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
100
100
100
