Coming Soon: Site header redesign (UPDATED FIRST POST 7/1)

[Chocolate-Kitty-Cat]

:::Musical Speaker Egg:::
:[ There shouldn't be a footer at all. Irritating things they are. The bubble works just fine for me thank you.
:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::

[Mono Monoko]

I knew it would turn out this way.


You were going to release it no matter what we thought.


Can it be optional, at the very least?

[France Hopper]

While I do think it's a good idea Gaia is trying to freshen up the header and footer to make them useful, I think Gaia needs to reconsider a few things.

First off, that is one ugly design. And when I say ugly, I mean that looks worse than the dump on the other side of my hometown. I know purple is a main color on Gaia, but I think it's become overused. Second, why is the logo getting moved to a tab-like box? I think it's fine as is. Third, in the screenshot that was given, let's take a look at the colors. Purple (main navigation), another purple (footer and logo), black (background), and white (body) seem to be the main colors present. And then we have the blue box for gold and gaia cash. Where did that come from? Did anyone consider the principles of design and contrast when that was thrown in? Speaking of thrown in, what is up with that counter in the middle of practically no where? I didn't even notice that until after switching tabs from this post to the picture 10 times. How is that supposed to stand out and get noticed if there's no box or something around it?
Finally, and from the sound of the first post I'm not the first to complain about this, the design is completely unoriginal. I keep seeing more and more sites jump on the floating footer bandwagon. First it was Facebook, then YouTube RealTime, and now Gaia? Really? Is it too much to ask for some original way of displaying notifications?

Normally I like seeing new ideas and I hate having to rip them apart, but this one needs serious reconsideration. Sorry Gaia. Better luck next time.

[steelmagghia]

Re: Update 6/22/09

I really like that you guys are showing that you're listening to concerns. I think it is entirely justified to release the footer and give people a chance to see if they like it before nixing the idea altogether.

Just make sure that you make it very clear in the announcement (when this is released) that you ARE looking for feedback on the footer and you WILL be making decisions on the fate of that footer based on the feedback.
This way you'll have fewer threads and PMs with people freaking out about it all. smile

Good job on the diplomacy, guys, keep it up! And I promise to keep an open mind about the footer, even though I'm one that argued against it.

[Faith Fairy]

Why can't you just add it to the Home-MyGaia-Shop-Community-World-Games bar? I really don't want MORE bars on my window. Let the Gaia artwork shine! Also, I wish I didn't have to say good-bye to the Shortcuts menu. I use it!

[theexiledstripper]

I would just like to say that the bars on facebook and myspace lag my boyfriend's computer so badly (those sites loaded just fine before they were implemented) and now he rarely goes on those sites. For me, the page loads just fine on mine, but the bars don't load majority of the time. I'm afraid with all these changes, you are driving users away. Especially since there are many other things on Gaia that needs to have your attention.

[Kitsune Ebi]

floating footers become annoying after a while. I'm not excited about it at all.

[Wood Sorrel]

No, no. please nothing floating! The site is already laggy on my *new* computer. Floating anything will just make it worse. The header itself looks fine, why not just add the stuff to the main pages bar? KISS! keep it simple stupid!

[Lilskitdid]

It looks so stupid. Especially the bar at the bottom. KEEP IT THE SAME WAY ITS BEEN THE PAST 6th MONTHS.

[daniG0rawr]

i hate floating headers, i luv the bubble. why cant u just leave well enough alone

[Geminai Mistario]

I'm surprised that Gaia is saying they still want the rest of the site's feedback when a mass majority here has only had negative feedback. The team is very optimistic and it still comes off as "we don't care what you think we're implementing it". At least thank you for hearing us on the notification bubble.

Please hold off on implementing the floating footer until you have enabled a way for users to disable it AT LAUNCH. Many of us sound certain that we don't want it, and if you do deploy it and we test it and don't like it, we don't want to wait for you to decide to ditch it.

Also, I have some friends on here who can barely handle the site right now as is with the changes over the past year or two to the layout confused They can't afford a new computer right now and if they could, Gaia shouldn't be the reason they have to replace it. Floating footers for these users on other websites usually cause more lag and issues for the browser. If they run into these technical issues we are worried about, they should be able to disable it IMMEDIATELY. Hold off the launch please until the option to disable is ready.
If this causes my friends to be unable to communicate with me on Gaia, I'll be leaving since that is the main use I have for the site nowadays, to keep in touch with my friends who can't run messengers right now and so we have something to slightly amuse us while communicating instead of bland emails and racking up a phone bill. I don't believe I'm the only one in this situation now, however, I do know users in this situation are less of a majority and even probably a minority.

