Left "sub nav" changed...

Dan (libthingdan, also known as James Dean, apparently) just pushed a change to the left navigation on pages like this.

Other examples:

* http://www.librarything.com/groups
* http://www.librarything.com/profile/MEMBERNAME/stats/library
* http://www.librarything.com/groups/thequestforthelastpa

etc. He did it as part of a major revamp of the "More" tab, splitting it into multiple pages and expanding what it covers a lot. That's still to come.

Yep, it's been noticed!

Please only vote after looking at some of the links above. This page isn't typical because nothing is highlighted. That might be a special and separate issue.

Please also see http://www.librarything.com/pic/191770 and images to right and left, which are what it should look like. If it doesn't look like that, that's a bug, not a reason to dislike the change. Base it on the images there, not the bug.

3>

I could live with it in the "nothing highlighted" case, but the highlights go beyond ugly into repellent. Into "please, for the love of God, someone write a Greasemonkey script to make that nauseating green go away" territory.

The Bar-ba-Loots are dying!

I voted yes, but I do think you should consider making the text black rather than gray.

Mine looks exactly like what is pictured (FF/Win7). The gray on gray seems an odd choice and would be harder to read at a glance if I didn't already have that menu memorized. I don't find the green as nauseating as lorax does, but it is on the garish side. I thought the bold text we had before was enough to signify what page one was looking at.

But, I'll probably be used to it after a week's time. If not, Greasemonkey will erase it for me.

>6 _Zoe_:

Dammit, Zoe, we agree.

>7 DaynaRT:

Okay, but you love the site. (I know.) So let's work to the best solution. Besides Greasemonkey slows pages down.

I agree on the gray. I want darker, and maybe all the way black on the highlighted one. My feelings are that whatever are my problems with it, someone with even older eyes has to have more.

Incidentally, the green is the same green as on profile pages and elsewhere. It's the standard LibraryThing green. It may feel different—and feeling matters—because it's in a small space.

Okay, I agree with Zoe and Tim about wanting the text to be black, but other than that I think I'll like this just fine when I get used to it. I actually really like the green bar in the box, particularly the way it crosses the edges of the box.

because it's in a small space
Definitely.

I want darker
Please do this.

I wanted to add that I actually like how the green bar extends past the main box. It gives it an old radio dial, moving up and down the bands type of feel.

I'm not wild about the grey-text-on-grey or the grey-and-green combination (it's the colour combination for me: the same green against white doesn't bother me at all) but those are minor personal quibbles and on the whole I like it much more than I dislike it.

ETA: I like the way the green box is wider than the main box, too.

I think the darkness thing is important to people with older monitors and older eyes. LibraryThing staff tends to be young-ish (not so much me, I'm 39) and we have kick-ass monitors set to maximum contrast.

I like the moose. Though I might have gone too far in the picture slide show.

It's growing on me fairly quickly. Not that I was strongly opposed, but as I get used to it, I like it better. In a few weeks, I won't remember what it used to look like!

I agree that the text should be darker, and like the idea of the text in the box being black.

If the green is too upsetting to people, what about using the creamy yellow color also used on home and profile pages? (I like the green . . . but I can understand differing tastes.)

>13 timspalding:
I have a brand new monitor and the colors aren't yet tweaked to my satisfaction. That may be part of what I'm seeing.

And you are so totally older than me. :P

Will this be used on the left-nav of the work pages as well? Otherwise, it seems inconsistent to me.

I, too, like it more than I dislike it. I don't have any problems with the green (the "theory" part is clever, and the green-on-gray combination isn't giving me trouble).

There are really only two problems with it, and both are small. One, of course, is that the gray text is hard to read against a gray background. The second is that the old version didn't need changing; as far as I'm concerned, the programming time could have been spent on things that did legitimately need work, like upgrading the "other authors" for old books to the new system.

(moving this from the other thread)

For those not affected by bugs, I think the green was probably the straw that broke the camels back. You don't really use it anywhere else on the site, do you? It just feels like it's a bit out of the color palette for the site as a whole. Maybe if you tried to use existing colors, like the blue background on unread messages or the flyover color for messages in the message list, or just a slight variation of those.

Will this be used on the left-nav of the work pages as well? Otherwise, it seems inconsistent to me.

Yeah, and author pages too. I dunno. I want to figure out how to get the book cover in there. The problem with design is that design can clash. When you don't have much a design, it can't :)

I'll try the yellow color. Maybe that'll be better.

You don't really use it anywhere else on the site, do you?

It's the green on every profile page, and many other pages. Its the other major color we use!

Wow, I'm definitely outnumbered here. I guess other people either don't see it in the "treating us like idiots" way, or don't mind. I'm quite surprised that the green is the same; I think Tim and fleela are right, it looks more objectionable in a small space.

I like the green, and I'm a lot older than Tim.

Color is very much about space and size. We learned that the hard way when we liked the color swatch for our new library color. And when it was over the entire library, man it was ORANGE! (I grew to be okay with it.)

I'm going to talk to Dan and get a yellow/tan version up.

I hate that this is getting so much more comment than a YEARS long upgrade of our cataloging system! :)

20> It's the green on every profile page, and many other pages. Its the other major color we use!

Sorry, I should have been more specific (though I admit to forgetting it being on the right-side boxes on the profile, work pages, etc. - just proves the point about new things sticking out). What I really should ask is, "Do you use it anywhere else to signify selected items?"

I think if you're going to start moving into a design that uses color, you need to start making some decisions on how the colors will be tied to functionality. As you said, there wasn't much to class before because it was pretty minimal. I think going forward, it helps to decide how things should look on a consistent basis. I tried harping on this before to get you to always style links similarly across pages (selected links, focused links, fixing the fact that it underlines on some pages and not on others, etc.)

Just some thoughts for someone who doesn't actually have to put in the work to make it happen...

I think if they really wanted to treat us like idiots, they'd make the menu stay visible on the side of the screen as you scroll up and down. I want to stab those kind of menus with flaming daggers.

23> I hate that this is getting so much more comment than a YEARS long upgrade of our cataloging system! :)

C'mon, we quibbled over the name "OverCat" for message after message in BETA. ;)

Do you use it anywhere else to signify selected items

No, good point.

Just some thoughts for someone who doesn't actually have to put in the work to make it happen...

No, I hear you. I think we need a general redesign. I do not think we'll be able to do a massive site-wide one, so it will have to be a rolling one. Consider this log #1 to roll.

Heh, I think this correction deserves its own post. I wrote:
Just some thoughts for someone who doesn't actually have to put in the work to make it happen...

but it was supposed to be

Just some thoughts from someone who doesn't actually have to put in the work to make it happen...

Two totally different meanings there. :D

23>

That's because the people who are commenting on this now mostly already talked about Overcat over on BETA. Or because everyone loves Overcat, and people are far more likely to complain than praise.

From someone who also thinks Tim is just a pup:) like the rest of the staff .(Or Young'uns if I may)
I don't like the grey on grey, my eyes go right to the darker text then try to focus on the lighter and it hurts!

>29 lorax:

Also, because that's how life works. Visual stuff is something everyone can talk about. OverCat is a little complicated and involves being smart about something complex. Also, yes, beta sucks the life out of it.

>30 susiesharp:

Yeah.

30> Differences in monitors also probably plays a significant factor in this. LCD versus CRT, what you have the contrast and brightness set on, etc. could affect this a great deal.

29> I think it also has to do with the nature of the change. People are talking a lot on Talk about a change to the navigation bar in Talk. It just makes sense. Once you get your library mostly entered, you don't use the Add books part nearly as much as you use talk, if you're a Talk junkie like most of the people you'll find posting here.

I have to say, I'm worried about the "look at me!" aspect of the thing. We're asking people if they like the new look. That focuses people on it. It's nice. But you can't really get people to evaluate it in context. Does it have too much prominence? Is it pulling your eye away from the CONTENT of the page?

I don't mind it. (But, is the font larger? or is it just the internal margins? Things that were on one line are now broken onto 2. So, my feedback is: it could be slightly more compact.)

The thing I find, though, is that it doesn't match the look of the rest of the page or the rest of the site. It looks slicker and cleaner, actually, and kind of makes the rest of the page look clunkier and more dated. And it makes the other colors look that much more garish. (But then, I've never been a fan of the pink/green/blue mixed pastels color scheme.) Sorry! Maybe it's the fact that this box has rounded corners and other ones on the page have square edges. I don't know. But something feels off.

Will this be used on the left-nav of the work pages as well? Otherwise, it seems inconsistent to me.

Yeah, and author pages too.

The work page really doesn't have any horizontal space to spare for fancy sticking-out highlighting. The current horizontal scrolling required in 1024 width already looks really, really bad and unprofessional.

34> The thing I find, though, is that it doesn't match the look of the rest of the page or the rest of the site. It looks slicker and cleaner, actually, and kind of makes the rest of the page look clunkier and more dated.

I think you're definitely onto something, there.

> 33

Does it have too much prominence? Is it pulling your eye away from the CONTENT of the page?

When I first noticed the change, I thought that the box was taking up more room on the page than it did before. I don't know if it really is, or if that's an optical illusion, but I did get that impression.

23 I hate that this is getting so much more comment than a YEARS long upgrade of our cataloging system! :)
31 Also, because that's how life works. Visual stuff is something everyone can talk about. OverCat is a little complicated and involves being smart about something complex. Also, yes, beta sucks the life out of it.

All that may be true, but you might also get more discussion in the Overcat thread if you add a brief explanation in the first post of how cool it is and what it allows or will allow LT to do. Some people won't click on the blog post, especially for something that sounds esoteric/technical, and the blog post is LONG, so even if people do click through they might not read it all.

