :D )

Cheers

Has this topic really 90'000 views O.o

[Michael]

I doubt that it's just CSS.

No, it really is.

[bfarber]

Indeed, you can implement your mockup now by editing the skin templates and the CSS files (I'd guess 90%+ can be done in CSS only).

Some notes I noticed though:

• The topic has many images and little text. Your mockup has one image and a few paragraphs. This would naturally impact the outcome in your mockup if you were to take the content as-is.
• There is no "subtitle" feature for replies to a topic presently, which you have in your mockup.

That said, keep in mind that in the name of simplicity you are removing a lot of functionality from the software in your mockup. Reputation, sharing links, moderation buttons and reply options (i.e. "quote"), marking a topic as solved, signatures, topic rating, links to other areas like search (and the quick search bar), etc. etc. Only you can decide what is useful for your site and what isn't of course, but in any official released design we need to account for all of these things.

[JensS]

Yeah sure, I just wanted to demonstrate how body text is more legible and didn't want to tinker around with all the profile features. I guess you're thinking more "feature"-wise and I more layout-wise… :smile:

The great thing about the medium.com thing is, that the text editor shows exactly how the text will come out. I guess this is the main reason for the resulting texts look so well formatted.

To demonstrate I attached two screenshots of this very text in both editors.

[fadedturbulence]

Just to point out a simple minor fact about the two editors like that.

In actuality, they are the same. In the IPB Forum editor, make some font changes, make something big red and center it. It will show you right there, instantly what it will look like. That shot you have of the IPB editor is all basic text, and when you hit submit thats how it will look on the forums. On your comparison shot, the font is already different, maybe a template, or just gathers the font render from the site font automatically so when typing it stays in flow with the rest of the site (same with any script, if default is times new roman the whole site including the editor will be default that.) Streamlined.

I like your first mockup of the forums, it brings a sense of difference to the table. I think if you probably worked on it, added in the features missing (as mentioned by bfarber), and if you still liked it (if it doesn't make it non-minimal anymore), one of the great site themer's here could probably build it for you [for a fee]. I would probably say its very possible in its current stage to make, like they said all CSS and some good HTML.

Good idea though, I like :smile:. Maybe a bit too white, but its different, and still gets the same message across.

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

On 6/28/2013 at 7:31 AM, bfarber said:

Indeed, you can implement your mockup now by editing the skin templates and the CSS files (I'd guess 90%+ can be done in CSS only).

 

Some notes I noticed though:

• The topic has many images and little text. Your mockup has one image and a few paragraphs. This would naturally impact the outcome in your mockup if you were to take the content as-is.
• There is no "subtitle" feature for replies to a topic presently, which you have in your mockup.

 

 

That said, keep in mind that in the name of simplicity you are removing a lot of functionality from the software in your mockup. Reputation, sharing links, moderation buttons and reply options (i.e. "quote"), marking a topic as solved, signatures, topic rating, links to other areas like search (and the quick search bar), etc. etc. Only you can decide what is useful for your site and what isn't of course, but in any official released design we need to account for all of these things.

Ever heard the saying "Less is more"?

Look at Google's home page.

it saddens me to say that I'm reading this in 2019.... and still have to say "See!"....

 

[bfarber]

5 minutes ago, TheWorldNewsMedia.org said:

Ever heard the saying "Less is more"?

Look at Google's home page.

it saddens me to say that I'm reading this in 2019.... and still have to say "See!"....

 

You're quoting a post from 2013.......

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

Just now, bfarber said:

You're quoting a post from 2013.......

See my last sentence