New design preview

[jimdahl]

While everyone is distracted and/or traumatized by more noteworthy changes in UND athletics, here are the main three front pages in this site's new design that I've been threatening for years:

Front page: http://siouxsports.com/?test
News tracker page: http://news.siouxsports.com/indextest.php
Social media tracker page: http://social.siouxsports.com

I hope to switch to them within days or weeks. It's going to take me a little while to get the social media tracker pulling in the right set of Fighting Hawks-tagged stuff, but I'm reasonably confident.

[BigGreyAnt41]

Are you going to keep the twitter feed on the main page?  I really like have that there. 

What about the current navigation links that are on the left, for quick shortcuts to schedules, rankings, etc. for Hockey and Football?

[gfhockey]

Gross!

 

am I going to need another bottle 

[jimdahl]

Gross!

 

am I going to need another bottle 

Ah, but do you hate more than you hate Fighting Hawks? See how clever I am, unleashing it today?

[MoSiouxFan]

While everyone is distracted and/or traumatized by more noteworthy changes in UND athletics, here are the main three front pages in this site's new design that I've been threatening for years:

Front page: http://siouxsports.com/?test
News tracker page: http://news.siouxsports.com/indextest.php
Social media tracker page: http://social.siouxsports.com

I hope to switch to them within days or weeks. It's going to take me a little while to get the social media tracker pulling in the right set of Fighting Hawks-tagged stuff, but I'm reasonably confident.

Why are we making a change?  I love it the way that it is (spoken like a true melancholy).

Edited November 18, 2015 by MoSiouxFan

[Shawn-O]

While everyone is distracted and/or traumatized by more noteworthy changes in UND athletics, here are the main three front pages in this site's new design that I've been threatening for years:

Front page: http://siouxsports.com/?test
News tracker page: http://news.siouxsports.com/indextest.php
Social media tracker page: http://social.siouxsports.com

I hope to switch to them within days or weeks. It's going to take me a little while to get the social media tracker pulling in the right set of Fighting Hawks-tagged stuff, but I'm reasonably confident.

Delete the upper-middle and lower right sections and re-connect to legitimate news sources and I think the news tracker page is basically done.  

Edited November 18, 2015 by Shawn-O

[siouxfan512]

While everyone is distracted and/or traumatized by more noteworthy changes in UND athletics, here are the main three front pages in this site's new design that I've been threatening for years:

Front page: http://siouxsports.com/?test
News tracker page: http://news.siouxsports.com/indextest.php
Social media tracker page: http://social.siouxsports.com

I hope to switch to them within days or weeks. It's going to take me a little while to get the social media tracker pulling in the right set of Fighting Hawks-tagged stuff, but I'm reasonably confident.

Actually, that's not too bad.

Just curious, but is there a reason that siouxsports only includes football and hockey standings and scores? Just wondering why basketball isn't included; is it just too many games and scores to keep updated?

[siouxgrad]

The guy on the screen shot of this page seems to appear younger and is missing a mustache

http://siouxsports.com/?test

[Cratter]

The 90's called. They want their web designs back.

 

 

 

 

Edited November 19, 2015 by Cratter

[jimdahl]

Delete the upper-middle and lower right sections and re-connect to legitimate news sources and I think the news tracker page is basically done.  

Given that the page is dynamic (the blocks move around based on content), I assume your objection is to the inclusion of blogs? I was torn on that. I considered dropping aggregating blogs altogether, but then people expressed that they find that useful.

One option I've considered is weighting traditional media more heavily so it's always in the lead (top row).

Another option would be to move the blogs into the social media tracker somehow, since they really are more user-generated content, and reserve the news page for traditional media.

[jimdahl]

The 90's called. They want their web designs back.

If you think this looks more dated than this, we'll have to respectfully agree to disagree.   But, no doubt, design is a subjective thing and good people will disagree on what's good.

[Cratter]

If you think this looks more dated than this, we'll have to respectfully agree to disagree.   But, no doubt, design is a subjective thing and good people will disagree on what's good.

I'm confused. You're first link (the test image) looks more dated than the current page? When comparing the two, I do think the newer test page looks better. I'm a millenial, I need more pictures!

I guess I was talking about how the current front page looks compared to the test "front page."

Did you just call me good people?

Edited November 19, 2015 by Cratter

[siouxfan512]

If you think this looks more dated than this, we'll have to respectfully agree to disagree.   But, no doubt, design is a subjective thing and good people will disagree on what's good.