#37 -- I thought the same, particularly on the "Talk" page. The box seems bigger, and it seems like there's a lot of white space to the right of the text. In contrast, the box in-thread (like the one in this thread, for instance) seems slightly cramped -- possibly just by comparison.

33> yes the green leaps out at me with distracting teeth an claws...

I like it. I like the green color (and the other pastels - though would like to avoid yellow/tan).

I think the idea of grey/grey is that it isn't supposed to be readable or demanding of attention until you scroll to it and then it turns green and can be readily seen. So I think its fine with the grey.

Well, when they do eventually get a chance to do the cohesive palette picking we were talking about above in 24/27, it opens up the ability for "themes." I'm not a huge fan of themes, but they do allow a possible answer to the impossible task of making everyone happy. To see an example of theme use with a mainly text-oriented site, look at gmail. It's mainly about saying "this is the color that signifies a selection", "this is the color that signifies the heading of a section", etc.

41> At least on my system, it only turns green after I click on something, not highlight or leave my mouse on something, though that does underline the words, but it does not turn it green until after I selected it.

33>

Well, I think the fact that people noticed it in a negative way before this post argues that it does have too much prominence at least for some people.

31: Also, OverCat is something you can only experience if you have a book to add which doesn't happen to all of us every day, whereas the box/colour stuff is in your face for all.

I ended up voting 'no' because, while I don't care about it over much (and the greys don't show on my screen so I've no opinion on that), I certainly don't like it more than I dislike it.

v

Re: Discussion of OverCat vs site look

Because I've added all my books and rarely add more (monthly) but I'm in Talk several times a day?

Because I really don't care if my book information comes from Amazon as long as the title, author and cover are right?

Overcat is like being given a gift that you don't want and don't care about. It was only being given because the person giving it likes it *. Both sides of the exchange have to agree on the value otherwise its a flop. Has nothing to do with Beta.

If you want people to care, be happy and participate then you should look in the Bug Reports and the RSI requests for projects.

* And the small number who hate Amazon.

>47 FicusFan:

A lot of members like library data and the better quality it provides.

A lot of the bugs come from our data situation—either from crap Amazon data or generally from all data being "searches." Take a sample bug—calculated Deweys not exporting. If LibraryThing used only library data all books would have Deweys and there would be no calculating.

I don't understand the fuss over the green color because it's the same green that's already all over the place and IMO it's fairly neutral.

I also don't understand the fuss over it's too big for the box either. I can see the objective they were trying to meet with it.

I do agree whole-heartedly with the grey on gray box. Again, IMO I would lose it, leaving it
borderless and shadeless as before. That would eliminate the complaint of the green
bar extending too far while still accomplishing the goal of highlighting where you are in the list.

47> Wow. That's a bit of a myopic view.

I wouldn't word it quite so harshly, but I think FicusFan is right in that you could generate more excitement by focusing on the improvements that users want most. Consider implementing Lists next--ideally with some discussion first to make sure the feature will do what people want it to.

Also, people will be a lot more satisfied by regular small improvements than by one massive and time-consuming project that they may not care about anyway.

>51 _Zoe_:

In fairness, many of the things people want are tied up in OverCat. We now have:

1. Backup MARC data for most books in LT, so we aren't tied down by Amazon data restrictions on mobile use.
2. The ability to move away from Amazon link policies.
3. A system that we can put manual edits into, so members can more easily bootstrap off each other's stuff.
4. All the Subject improvements people want
5. Page counts
6. Dimensions
7. Separating the publisher info line (ie., publisher, publisher place, publisher year)
8. Tables of contents for many books
9. A system to allow members to upgrade records

In general catalog improvements are less important for people who've already cataloged.

52> In general catalog improvements are less important for people who've already cataloged.

That's exactly what I was thinking. You could roll out a feature that allowed users to just take a photo of their bookshelf and have it automatically catalog all their titles, and a good portion of the users would say "neat, but what good is it to ME?", since they already went through the hard way of doing it.

Well, my initial reaction was 'Meh!', but then it became closer to AnnaClaire in 18 - what a waste of effort when you could have been doing something useful.

What am I doing wrong? I have no green. My selected box is a nice subdued light blue.

People who only search Amazon will never care about Overcat, until it gives them something tangible Amazon doesn't... like, oh, manual entries? :)

Also, people like to complain. But you knew that already.

56> I always find people's complaints so annoying..

what a waste of effort when you could have been doing something useful

In fairness, Dan wouldn't be doing major database stuff. Of course, I'm now hanging around talking about this, which is time off that.

As for fixing the authors stuff, MARC records are going to help there—a lot.

For reference, here's a thread about what people want, and klarusu conveniently summarized the top results after 25 posts:

Top Three so far:
1. Differentiated handling for wishlist incl. Purple checkmarks
2. Lists
3. Where I bought/found out about this book

All tied for 4th:
4. Currently Reading & Wishlist back linked to work pages
4. Number of pages field

All tied for 5th:
5. Already Read Collection Default
5. CK Original title and alt/translated titles
5. Coloured checkmark for unowned/Custom checks

Part of the problem here is that experienced users mostly want tweaks and expansions to current features. There were people arguing against works, groups and Common Knowledge for much the same reasons.

Incidentally, the title of the thread was "top 5 SMALL improvements." I don't consider that a reliable guide to what people want. Nor are what users think is small actually small. Lists certainly aren't small!

Regarding the new box... I have to agree with lilithcat in #37 about it seeming to take up more room than it used to.

I like it in theory, but in practice, it just doesn't fit, especially on the statistics page. There's already a lot going on with the statistics, and having that box highlighted draws my attention to it and away from the charts and data on the rest of the page. It's less bothersome on threads, but the colors feel wrong on group pages.

I did recognize that the green is a standard LT color, but I think when I'm looking at it, I'm expecting that orangey-tan-peach color instead of grey. The dim grey background is too dark, I think, and the medium grey text doesn't help it. Yet, a lighter background color might not help it stand out against the rest of the page, which is what you want? (Though I don't think it should stand out so much that it's distracting, like on the statistics.)

I do, however, like the CSS used on the text in the green highlighted portion, though the text could do with being closer to black. (There appears to be a slight white shadow?)

Exploring the various pages with the box, I'm getting used to it, but it still sticks out like a sore thumb on the main statistics page. Perhaps the problem there isn't the box but the way the data are presented. Perhaps also, as was suggested earlier in this thread, the nav box would work better if the design were more integrated into the site (which I think is being done, like with the personal data box on book pages - though it would help if the module headers on the homepage were given the rounded corners and same text colors and so on).

62> (There appears to be a slight white shadow?)

Yes, I get a white drop shadow as well. I've been trying to decide if it's the browser's doing or if it's actually in the CSS. Have been too lazy to dig into the actual CSS to try to disentangle it, though. It's not a particularly helpful drop shadow, IMO.

>58 timspalding:

Obviously, I apologise if I seem I was getting at Dan, and looking at klarasu's list highlighted by Zoe it seems that pretty much everything that might be more desirable is tied in to db updates.

I'll add my voice to those that haven't yet spoken up in praise of Overcat because I've not yet had occasion to use it. From the description it does sound good.

Argh. I think I'm going to pull back the change. I know it's 40 to 10, but I think we're better off with less styling when in doubt.

Reposted from the "Make it go away" thread to keep the discussion together:

I've been trying to figure out exactly what it is that bothers me about it so much, and that's exactly it. The left nav-bar is not the most important thing on that page, it's a detail, and the green keeps jumping up and down pulling my eye over there saying "Hey! You! You wanted to go to the Bug Collectors group? Look, I'm on the Bug Collectors group! Just like you wanted, see! Look at me!" Meanwhile I'm trying to actually look at the posts, or make a post, but my eyes keep getting pulled away from the content by what shouldn't actually be the point of the page, now that I'm there.

New content:

I think that may be part of why people who noticed it were less likely to like it, and people who were pointed at it, and were thus already focusing on the box, like it; it's not that it's objectively ugly (except the toothpaste color of the green - how about the unread-message blue?), it's that it draws the eye away from what matters on the page. A temporary highlight on mouseover, so that you know where you're going, would be fine. But I already know where I am without needing bright green highlights on the side of the page to tell me so.

65> Pity.

63> I noticed the drop shadow immediately, though it took me a moment to recognize why the words looked different. It might just be my eyes or laptop screen. I think it does help make the highlighted text stand out a bit, but it still needs to be darker than that grey, especially since I doubt most people (especially poorer eyes than mine) would be able to see it.

Going to spend a little time on at least balancing it out.

>60 timspalding: Well, part of the issue is that new features don't always reach their potential right away. After all the time you initially spent on Local, for example, it really deserves just a bit more attention to become more useful and integrated with the rest of the site. Also, you can just get more value for time spent by building off of what you already have instead of starting from scratch.

Likewise, the thread is about small improvements for a reason: you can make people happier overall with a series of small improvements, both because there's something for everyone and because you can do more in a shorter time. But it's easy to start a new thread about improvements in general, of course.

Also, you said once that you could implement Lists in a weekend.

About the left navigation standing out too much, I think rsterling made a good point: It looks slicker and cleaner, actually, and kind of makes the rest of the page look clunkier and more dated.

You can revert to the old style and make everything look dated together. Or you can upgrade the style of the main content as well, so that it's not overshadowed by the navigation.

This really has gone in a strange and much different direction than I had expected. The reason this "feature" was implemented is simply because it was part of a new project I'm working on and we just decided to push this change site-wide now. In my defense, I had different colors when I originally did this but I really like how it turned out. It does what it's supposed to do really well and in a much more appealing manner than the previous one did. Frankly, if it were up to me I would change the look and feel of a lot of the site.

