Your ideas! How should the front page change?

  • I want to change the look of the http://www.sp-studio.de front page and since you are a bunch of creative masterminds, maybe you have some good ideas you want to share. :)


    There is one big problem with this homepage: Most people only visit the front page. Of course that's where the magic happens. But it's a bit sad that the news, the gallery and the forum are not noticed in the way they should. I thought about promoting them on the main page by using the empty space under the SP-Studio. A first experiment was the Christmas special. Yes, I loved the simple look of the page... but it seems like I have to change it. So I wonder how this could be done by still achieving a clean design.


    Here is a template I created, please have a look at it.


    If you want to help me you can edit this file and show me your ideas. Or maybe you have a completely new design in mind for the whole page? I am curious about it!


    Just remember those 3 things for your suggestions:
    - The page should work with a resolution of 1024x768.
    - The SP-Studio itself should be the focus of the main page, so its position should not change much.
    - I need the ad banner to pay for my server, so it has to stay in the upper erea of the page.

  • I think the main Problem about the current look and your template is, that the most people do not even scroll down, they just want to use the studio.


    So, my suggestion would be, to include something like a pop-down menu, which appears , if you move your courser ofer the gallery/ news button. But it's not like an menu, but an overview of the recent posted pictures of the gallery / the latest news.


    btw, I do love clean designed websites too.


    I thought of something like that

  • How about News/Gallery boxes being on Top, and the studio under it? I know, that would be quite an unusual layout, but it's more simple than pop-down menu suggested by Till, and even if user would just scroll down to the studio, he/she will at least have a glance of what's going on in SP-Studio.... ;)

  • No, sorry. The SP-Studio should be the most important part of the page, so I do not want people to have to scroll down. I could place the ad or gallery / news teasers on top of it if the menu would disappear... but there is not enough space left for a sidebar menu if I stick with the 1024 layout.
    But maybe there is another way to make the menu smaller... I will think about this.


    Regarding pop ups: I have to admit I don't like pop ups (or similar) very much. If you need to move your mouse cursor over a menu item to see more info most people won't do it. Most of them don't seem to care about thos menu buttons, so this most likely will not change the situation we have now.
    A dropdown menu would be possible to get some free space on top of the main page, but this might even make it worse.

  • I am testing some things now. When I change the look of the main page I want to change my blog software as well (from Serendipity to WordPress).


    The news page will not be available for several days because of this, and images might disappear in the main menu. Just in case you wonder what's going on ;).

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