There are many reasons to have a disable available at launch, and I'm sure the users who are also against the footer would appreciate it. I would see that as reaching a middle ground with the dev's, because right now I DO NOT believe you when you say "we're going to deploy it and then hear your feedback". I believe you are going to deploy it and not get rid of it, and then take longer to give us a way to disable it.

[Twelve hundred and two]

"An idealized version of the author mainly for the purpose of wish fulfillment"

★.♥XI-wanna-be-a-MarysueX♥.★

gracewar7

In addition, we considered making changes to the footer based on your feedback. However, we realized that it's tough to evaluate something when you're not interacting with it and just looking at a mock (which someone pointed out is in pretty low resolution). We'd like to take a chance and release it, let it live and breathe a little bit. We'll be releasing it together with an official feedback thread with the announcement. Based on the feedback from the broader Gaia community, we will decide what to do next. There were great suggestions from you, including an option to turn it off or to hide/minimize it, etc. All of these will be considered - we'd simply like to gather more feedback post-launch when you've actually had a chance to try this.

Is there a just NO floating footer option? Possibility? If feedback for it is overwhelmingly negative, is there actually any chance of the footer being removed entirely?

[Estefania Jericho]

gracewar7

Can you please trust us? smile

UPDATE 06/23/09
Now i can do it, but once something is broken it takes time to build it again. I trust you just a bit. but at least I trust you all again.

[Yen Quest]

Don't want to be rude, but I'll just have to ask anyway. If you wanted the whole userbase to give you feedback on the footer, why not make this an announcement to begin with? Sure, I'll try it out, but I doubt I'll like it in the end. The reasons for the change (promise for future interactive headers) still doesn't make me all that supportive. :/

Other than that, I am glad for the PM being put back up there in the bubble notification. Thankyou for not moving it down to the bottom of the screen.

[xx_BbyPBear_xx]

gracewar7

UPDATE BELOW.

We've been working hard on a redesign of the site header. We all know Gaia to be a vibrant and lively community site, and we wanted to express this more visually in the header. As you may know, we have been using the header for Gaia events like Valentine's Day, Promageddon and so on. We want to continue doing that, and in addition, reserve the space in the header for more social and community related purposes in the future. So watch that space!

You'll see that the new redesign actually looks very minimalist. The idea was to take the more utility-type functions (e.g., notifications, PMs, Gaia IM, shortcuts) and move them to a new floating footer. Check out the new design here:

Site header redesign

A few points to note:
- Friends module is back! Yes, we heard your concerns when this was removed from the homepage. You can now see your friends and check their online status by clicking on the Friends icon in the new floating footer, like so:

- Unfortunately, after much pondering and debate, we decided to remove the world map as it was taking a big toll on the page load speed. You can still access the map through the World landing page. There is much we can do with depicting the Gaia world, and we want to work through that in a more integrated way with the site before re-introducing the world concept in a big way later.
- Announcements will still be in the speech bubble next to your avatar, and all other notifications have moved to the new floating footer.

So, what do you think? Like it? Hate it? Let us know what you're thinking!

Quick clarification: When you get a new PM or other notification while you're on the site or when you first sign in, you'll see a little bubble pop from the footer letting you know. So there'll be some notification apart from the change in the numbers on the footer icons. smile

UPDATE 6/22:

Thanks, everyone, for your valuable feedback. You've provided a lot of food for thought. The biggest concerns I seem to be hearing are:
1) You want to see your notifications, particularly PMs, up in the header as usual and not moving down to the footer.
2) You don't want a floating footer for a few reasons:
a) It is too Facebook-like and takes away from Gaia's identity.
b) You're worried about the lag.
c) You're concerned about the space it will take up at the bottom of the page and the fact that it follows you everywhere on the site.

After digesting this feedback and speaking to the various teams, here's what we will do before the first release: We will put PM notifications back in the bubble in the header.

In addition, we considered making changes to the footer based on your feedback. However, we realized that it's tough to evaluate something when you're not interacting with it and just looking at a mock (which someone pointed out is in pretty low resolution). We'd like to take a chance and release it, let it live and breathe a little bit. We'll be releasing it together with an official feedback thread with the announcement. Based on the feedback from the broader Gaia community, we will decide what to do next. There were great suggestions from you, including an option to turn it off or to hide/minimize it, etc. All of these will be considered - we'd simply like to gather more feedback post-launch when you've actually had a chance to try this.

I hope that goes a little way in alleviating some of your concerns. Thanks for all your thoughts.

-Gracewar

WTH!?!?!?!?!