73> Frankly, if it were up to me I would change the look and feel of a lot of the site.

I think that's what needs to happen. I don't like the box mostly because it doesn't feel like it fits. Update the rest of the site so that it matches - which is something that I think is going in fits and starts, like with the work page change last week - and I won't have complaints about it. Well, maybe I still won't like the grey or the green/grey combo, but I do like it in theory, or else isolated from the rest of the site's design.

ETA: A suggestion? Put a border around thread posts, one with rounded corners. Reorganize the main statistics page and the groups/talk statistics page and use boxes with rounded corners to differentiate parts, and the grey and green for labels there. Just adding rounded corners and containment borders might do a lot.

73: "the look and feel of a lot of the site."

And that's always a touchy subject...

"Frankly, if it were up to me I would change the look and feel of a lot of the site."

I like the sound of this.

v

73>

Frankly, if it were up to me I would change the look and feel of a lot of the site.

Then, with all due respect, I'm happy that it isn't up to you. I like the look and feel of LT, I like that it's content-rich and mostly doesn't treat us like idiots who can't read more than two words without a cute little picture, and I'd hate to see it dumbed down with distracting icons and unnecessary color everywhere.

This change has been called a huge litany of names (idiot, etc.). Sure, it's only 1/5 of the members, but anyone who thinks "changing the look and feel of a lot of the site" wouldn't produce the same reactions...

78> Maybe the best answer is to implement a "themes" feature that would allow everyone to view the site with the look and feel they like the best

Actually we did that before. Didn't work.

80> Brilliant idea, Dan. Wish I'd thought of it. :D

ETA:
81> Did you have a cohesive design that ties a given color/style to a specific UI concept (focused item, selected item, message heading, book title, etc.) across the whole site when it didn't work? Serious question, as from your previous comments it sounds like you didn't. That's really key with themes.

I voted no. That box takes up over 150 pixels on the Talk page, which collapses the Talk posts into a squashed table. The table, of course, fills the entire page, but the nav menu is only about a tenth of the page. That, to me, detracts from the content (message 33).

I didn't vote on Overcat because I tried adding three books and it didn't find any of them. It didn't seem right to have an opinion when I hadn't really used it.

>83 legallypuzzled:

Can you explain the squishing again. Do you mean the middle column got squished?

>84 timspalding:

No, I actually meant that the entire Talk table -- Topics, unread/messages, Last Message, x -- is now smaller than it used to be, which makes it look more compressed.

I think the problem I have (well, other than the light black on light gray) is that the larger size now makes more thread titles need two lines, which (to me, anyway) makes it harder to skim faster. I'm one of the "Show all talk topics" people. Maybe I'll just learn to live with it, or learn to filter Talk better.

Ah, the table that lists topics, not the table in the topics. Got it.

I noticed the change this morning, and I love it. In fact, I LOVE it.

I agree with many of the nitpicks - the colors aren't great, they aren't clearly readable, it doesn't fit with the look of the site terribly well. But what it /does/ do is reflect a trend in web design that helps section things off a bit to make them more readable.

I know there are always going to be users who dislike some things, and that any changes to site layout, content, and color is going to be very controversial, but count me personally in the very very strong camp in favor of some rethinking of the site look as a whole, including a cohesive color scheme that enhances navigation and the possibility for themes.

I love LT and I love its content, but I absolutely use it in spite of the general site design, not because of it. When I first visited, I was actually turned off - I thought it looked dated, and dated looks unprofessional to me. It would be lovely if we could have fantastic content AND great site design (I love the newish LT front page, btw, for that very reason.)

In my defense, I had different colors when I originally did this but I really like how it turned out.

Dan, you don't need to defend yourself. Look at the poll; users like the feature overall. Tim just has a tendency to let a minority of users veto any changes.

This change has been called a huge litany of names (idiot, etc.).

I don't think the change was called "idiot". Rather, lorax was saying that by making the change, you're treating the users like idiots.

Incidentally, I strongly disagree, and think she sees idiot-treatment far more often than is justified. I really don't think putting borders around Talk messages would imply that the users were idiots.

Sure, it's only 1/5 of the members, but anyone who thinks "changing the look and feel of a lot of the site" wouldn't produce the same reactions...

Eventually you just have to get over it. Add options as much as is reasonable in an attempt to make everyone happy. But ultimately, don't stick with the status quo just because 20% of users oppose the changes. Think of the other 80%.

88>

You're right that I didn't say the change was idiotic; I thought, and still do, that it is treating users like idiots.

I really don't think putting borders around Talk messages would imply that the users were idiots.

Nor do I. But, when you've decided to go to a certain page, when where you are is in large boldface type at the top of the page, how much further reminder of what page you're on is necessary before it becomes annoying and/or treating you like an idiot? Obviously your threshold is higher than mine, but there must be some point -- a blinking pop-up every thirty seconds, say -- when the reminders would become annoying and condescending to anyone. They're trying to draw the line between helpful navigation and annoying condescension; I think they've crossed it here, but I'm obviously in the minority, and I can respect that.

I always use Flashblock and Adblock, and have a low tolerance for distraction; the cause and effect aren't really relevant here (is it because I don't have to constantly battle animated Flash ads to be able to see content that I'm distracted to the point of annoyance by a green box, or is it because I'm so easily distracted from the content that I'm drawn to these add-ons? It doesn't really matter.) I'm surprised to see that this is such a minority view, but the statistics are what they are.

Having highlighting on mouseover, when you're actually using the sub-nav, that makes sense, but I just don't see the point of the highlight always being there. Can someone who likes it explain it to me, please -- what is the benefit to you of having a constant additional reminder of what page you're on, in addition to those already present? Does it not distract you from the content, or do you find that the benefit of the reminder outweighs the negative of the distraction? I'm not trying to argue you out of this -- I'm trying to understand what people are seeing in this that I'm not. (And I've looked at the screenshots, what I see on my screen is that I'm supposed to be seeing, so I'm not hitting a weird bug.)

Edited to add: I suspect that, given time, I'd be able to "tune out" the green box, and that part of why it's so annoyingly intrusive now is just that it's new.

I *LOVE* the new look. Love it times 5, so I counterbalance 5 ordinary haters.

I am not saying that there might not be little tweaks to make it even better, but if it stayed just the way it is, I would be perfectly happy with the new subnav.

SO easy to see what's highlighted. And the "green" seems intuitively to suggest "this is where you are" in a "green means go" kind of way.

What I would like would be that clear, clean, bright, text-oriented yet sensible use of graphical elements to highlight and guide the eye -- was extended elsewhere in the site. Not to use the same element everywhere, but the same design sensibility.

So thanks!

(And also, OverCat is a big big deal, and holds great promise for continual improvement and also great new features. And this freshening up the look-and-feel will also be a huge and positive improvement and draw to the newbies. I predict the curmudgeons will come around.)

(And when exactly did we have an option to do themed LT? We played with it in "design your own LT", but not in a real way, right? What did I miss? I do think a "skins" approach would probably be nice. I know Tim loves the "every user gets the same thing" idea but leave "the same thing" as the default, and then only those curmudgeonly power-users who feel the need to never-ever see Item X or to never-ever use the color green, can satisfy themselves.)

>89 lorax: I think the difference is probably in what we perceive as the purpose of the green box. I see this as a purely aesthetic change. I don't think the goal is particularly to draw your attention to what's highlighted; the fact that it does draw so much attention is only the result of the rest of the page being rather bland. If all content were in separate boxes, possibly with coloured backgrounds, like this sidebar or like the new book information section, then the sidebar wouldn't stand out as much. I'm not sure how this would work for Talk, but it would make a lot of sense on the Statistics and Groups pages.

Then there's the separate issue of whether boxing off content and prettifying the page is somehow condescending. I don't think so, as long as it's done in moderation. Putting boxes around different elements on a page just makes it look cleaner and more professional, and I think lightly shaded backgrounds in these boxes would have the same effect. As long as the text is retained, I don't think subtle backgrounds and borders would be a problem. The issue for me would be if text were eliminated in the name of simplicity or aesthetics. As long as the text focus remains, I'm perfectly happy for LT to spruce up various pages.

Yeah. What she (91) said.

89> Can someone who likes it explain it to me, please -- what is the benefit to you of having a constant additional reminder of what page you're on, in addition to those already present?

It's pretty standard UI design. It's exactly the same with page controls, where you have the current tab you are on highlighted. Why highlight that tab, when any idiot knows which tab they just clicked on? It's just generally considered a good design to give the user a cue as to which sub-page they are on when you're showing them a list of them, whether it be tabs at the top or a list down the side.

89:

To amplify #93, as to "what is the benefit":

Imagine you are browsing around, and you get interrupted by a toddler, a break, a phone call, a vacation, and you come back to your browser. "What the heck was I doing? Oh yeah. Thanks highlighting! Thanks mousetrails!" That is exactly what is the benefit.

When I noticed the change earlier today, I instantly liked it. It provided order and logic to links that, to me, were floating in space before. (I don't tend to handle chaos well)

I definitely need the black text and not gray on gray. Younger folk do not realize how hard such text is on aging eyes. Bookcrossing made a similar revamp (lighter text on a shaded gray background) recently. That, too, upset me very much to the point that I had to complain about it. It looks pretty, but it makes both websites much harder for me to use.

*feeling discouraged*

>96 SqueakyChu:

Do you feel the message heads—eg., "Message 96: SqueakyChu"—are hard to read?

The message heads are fine. I've never had any problem with reading anything else on this site.

ETA: I just had my husband look at the left navbar. He also has aging eyes. :) His remark was that it *is* harder to read because "it doesn't stand out as much".

I really like it. I too think it's a step towards better overall site design - like Aerrin99 said in msg 87, I love LT but I use it despite the design (and color scheme, to be honest).

I'm serious. My highlighted box "Your Groups" is light blue. The background of the box is so slightly different from the rest of the page background I only noticed the difference when it was mentioned. Am I not getting the whole upgrade?

As for the box being a constant distraction, as I scroll down through messages, it is gone by message #3.

I think maybe your monitor has a very different calibration than the rest of us. The green is quite minty and could look blue if the monitor colors were skewed away from yellow, and the grey is a midtone that could fade into white, I suppose, if the contrast is particularly strong (it's more light than dark, so it would end up getting lightened).

ETA: On the homepage, the modules on the right (ER/MG, blog, hot reviews, This Day) have header labels the same color as the navbox's highlighted bit. Is that blue for you, too, rather than green?

AHH Sometimes LT gives me such enjoyment :)
I guess I feel that as long as the content that drew me to LT doesn't change I'm not going to worry about a cosmetic change that really affects nothing!

Meh. I don't *dislike* it, but I don't really see the point. I mean, if this is a first-step to other changes, that's cool, but by itself it's not really a "wow, this is a great change!" thing to me. I liked it just fine the way it was before.

But I definitely don't like the green highlight. It may be the same green as other places, but in that navigation, with the gray, it REALLY stands out and calls too much attention to it. I don't want my eyes straying to the highlight every ten seconds, I want to read the content of the page!

Nope. The right hand modules on the home page are a sweet minty green. Colors all over the internet look right, so don't think I'm skewed too badly.

Maybe I just got lucky. I'm on FireFox, with a Lenovo laptop, if that matters.

104> Well, in that case, it IS strange.

I saw it when the change happened and moderately approved. I'd rather it stayed than not.

I'm in the thick of a rather major redesign of this page (the talk topic page). If the design doesn't impress, I hope the feature changes will.

T

Really hoping that the major redesign referred to in 107 will give me a navigable list of my groups' topics on the Talk page.

No, redesigning the topic page.

What's not navigable about clicking "Your groups"?

The "Your groups" option on the Talk pages co-mingles topics from multiple groups.

Using "Your groups" on the Groups page takes several clicks to get to a specific group, and then it drops me back in Talk to read a particular thread. Now I'm several clicks away to look at the topics for a different group.

Ideally, I would stay on the Talk page, but use left-side navigation to filter the topics to a specific group. Then navigating between groups is just a click away, but topics are not co-mingled with other groups.

Dan, you don't need to defend yourself. Look at the poll; users like the feature overall. Tim just has a tendency to let a minority of users veto any changes.

That is when he's not discounting the opinions of a vast majority of users (or rather a vast majority of users that use Talk).

110> Funny you should mention that. I wanted something like that so I hacked it up in Greasemonkey. Looks like this:



It's all very hardcoded, but hopefully one of these days I'll polish it up and release it.

ETA: Unfortunately, the links just take you to the group page and don't actually filter for only topics with unread messages.

112 > YES, exactly! :-)

(but ideally would provide a filtered list of messages from the selected group, rather than linking to group page)

>111 jjwilson61:

I'm not not discounting anything. I think it's important that 20% of users don't hate a change. It's worth figuring out why and seeing if it can be improved.

Generally speaking, I think the change fits imperfectly with the site. Yes, if we redid the whole site in those colors, it could fit with it. And yes, I think we need to work on design overall. We probably need outside help, but for what it's worth, I'm up after midnight (ie., in my 15th hour) working on it.

>112 brightcopy:

I'm willing to consider it. But not now. One thing at a time, please. I'm trying to get the topic pages working better.

115> Oh, I'm not suggesting you make it as a change. I'm not sure anyone beyond me and SugarCreekRanch would even find it useful. :)

Just thought I'd post it since they mentioned it.

And as far as the redesign go - get some sleep. Work on it a little over a week or a month. That's just my advice. I find things like this need some time to mellow while being designed. Things that you love one week will just annoy you the next. Give yourself time to think of all those little things you would have thought of if only you'd taken the time.

I'm not not discounting anything. I think it's important that 20% of users don't hate a change. It's worth figuring out why and seeing if it can be improved.

I agree it's worth figuring out why and seeing if it can be improved, but that doesn't necessitate a feature rollback.

Also, 20% dislike it; likely less than that 'hate' it. And the fact is, there's always going to be people who hate things you do, you'll never get unanimity, aiming for it is ideal but requiring it is futile.

I know I point it out often, but I really do feel I have to point out that all this poll shows is that 20% (well, a bit less) of the people who voted in the poll say the dislike it more than they like it. I think it might be a bit of a stretch to extrapolate that 20% of the entire userbase hates it.

107: I don't mean to get off-topic, and I know I'm beating a dead horse, but if you are doing a big redesign is there ANY way that might include a Group-search that actually works?

Aerrin99: "I love LT and I love its content, but I absolutely use it in spite of the general site design, not because of it. When I first visited, I was actually turned off - I thought it looked dated, and dated looks unprofessional to me. It would be lovely if we could have fantastic content AND great site design"

Exactly.

v

This is a good move. I'm not wild about the green myself, but really, I don't care what the colour is (but I do like the oversize and rounded corners).

Aerrin, vaneska - I particularly like the site design. I remember a while ago when Tim got members to suggest redesigns: what a lot of horrors there were! The site works well for me and is steadily getting clearer (cf this change) and easier to use. It doesn't need, and shouldn't be cutting edge web designer heaven. It does need to be simple to use by a wide range of people, including those with minimal technical knowledge or physical problems. I am happy that changes are gradual and introduced with discussion and feedback. Not many sites can claim that!

I voted against it. That doesn't mean I hate it. It means

1) Grey on grey is hard to read.

2) The grey box pulls the eye much more than I like.

3) Grey on grey is hard to read.

4) Here there is no highlight to tell me where I am, where there is a highlight, the green is too much against the grey.

5) Grey on grey is hard to read.

I think that if the box were white instead of grey I would really like it.

I voted against it too:

1) the green stands out too much

2) on refresh the screen appears, I start scanning down the list of topics, a second later the green box suddenly appears, pulling my attention away from the list of topics and I lose my place :(

3) grey on grey is tolerable (I am nearly 50), but I would prefer more contrast

fix 1/2 and I would no longer object

I like the design. I like the oversize, and rounded, corners, too. The green doesn't bother me. The gray background looks like pale lavender on my monitor. That's mildly disconcerting.

I like the new design. But having wandered around the site for a bit, when I'm not focusing on that navigation bar, the highlighted green is a little too "look at me! look at me!" The contrast between the green and the grey is too stark.
I don't think it's particularly an issue, but I do think another colour could work much better.

Wow. Tempest in a teapot time. However would people recognize real problems, disruptions and chaos if it really hit them? They'd probably faint and never see it, so I guess this is it.

Oooh... a light green box that completely disappears when I scroll or leave the page. Eeek. My life is over, Tim. Thanks.

I think it's important that 20% of users don't hate a change. It's worth figuring out why and seeing if it can be improved.

Other people have said it already, but it's worth repeating: there's a difference between disliking and hating. You're measuring disliking. And even firm disliking is down to 15% when you take into account the undecided votes. Plus there's already one clear way to improve it: change the text to black. I really don't think a rollback is justified.

Another minor issue: is there any way to have the white space between the subnav and the Talk content reduced slightly? There's more space between them than between the subnav and the edge of the screen, and it's not necessary.

I'm in the thick of a rather major redesign of this page (the talk topic page). If the design doesn't impress, I hope the feature changes will....

I'm willing to consider it. But not now. One thing at a time, please. I'm trying to get the topic pages working better.

I have no idea what it means to get the topic pages working better, nor do I know why including groups in the subnav is completely unrelated. But on another apparently unrelated note, I'd like a way to filter Talk by my group tags. So if I've tagged some groups "site-related", I could click on that tag to see threads for only those groups.

Once everything settles down and we all get used to it, we'll all be bitching at the least change you make to it in six months, as if the current design were perfect, regardless of how it comes out.

Don't sweat it, Tim. Do your best, that's all we're saying.

Making the text black will probably address 90% of folks' issues.

I voted "no" too. I don't hate it, I don't even strongly dislike it. The grey on grey is my biggest concern, and it sounds like that will be fixed. I don't like that green thing popping out, but I'll eventually adjust to it.

Wasa bit 'meh' the first time I saw it. Increasingly dislike the green the more I see it. It's just too intrusive and unnecessary. If you want to keep the grey box, which is ok, how about just Bolding the text instead of a big instrusive ugly green blob around it. That worked fine before.

110/112: Oooo shiny. Especially with numbers to show unread posts. There are groups with posts once in a blue moon, and it would be nice to be able to catch those without clicking through all the groups.

120: You see dated; I see clean design with easy readability and minimal graphics (at least in Talk).

128: Yeah, remember all the flack about the home page vs profile?

Text darker please, but green radio-slider box good for me. The color doesn't *go* with the rey, IMHO, but I don't care enough to say anything snarky about the aesthetics of the Whippersnapper Generation.

Noticed the change when it happened, thought 'That's's nice' & have been happily browsing away since then. Missed the whole argument thread because I couldn't even begin to imagine what there was to say about this other than that. I should know LT better by now. So count me in on the 'I like it' side.

That said, please put something big, heavy and immovable on top of Dan before he starts redesigning the site. The look & feel of LT is just fine *smacks Dan's knuckles with a ruler before they make contact with keyboard*.

As for the Overcat aside, as others have said, in principle, great but I just haven't added enough new books to really be able to comment so I've stayed away from the thread - no comment on Overcat itself (although freakin' sentence case titles ... and that's all I'm going to say!).

Nice, I like it... a step up. Cute too, which I also like. -Mike

91-94>

Thank you all for the explanations. I can certainly appreciate the desire for something to tell you where you are; I just think, as I've said, the giant boldface text at the top of the page does so adequately (and if not, I'd prefer something more elegant and minimalist, like Google's approach of boldfacing the type of search you're on, rather than drawing attention to it whether or not you want to look at it.) Clearly, opinions vary, and I can figure out how to use Stylish to make the green go away.

One thing, though:

Then there's the separate issue of whether boxing off content and prettifying the page is somehow condescending.

No, there isn't, because that isn't all of what they're doing here, and it's not what I'm complaining about. The box around the sub-nav is fine. The green is neither "boxing off content" nor "prettifying"; it's "distracting from content" and "uglifying". (Well, prettifying vs. uglifying is in the eye of the beholder, but it certainly has nothing to do with content.)

131 You see dated; I see clean design with easy readability and minimal graphics (at least in Talk).

I want clean design and easy readability, but I still think the design now (not of the new box but of the rest of the page) is dated. Updating the design isn't incompatible with clean design and readability, and actually could make it cleaner and more readable.
(edited to clarify)

nothing to do with content? nope. Just indicating the page that the content is part of.

I must have an awesome brain because I can note the change and move on and focus on what I want to read. No distractions. Nothing pulls at my attention. I know what the little sidebar is and can relegate it to its place. Must be the same way I can ignore the bookmark next to me on the table and not look at it instead of my book. Super brain coated in awesomesauce! klarusu, too. Dig it.

135> I just think, as I've said, the giant boldface text at the top of the page does so adequately

What is this "giant boldface text" of which you speak? By "giant" do you mean "the same size as numerous other bolded text elements on the screen, which is also the same font size as most of the other non-bolded text on the screen"? Or are you talking about the statistics pages rather than the talk pages. On those, there's a header at the top that is 12pt versus 9pt on my screen, but could be more "giant" on your browser depending on how it sizes the H1 and H2 elements.

For reference, here's the two as they appear for me:



I agree that in general, those two pages use different rules for font sizes (notice that the message topic font is smaller than the series name/book title font). As such, the long section title (which is sometimes different than the short one in the nav bar) is bigger on an absolute scale than on the Talk pages. But in relation to the text below the section title, it's still fairly proportional. I don't really see how the terms "giant" or the feeling that this was treating you like an idiot would come into play here.

Or am I missing something? Maybe it looks drastically different in your browser.

I want to address another thing. While I think the green isn't the best color due to it not always being the selected item color on other pages (e.g. the profile/work pages with large green boxes), I think there's definitely something to be said for making it stick out.

It helps to emphasize that this is the primary navigation element for the section of the site you are on. You are on the talk (or statistics) section. Here is your currently selected option and near it are the other options you can select. Take away the color/overlap and it moves more away from the look of navigation and more towards the look of content.

I think it's good for it to stick out as navigation (how much it sticks out is still a valid topic), especially for new users of the site. I think that's another thing that's being missed here. A site should be approachable to new users not because they are idiots, but because they are not yet familiar with the layout and options available. I know when I was a new user here, I found the existing navigation on these pages a bit unintuitive. I figured it out, and now it's second nature to me because I already know how it works. I'm sure it's the same for you (the second nature part). But I don't feel the "discoverability" factor was very high, and that's just generally considered bad UI.

Discoverability is the same reason the Home, Profile, Your Books, etc. are made to look like tabbed file folders, with the current one connected to the page and the others a little more dim. They could simply be links and once you got used to it, it'd be just as easy to use. But by adding some visual flair, you increase the discoverability. And if that flair had already been there when you learned the system, I think it would have already faded into the background for you.

May I ask a huge favor? Can we have just ONE thread where differing opinions about the site aren't treated with scorn, sarcasm or snark? Please? Just one?

140> That sounded pretty snarky.

;)

A quick change to my Firefox Persona theme and to my Windows colors and the green blends right in.

138>

I think that in the Statistics and the Groups section it's large enough to be easily readable and at least as good of an indicator as the highlight; do you disagree? "Giant" may be a touch hyperbolic, I confess. It's just mystifying that people are treating this as though there hadn't previously been any sort of navigational indicator at all!

Okay, the more I see it, the less I like it. There are just too many colors on the page, too close together. Mauve & green & grey & black next to tan & blue & black and white. The juxtaposition is too jarring.

143> Well, I think what most people are focusing on is the Talk section. And yes, I do think it's easily readable and stands out more on the Groups and Statistics page. But I don't think I'd particularly like the Talk page to have fonts that big. Also, even being there at the top of the page doesn't help with the discoverability of the navigation as I detailed in 139. I'd actually prefer keeping the navigation the way it is (with a more consistent selected item color) and toning down the font sizes on Groups and Statistics, personally.

#145 Look, some of us old farts are already having trouble with small fonts. My screen is very high res and it ends up with miniscule fonts quite often. If I embiggen the font in the browser, I lose the top tabs. So I get a rash when someone starts talking about making fonts even smaller. Consistent, I can go with. Smaller, eeks....

145> Understood. But the great thing is if they choose consistent fonts across the board (e.g. making all header fonts the same size), then when you increase the font size you won't have as many problems.

BTW, I'm not sure what browser you use, but I know at least in FF you can increase the font size separately from the zoom size. This helps prevent situations you're talking about where page elements go off-screen.

I, for one, LOVE the green box. I think the mint is a nice color and I like the way the box extends past the edges of the sidebar. Overall, the look is polished and professional.

One thought I did have when I first saw the new sidebar is that the gray text needs to be darker. On second thought, I'm not sure this is necessary. If this was a longer piece of text that I needed to read, I'd argue for black text, but the headings are so short that it's not difficult (for me, anyway) to figure out what they say.

FYI, here's a side-by-side of the existing code and what it would look like if the text was changed from gray to solid black:

I personally love it. I am viewing it at work an it looks fine. Once I get my Mac back I will see what it looks like on there. The colors are something I get used to as time goes on.

I love the one with the black text more then the gray as I look at brightcopy's message above. Side by side I can see a difference and the black just looks so much cleaner.

As I said 100+ posts ago, I really like it, but I like it even better in the screenshot that brightcopy posted in 149 with the black text. Definitely easier for me to read, and I have young (but not great) eyes.

150/151> I wouldn't be surprised if they're already going to make that change, among others suggested here. They've gone quiet for a while, so I expect they're letting us thrash it out while they prep those changes.

>147 brightcopy:
BTW, I'm not sure what browser you use, but I know at least in FF you can increase the font size separately from the zoom size. This helps prevent situations you're talking about where page elements go off-screen

Thank you for pointing this out. It solves a problem I had it a different thread.

Brightcopy, I'm using Chrome and altho there are extensions that claim to fix the page, or just zoom the text, they do not work correctly all the time. My main problem with losing the tabs is on the 'your books' page and has been detailed elsewhere.

It has to do with the additional nav bar on that page.

154> Ah, yes, I read that thread. That's a rather problematic page, all things considered.

Joining the party late, but just to say that on the whole, I like it, with the reservation that the grey type has to go. Black, please, or at the very least, a much darker grey.

60> Oh. Thanks. I had over looked that "Small" when I saw 59 and rushed over to the thread linked added my top 5 wishes for rainbow unicorns.

73> ""Frankly, if it were up to me I would change the look and feel of a lot of the site."

eek *hides in a corner, whimpering*

Black text is definitely better.

I hate it. The right side now looks cramped; the box is just cacophonous--the green, the bar, the shading... Why isn't ONE way of indicating info enough, why does it have to be screamed at us in three different ways?

And, the "Search Talk" box within that box is off*, jammed against the right border (some version of IE...)

*In thread pages, not group.

So, Abby, Chris, Dan and I conferred. And we think something like the following:

1. The left thingy is nice.
2. It could perhaps be improved by avoiding the gray on gray.
3. We were surprised by the amount of controversy either way. We also relearned how hard it is to really talk about design with a large group of people. You can get reactions, but I'm not sure you can decide on specifics.
4. Although nice, it simply doesn't go with the site. It goes better with some pages (eg., http://www.librarything.com/groups), and worse with others, but overall it's discordant.
5. It's nice primarily because it's discordant--it's a fancy modern element on some rather old-fashioned pages.
6. We think users are attracted to it in part because you sense it's slick and modern, and therefore it promises a more general redesign.

We have long planned a redesign. (We have also slowly been redesigning the site. Various page types have been in continuous redesign, and others, like the new group pages, are new and—I think—much better.)

There are a number of ways of going about a redesign. We have ruled out the tip-to-root information and design review many would urge. We don't have the manpower, it would take forever, and a complete redesign is incompatible with the way we work—release early and often, with member input—and therefore also with how members react to it.

Instead, we've decided on a series of improvements, especially to:

1. Fixing simple things, like column widths and discordant notes here and there.
2. Harmonization of elements across pages
3. Color-scheme changes

We are committed to the current emphasis on text—over boxes. Indeed, we think something like the work page could be less boxy, and still maintain clear separation between items. (You will note work-page changes. The three columns are now more securely fixed as regards size.)

I'm not sure if the left thingy will stay or not. If it does, it will be temporary.

I have a redesign of the Talk topic pages coming up. It's more a reworking of a rather old code than anything else, and will include both some new features and some changes in design.

Anyway, that's where we are. Thanks to all for your thoughts on the change. It's a pleasure working with such passionate members.

Bravo.

5. It's nice primarily because it's discordant--it's a fancy modern element on some rather old-fashioned pages.

Nuh-uh! I don't like discordant.

6. We think users are attracted to it in part because you sense it's slick and modern, and therefore it promises a more general redesign.

I don't like "slick and modern", either, at least, not for its own sake.

Honestly, I'm on another book-related site that just did a redesign, and it looks just like all those damned social networking sites, with cartoon-ish graphics overwhelming the text, nursery-school fonts, etc.

Please don't do the same! Please stay classy!

We are committed to the current emphasis on text—over boxes.

This makes no sense to me. Text and boxes aren't in competition. You aren't sacrificing the text by putting a box around it. I hope you'll maintain the current emphasis on text over images, but boxes and text can work well together.

Indeed, we think something like the work page could be less boxy, and still maintain clear separation between items.

I really like the current separation on the work page.

You will note work-page changes. The three columns are now more securely fixed as regards size.

The right column is too wide. Change "Google Books - Book Info" to "Google Books", and move the Swap, Ebooks, and Audio closer together.

I'm not sure if the left thingy will stay or not. If it does, it will be temporary.

What will it be instead?

Either way, you should come to decisions about whether you like new UI elements before taking them live. Once you've introduced a change and seen that the vast majority of users like it, changing your mind and taking it away immediately really doesn't make a good impression.

I don't see why you can't start with the left navigation--which, as you've said, is modern and nice--and work from there to harmonize elements across pages.

Honestly, I'm on another book-related site that just did a redesign, and it looks just like all those damned social networking sites, with cartoon-ish graphics overwhelming the text, nursery-school fonts, etc.

Please don't do the same! Please stay classy!

There's a difference between boxes and colours on the one hand, and childish graphics and fonts on the other hand.

(Lorax, this is what I was talking about earlier when I said there's the separate issue of whether boxing off content and prettifying the page is somehow condescending. We immediately jump from the basic idea of boxes and colours to "cartoon-ish" and "nursery-school", even though there's been no mention at all of adding graphics or changing fonts.)

Yeah, in my opinion you really shouldn't let Talk drive your design. We're a vocal minority here. On just about every issue, none of us will be in agreement on anything. And those of us who don't like how things are going to be decided tend to be even more vocal than others (believe me, I've been on the "don't like" side before). Sure, you don't want to ignore the users. But I'm just not sure this is a good sample size for the overall userbase. I think you'd be better with posting polls that appear as a lightbox popup whenever a user next uses the site (limited so that you don't poll very often and it's easy to say "i don't care" and the poll never asks you again) than you are posting a poll here and letting it drive your decision making.

Just my (somewhat vocal) opinon.

ETA:
165> I think many posters from time to time go a bit overboard on the "it's all going to go to shit, I just know it, and this is the first step!" outlook.

"stay classy!"

Oh, always. Incidentally, I think the BookCrossing redesign is patronizing.

I actually think LT's design too often goes toward candy-colored boxes. But, as Abby says, they're not good candy, they're bad candy--faded, pastel candy that grandma keeps around and nobody will touch. So in some sense I think we get the worst of both worlds.

This makes no sense to me. Text and boxes aren't in competition. You aren't sacrificing the text by putting a box around it. I hope you'll maintain the current emphasis on text over images, but boxes and text can work well together.

No, I agree with you. Here's my reformulation: "If you can achieve the same good results--information hierarchy, clarity, ease of navigation, scanning and reading--with fewer elements, do it."

Either way, you should come to decisions about whether you like new UI elements before taking them live.

Agreed.

A thought on color

Part of the problem is simply brown. Brown is harder to work with. Lots of the variants--darker, lighter, more and less saturated--just look bad--far more than variants of, say, green or blue. And conventional schemes don't usually appeal much to use either. The appropriate triad of our top-navigation color is the green we use, and I just don't think it works.

We don't really have a solution here. Brown is part of our identity. But we have a lot of trouble coming up with a good palate from it.

"If you can achieve the same good results--information hierarchy, clarity, ease of navigation, scanning and reading--with fewer elements, do it."

This makes sense, though I don't think I actually agree. I think there's something to be said for aesthetics as well: the dreaded "sleek and modern", professional look. We could still use the work section without the coloured bars separating the sections; it just wouldn't look as good.

161> (You will note work-page changes. The three columns are now more securely fixed as regards size.)

Is this what's causing the weird overlap of elements if the window size is too small to accommodate the total width? There's been a couple posts in Bug Collectors regarding it on IE/FF, though I think last week sometime was a similar report for Safari/Chrome.

You will note work-page changes. The three columns are now more securely fixed as regards size.

Oh, so that's why I can't see part of the swap column unless I make the page bigger? :/

167 Brown is part of our identity.
Brown? What brown? I don't see brown, and have never seen brown on this site. Anywhere. I would be ok with brown, but what I've always seen is a sickly, washed out pink, which clashes with a sickly washed out sea-green. The pink clashes with the blue and green palate. The blue and green might work together. The pink really works with neither. A more neutral, actually brown tone could potentially work with many things. But pink, not so much.

I remember having this discussion before. I agree with rsterling; I don't see any brown, I see an icky sort of salmon-y pink. I rather like the green, though.

I agree that getting rid of the pink would be a great improvement.

Er, yeah, what brown? It's been salmon as long as I can remember.

171/172>

Brown:


Though I agree, it's a brown that trending into the red spectrum. It is NOT UPS brown.

Note that if you drag that slider to darken it up a bit (darkening R, G, AND B), you get a much more typical brown:

Dead salmon is what I call it. Not brown by any stretch of the imagination.

v

177> Have you calibrated your monitor lately?

ETA: Salmon is definitely what I'd call the read message headers, though.

>173 _Zoe_:

Great. Someone give me a new background color for the top and we'll work from there.



Salmon color: First Google hit.

I suppose I'm an insensitive lout, but I don't really care much what color this or that is. I find LT useful and I use it whatever color is displayed. I think a change now and then is interesting.

I do find it fun to read these threads and 'hear' the differing opinions. I just don't have a very strong one myself. I'll shut up now.

Two sites for coming up with color palates:

http://www.colourlovers.com/
http://kuler.adobe.com/

Suggestions wanted.

Maybe everyone posting an opinion on colors should have to post their results of color blindness tests. I'm not joking. It's an exceedingly high percentage of the population that has some form of color blindness.

FYI, having had my eyes thoroughly checked on a regular basis, I can claim to have passed the color blindness tests with flying... errr... colors.

And then there's the xkcd color survey, which is good for a chuckle as well as food for thought.

ETA: Yet another argument for themes, including custom themes.

I guess design en masse will never reach a consensus, it's too much of a personal thing. Actually, I've liked everything you guys have eventually come up with design-wise once I've got used to it so I'm pretty sure you'll do good. Let's face it, by this stage, I'm so hopelessly addicted to LT that I'd still be using it with the same regularity if it looked like that old screenshot Tim put up on one of the other threads a while back of the 'original' LT design.

Okay, so, can we all agree on and be done with it?

http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/129595/Chocolate_Labrador

It's either that or velociraptor cloaca from xkcd.

People have been calling the site's color scheme pink or salmon for a long time. Except for in this thread (and only by 2 people here), I've never seen anyone characterize it as brown.

There are cooler pink/salmon shades in the header at the top of the page, in the tabs, and in the "read" marker for threads. There's a slightly warmer pink/salmon (a bit more yellow in it, but still a lot of red) when you hover over posts on the main talk page, and in a couple of other places on the site.

If it were up to me and you wanted to go with something in the brown range, I'd go with richer and warmer tones. Think: wood-paneling in an old library, but a slightly lighter shade.

184> I'd call that gray.

Oh, fine, I'll turn on javascript...

I think that scheme may be a big problematic on monitors with brightness/contrast issues. For example, if I turn down my brightness to about 50% (really, not that unreasonable given older monitors and laptops on power saving mode), the two darkest colors effectively become black. Even on my brightest setting, the Cocoa Bean is pretty darn close to black.

Velociraptor Cloaca it is!

"Rooster Strut" on kuler is ok, though I'm not as keen on the greenish parts.

edited to add a better link
http://kuler.adobe.com/#themes/search?term=rooster%20strut

Whatever scheme we choose we need to have some colors you can comfortably put reading text again.

Or Norwegian Woods, perhaps minus the brightest of the blue shades?
http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/580619/Norwegian_Woods

Or even this, which would keep something close to the current salmon but match it with other closer colors, rather than the green and blue that clash:
http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/441526/In_the_Woods

PS - Or even, without taking the whole palette, I like the "chestnut wood" and "satin wood" as alternatives to the pinkish shades LT has now.

Maybe http://www.colourlovers.com/palette/77121/Good_Friends

I'm looking for something neutral that wouldn't be too different from the current colours, but with real brown instead of pink.

Edit: all these palette suggestions should include a poll.

Zoe, I think that combo may be trademarked by Martha Stewart ...

191> From a functional point of view, I think it works. From an aesthetic point of view - I've never muched like that medium blue combined with that darker brown. Bleh.

164> Please phrase your answer in the form of a palette.

See, I'd MUCH prefer something like the one Zoe posted, then the semi-blaring yellow in the rooster-strut, or the black/semi-black in the Chocolate Lab. The one Zoe posted is muted, no eye strain, and yet different enough that monitor-resolutions shouldn't be too much of a problem.

Color palates removed to this thread:
http://www.librarything.com/topic/92745

Always thought it would be neat to have a site with marbled paper, ie., background to http://twitter.com/subclassz . Any effort to do it, though, would just look twee.

179: In the UK, only dead Alaskan salmon comes that colour :P

v

Tim, just write a script-y thing that transfers people's chosen Twitter color palettes over to here.*

*I'm mostly joking

But, as Abby says, they're not good candy, they're bad candy--faded, pastel candy that grandma keeps around and nobody will touch.

I had a great 5 minute long explanation/comparison of LT colors and the gross pillow-shaped pastel minty candies offered up in pink-flower bowls by old ladies. I'm glad Tim was listening.

It's not easy being green.

#201 -- I think you should have a bowl of those at your booth at ALA. I'll be looking for them. ;-)

after looking at the chocolate / lavender / potato chips "brown lab" color palette i was feeling pretty hungry, until we got back to the dusty old faded pastel candy. now i'm feeling hungry and vaguely nauseous.

The longer that green highlight stays, the more I hate it. It's so distracting! I open a tab to read messages and instead my eyes are like "HEY! BRIGHT COLOR! WHEE!" .... Don't like.

I'll take chocolate and potato chips over old salmon and mints any day...

I like the old salmon and mints. I haven't seen anything in the above posts that looks better. It is so hard though when you don't see the whole picture of how it's going to work live.

Whee! You know, if you switch while it's loading, you can get two green bars!

STILL butt-ugly.

The "Search Talk" box still goes into crazy overlap on the right side. The freakin green bar still overlaps more on the right than on the left. The body of the page still looks cramped, pushed to the side, put upon, squished.

Can we choose styles? "Old" vs. "butt-ugly New"?

Wow, really? I certainly don't see anything at all like that.

209> I think most of that is a problem with how it works on your browser.

I took some time before commenting to get used to the redesign. I really like the change. It's easier to understand while being non-intrusive. Thanks for the great job.

(aside: I'm a pastor. Replace "style of website" with "style of worship" and this is an argument I've had to face too many times:) )

Those of you following the color palette thread will have seen these, but some of us have made some mock-ups (Aerrinn99 especially). I made a couple of mock-ups of the group page, to see what can be done with this new navigation. One leaves the mint-green selector bar, but changes the other colors; one changes all the colors, including the selector bar, getting rid of mint-green altogether. Other color schemes could also be tried, of course.

http://www.librarything.com/wiki/images/1/14/Bluegroupswithmint.png
http://www.librarything.com/wiki/images/7/73/Bluegroups.png

I like it; the color on my screen is a soft green. Please don't change it to yellow! That is such an annoying color. I also find it depressing, probably because it reminds me of the state mental hospital where my sister had a summer job during her college years.

>Tim at #23:
I hate that this is getting so much more comment than a YEARS long upgrade of our cataloging system!

That is a well known phenomenon; it is called Parkinson's Law of Triviality, more commonly known as "painting the bicycle shed". From Wikipedia:

Parkinson dramatizes his Law of Triviality with a committee's deliberations on a nuclear power plant, contrasting it to deliberation on a bicycle shed. A nuclear reactor is used as example because it is so vastly expensive and complicated that average people cannot understand it, so they assume that those working on it understand it. Even those with strong opinions often withhold them for fear of being shown to be insufficiently informed. On the other hand, everyone understands a bicycle shed (or thinks he or she does), so building one can result in endless discussions because everyone involved wants to add his or her touch and show that they have contributed. While discussing the bikeshed, debate emerges over whether the best choice of roofing is aluminium, asbestos, or galvanized iron, rather than whether the shed is a good idea or not.

The longer I use this, the less I like it. I thought I'd get used to it. I do NOT like the grey on grey. I do NOT like the green highlight on the rare occasions when it actually shows up, and I strongly dislike having to search for 'your groups' in the grey on grey box every time I finish reading a topic.

*BUMP*

'Cause, yeah, I'm reallllllyyyy hoping this isn't going to be another one that gets lost in the shuffle thrown by the wayside whatever. Will this be changed? Please? With chocolate and whipped cream on top?

No-oo, don't change it! I like it!

you like the highlighter-green and the gray-on-gray text?

I like the green mint highlight on gray far better than I like sick looking peach on the main page.

it's only "highlighter green" on some monitors. Not mine. And gray on gray is fine here, but black on gray would be ok, too. Whatevs.

The gray on gray text on the left nav bar may have an improved functionality after all. If it could be done in descending shades of gray, we could use it not only for navigating our way through LT fora but also for vision screening. ;)

I love the slider but I do really wish the colors would change.

I didn't comment before since UI details like this don't really phase me. But the more I live with it, the less I like the slider, it's just too bulky. Simply bolding the text was adequate. I don't mind the colors but I thought Tim had agreed to change the text to black (which presumably is a minor edit).

When I'm reading a topic, it's nice and narrow and unobtrusive (though the search box sticks out the right hand side.) But on the Talk page it's a huge, space-eating eyesore.

Not on mine. On this page it's smaller than it is on the other pages. And the background on my nav bar is pretty light, so it's completely readable.

#218 I like them both. I actually just really like the page as it stands (although I do get that some people have difficulty reading the grey on grey so that trumps my fondness for the design, as it should because accessibility is important). But in the spirit of piping up for those that like things and are less likely to post to a thread than those that don't, I'm chirping up to say it all looked fine to me from the outset.

#226 - works for me, too.

I like it.

I like it, too.

Huh. Interesting. *could've sworn there was a majority-dislike at first*

I don't mind the gray-on-gray, but a lot of other people had commented on it.... What bugs me is the highlighter-green. Yes, it is highlighter-green on my monitor, and if I adjust my settings so that it's not, I also can barely read anything.

The green is way too "look at me!" and pulls my eyes away from what the focus of the page SHOULD be. It also doesn't really look nice that the highlighted-box is jutting out from the gray box.

Does it scroll down with you as you move down the page?

I like the new one much better. I wouldn't complain if the text was darker, though.

I'm okay with the box part or the not box part. I would prefer black text with either.

230> Nope, at least if you go by the poll. It was always about 80% like, 15% dislike, 5% undecided.

However, those who disliked the design as a whole were quite vocal about such.

There was a large number of posters whose main complain was the gray on gray text, which Tim seems to have agreed with an has just not got around to fixing. I think there was other quibbling about more minor aspects of it, like exactly what color to pick instead of green, etc.

And some of us got tired of repeating our complaints since nothing got done.

235>

Exactly. The toothpaste green is still jarring and distracting, it still draws my attention away from the actual page content, but there's no point in reiterating my complaints, since it's clear that most people like it or find it less jarring. I just try to quickly scroll past it on the Talk pages, and find myself visiting Statistics (where, in my opinion, it's far more noticeable) less frequently.

236: And that sorta makes my point. We shouldn't HAVE to avoid the pages we like because of this new, distracting, jarring change. One little color-change shouldn't be that hard! If that green were just a few shades different, just so it's not so in-your-face, I could stop complaining about it. As it is, I'll keep complaining because I don't believe I should HAVE to sacrifice my LibraryThing experience because of something so trivial and so easily changed.

and no one has answered my question. Does the horrible, distracting, vulgar box actually move down when a person scrolls?

I thought that was a rhetorical question, bookmarque.

At any rate, it doesn't move for me, and I would expect that it doesn't move down for anyone else, either. (there were comments earlier in the thread about being glad it went off the screen when you read down a long-enough thread and the like)

It wasn't. I wondered if maybe my browser was doing something weird.

I'm beginning to think this is impossible. I'm on my third computer in the last 4 days, and I get a different color every time. My Lenovo with the newest Foxfire sees a light blue, with occasionally a not-too-dark foresty green. The eMac at school (Foxfire again) sees a light minty green. My nephew's Lenovo sees the forest-y green.

There may be no way to change it to acknowledge all these changes. Except maybe make it so whispery soft that some of us don't see anything at all. At least the anti-in-your-face people would be happy. And I guess I wouldn't care much.

No, Bookmarque, it doesn't move down when I scroll. But the part of the page I want to look at often doesn't involve scrolling down, in which case it is indeed annoying and distracting.

241: The light blue, foresty green, light minty green, etc... how do those look? I mean, are they particularly jarring, do they draw your eye?

I do like this change, it's just the specific color that makes my eyes go "omg I have to look here!". If it WAS a light blue or foresty green that I was seeing, I doubt it would demand my attention as much as the highlighter-green I'm seeing now.

Ok. At least I know. I see it once, dismiss it and go on with what I'm doing on the page I'm on. I thought maybe it acted differently on other browsers or something. Which page do you mean, btw...I guess I never go there.

The colors I have seen so far have been fairly muted. The foresty green was a surprise the first time I saw it, (all I had seen was the same blue as the unread posts) but it didn't really seem very dark. And the minty green I've got tonight on the school computer is very light. Weird, huh?

243: The statistics pages, for one. I spend a lot of time doing work through those pages... double-checking my duplicate works, working on gender assigning on the male/female page, etc... And for those things I'm not scrolling down. The information is right there, but so is this "look at me!"-green box, and I'll be trying to focus/think about one thing, and my eye will be drawn to that green box. Every single time. Maybe other people have better control over their eyes? lol I don't know. But that's my experience with it, and it's very annoying.

I have only seen a pale green, and it's the same on the computer at work (Windows 2000, IE6) and the one at home (OSX, Safari 4 & Firefox 3.6). The alignment of the green box varies from machine to machine, but it's always the same pale pillow-mint green. Not at all painful or distracting.

241> I'm beginning to think the first step might be for those who think the shade is awful to try properly calibrating their monitor first. This may not be a factor, but if you're showing colors that are other than what is specified by the site, it's going to be very difficult to please (well, make that "not piss off") almost all the users.

Here's a good site to start with setting your gamma. Another recommendation is to set your monitor's color temperature to 6500 K (unless you specifically know you need it set otherwise). Other temperatures can give a different color cast. All temperatures affect the color in some ways, but if you're using 6500 K you're more likely to be using what the designer of the site is (Tim, care to chime in with what you guys use?). When you change color temperatures, give it some time. Trust me, everything will look weird for a while. But if you leave it and come back a week later and change it to your previous setting, that will look like the weird one.

At the end of all this, your monitor may be fine and you may still hate the green color. That's fine and dandy and I'm not saying you're somehow "wrong" to have that opinion. I'm just saying you're colorblind. Kidding! :D

But it would be good to make sure we're working from the same page. Otherwise, the site will have to stick with what it's doing now, muted, washed out "wedding mint" color scheme forever. The reason people don't have as much problem with it is because the colors are so tepid as to not offend on just about any monitor, no matter how badly configured.

Thanks for the link, brightcopy! My newish monitor came without a decent manual, and |I never got around to calibrating it properly. I'd been wondering what people were talking about with regard to the new colour scheme, and that link showed me that the white point of my monitor wasn't set right. A little bit of poking around, and I can now see what other people were seeing.

248> A little bit of poking around, and I can now see what other people were seeing.

In a good or bad way? ;)

#249
In a good or bad way?

I rather like it. ;)

Has the right-side groups list changed? I'm looking at it on a different computer than usual, and seeing a mint-green diagonal gradient. Weird! Not unpleasant, but quite weird.

Well, back to my usual computer, and if I look hard there's a barely visible gradient in the normal pale-green group list. Never saw it before! A vivid illustration of the difference the computer makes...

251-252: I think that's new. I noticed it a day or two ago.

251-253 looks the same as it's been since the change to me.

The green has gone! I wasn't a particular objector but it is nicer without and the over-size box looks better that way.

v

I'm very glad the green has gone. The white box looks much better.

Agreed. White box is much better.

I liked the green better, but I think my color was much lighter than what most people were seeing.

Better without the green.

awww...I miss the green. It was cheery.

Well, dang, I hadn't noticed until you pointed it out, but I miss it, too, now that it's gone. Yes, cheery.

Cheery?

If you say so...

Oh, and I should note that at some point (maybe the same time as the green) the text was changed from gray on gray to black on gray, as many people requested.

The black seemed to come in with the White box.

I miss the green.

264> Me too. And it's not that I miss the green, per se. I miss something to liven up that page.

I can finally look at Statistics pages again now that the green is gone. My eyes are no longer inexorably drawn to that patch of toothpaste. Thanks, Tim.

I was surprised to see the change, but it looks okay. But does anyone else see the "Band-Aid" color stretched across the top of the header now?

No, I don't have that.

FF 3.whatever's newest

#267

I was not going to mention that. I like it and I did not want to open another can of worms.

267> I did notice something different about that section of the header, but I don't have the band-aid color like that. I can't quite place my finger on what feels so different, though I thought for a while it might be the size of the tabs, or the size of the text, or the color of the little 1px border around the tabs and under the header...

I think the little border around the tabs was darkened. I like it.

I don't like the tabs change. The borders are not consistently spaced making it look amatuerish at best.

As for the green, I liked it but can live without it and it seemed to bother so many people.

272> I don't like the tabs change. The borders are not consistently spaced making it look amatuerish at best.

Care to elaborate? Are you talking about the larger (as intended) gap between "Add books" and "Talk"? If not, I'm not sure I know what you're talking about.

267:
I don't see that either, and the corners of my tabs are rounded. I'm on FF3.6.4 - what browser are you using?

273

There's that. If they were intending talk to begin another section of tabs there should be at least a full tab length's separation.

But what I was referencing is the spacing between the tabs themselves.

The spacing between the border edge of HOME and PROFILE is larger than the border edge spacing between PROFILE and YOUR BOOKS. The border edge spacing between YOUR BOOKS and ADD BOOKS is larger than between PROFILE and YOUR BOOKS. TALK and GROUPS spacing is larger than GROUPS and LOCAL. SEARCH and ZEITGEIST is larger than ZEITGEIST and MORE.

Add in the "intended" , but inadequate gap between ADD BOOKS and TALK and it's even worse.

Bear in mind, this isn't going to make a hill of beans in the way I use things and I'll get past it in a few days. I've done some work designing form layout in the past so I'm probably just hyper-attentive to this change as a result.

>275 debavp: The sizing between them is all the same for me. Might be your browser or settings? I'm using Firefox.

276
I'm sure there are legitimate visual differences attributed to different browsers. I don't have rounded corners on the tabs, as others have mentioned that they have. Mine are squared.

I know if I zoom in or out that would make it seem more or less noticable on my end, but I don't see how it would actually change anything. True changes would have to be made on the LT side of things.

Again, it's no big deal, really :) I just wanted to throw my .02 out there.

And BTW, I really shouldn't have said amatuerish earlier. My bad!

277>

You aren't using IE6, by chance, are you? There are lots of IE-6-only issues out there. (As other Firefox users have noted, the tabs show up with proper spacing for me.)

Just for informational purposes, I am on IE6 at the moment, and the tabs are square-cornered, but spaced as usual - four, then three, a big gap, and the other three. I do not see the pale stripe behind them illustrated in #267. All looks normal (for this computer).

If we would have stuck with those single color monitors (green, I think) from the 1970s, we wouldn't have all these aesthetic problems. Oh, the joys of progress. To be truthful, I could live with the previous green scheme or the current one. It's not a blood pressure raiser for me.

277> Yeah, I gotta go with Morphidae and wonder what browser/version you're using. Having done a fair bit of web development myself, I know just how difficult it is to get them all to agree on CSS/html rendering.

276, 278, 281 I'm using IE8

279 I do have the pale stripe also. Just to clarify, the spacing I have issue with is between the individual tabs, not the grouping of the tabs. I have the same four, then three followed by the end three.

280 OMG :) I, for one, would be blind if progress hadn't intervened. I once had 2 jobs the full time one was green on black and the part-time was orangey gold on black. I don't miss those days at all:)

282> I believe you have IE8's "Compatibility Mode" turned on. If I use IE8, it's fine in normal mode but has those issues in CM. CM basically makes it emulate the buggy behavior of previous IEs. Not really spending LT staff time on something like that instead of addressing more important stuff. Or whatever strikes Tim's fancy. ;)

283 No, CM is off--I never use it because it's completely worthless.

Not really spending LT staff time on something like that instead of addressing more important stuff. Or whatever strikes Tim's fancy. ;)

I'm hoping your meaning by this statement was that when little cosmetic changes are made that the PTB go for the broadest coverage possible and can't tweak every little detail, which is certainly understandable and to be expected.

284> Mainly I was just joking around. But yeah, that's a fair summary.

If your CM is off, then I have to say your IE8 is acting fairly non-standard. Which specific version do you have? I was testing with 8.0.6001.18702. This just shows how staggering the task is to make a site look the same across all browsers, all major versions and even all minor versions.

In fact, the top nav color was changed, as was the logo. The changes are subtle, but clearly seen if you do this.

Before vs. After.

I moved the top background color away from "salmon" toward the "middle" of brown--reducing the red in it and lightening it. The logo itself went from black and white to brown and white. Tabs got slightly darker edges, to increase contrast.* I think the change moves us in the right direction. There are better secondary options in the middle brown range. I plan to stay here a while, but in general I'm weighing options.

I actually did this as something of an experiment. The beta group were told of it, but I didn't mention it outside, to see if anyone would notice. I think, if I had mentioned it directly, pro- and anti- opinions would be fighting it out.

Now that you know, do you care?

*The rounded-vs-square issue is one of browsers. IE doesn't round corners--you can only do it by making lots of tiny corner images, which would be a pain for everyone here.

286: I noticed a change to the header but couldn't work out what it was, apart from the fact that the logo somehow looked better and there was a change to the borders on objects there. No strong feelings any way, other than the usual boring one that the sooner you lose the band aid/salmon/whatever colour altogether, the better.

v

286> I like the new colors, but (as I illustrated in #267) IE7 is showing the tab color as a solid stripe behind the tabs themselves, which looks absolutely awful.

I noticed the change from Salmon to Brown but didn't say anything cause I wasn't sure.

Didn't notice the rest.

Thought the old color was awful, but distinctive to LT. Brown, not so much.

The "band-aid" is gone!

>289 FicusFan:

Not so much both?

Huzzah, the stripe is gone!

> 291 Not so much 1.

Salmon is distinctive, Brown not so much. The Brown can be any site on the net, the Salmon was distinctively LT.

>293 FicusFan: Agreed. Also, the brown looks very flat; perhaps a gradient would improve it.

Tim, the next time someone complains about the colors, you may want to refer them to this site for an example of something a bit brighter.

I'll give fair warning - you may want to put your sunglasses on, and turn your speakers very low if you are at work. Someone posted this link on Ravelry without warning, and several people have been injured as a result.

Oh my! Oh deary, deary me! I tried sunglasses and I would recommend, if you have such a thing, a welding mask. If not, don't click. You have been warned. That site was built using a random number generator for the colours. The only colour that I didn't see was octarine and I can't see that anyway!

Wow!

I just finished lunch. Made my head spin. Made my stomach churn. I kid you not.

I think I should renew my vows so Yvette can design my wedding!