If facebook has taught us anything, it is that people adjust to new designs fairly quickly. I hated every time that facebook made a major update to their design, and at this point, I couldn't even tell you what former designs look like. 

[siouxfan512]

While everyone is distracted and/or traumatized by more noteworthy changes in UND athletics, here are the main three front pages in this site's new design that I've been threatening for years:

Front page: http://siouxsports.com/?test
News tracker page: http://news.siouxsports.com/indextest.php
Social media tracker page: http://social.siouxsports.com

I hope to switch to them within days or weeks. It's going to take me a little while to get the social media tracker pulling in the right set of Fighting Hawks-tagged stuff, but I'm reasonably confident.

Actually, that's not too bad.

Just curious, but is there a reason that siouxsports only includes football and hockey standings and scores? Just wondering why basketball isn't included; is it just too many games and scores to keep updated?

Would this actually be a question for someone else? Again, just general curiosity.

[UNDBIZ]

If facebook has taught us anything, it is that people adjust to new designs fairly quickly. I hated every time that facebook made a major update to their design, and at this point, I couldn't even tell you what former designs look like. 

Well for starters it was The Facebook.....

[jimdahl]

Would this actually be a question for someone else? Again, just general curiosity.

Sorry, didn't mean to skip a question.

Back when the site was entirely manual (e.g. each update involved me typing it in, including every score to every game and every change to the standings) I had to limit it to hockey and football due to time constraints. Those sports were chosen because they were the information I wanted to find on the Internet, but that wasn't already available anywhere else in one spot.

Now, thanks to automation, I no longer have to type in things like scores. But, scores are also discoverable from countless other places (everything from UND athletics' site to ESPN), so I'm not putting in a lot of effort to duplicate something you can get elsewhere and where I'm not adding value. I keep displaying the hockey scores because I have to maintain the automation technology to acquire them because I use them for rankings and other things; I keep football around out of tradition, I guess.

But, part of the new social & news page improvements are that they incorporate more of the major sports (including men's & women's basketball and volleyball).

[siouxfan512]

Sorry, didn't mean to skip a question.

Back when the site was entirely manual (e.g. each update involved me typing it in, including every score to every game and every change to the standings) I had to limit it to hockey and football due to time constraints. Those sports were chosen because they were the information I wanted to find on the Internet, but that wasn't already available anywhere else in one spot.

Now, thanks to automation, I no longer have to type in things like scores. But, scores are also discoverable from countless other places (everything from UND athletics' site to ESPN), so I'm not putting in a lot of effort to duplicate something you can get elsewhere and where I'm not adding value. I keep displaying the hockey scores because I have to maintain the automation technology to acquire them because I use them for rankings and other things; I keep football around out of tradition, I guess.

But, part of the new social & news page improvements are that they incorporate more of the major sports (including men's & women's basketball and volleyball).

Thanks Jim,

As always, appreciate the response and the work you do!

[BigGreyAnt41]

Are you going to keep the twitter feed on the main page?  I really like have that there. 

What about the current navigation links that are on the left, for quick shortcuts to schedules, rankings, etc. for Hockey and Football?

Any thoughts on my questions?

[jimdahl]

Are you going to keep the twitter feed on the main page?  I really like have that there. 

What about the current navigation links that are on the left, for quick shortcuts to schedules, rankings, etc. for Hockey and Football?

The social media tracker page is supposed to be an expansion of the current Twitter feed. The breakout of social and news into their own pages reflects a combination of simplifying the front page to make it more mobile-friendly and intentionally putting my efforts into value-added (e.g. unique to siouxsports) features over things like scoreboards that are now trivially available from other sources.

While the left-hand navigation is gone, the schedules are still accessible from both the scoreboards (on the right) and from the site links on the bottom. As I hinted at above in discussing "value added" I was trying to strike a balance between not putting too much effort into features that are available elsewhere, though maintaining basic items of interest to siouxsports visitors like schedules and standings.

[jimdahl]

The guy on the screen shot of this page seems to appear younger and is missing a mustache

While we all look younger in photos, you're clearly familiar with Mr. Berger's Movember movement (https://us.movember.com/mospace/8054317  ). Shameless plug.

Edited November 19, 2015 by jimdahl
Fixed link

[Cratter]

Page not Found.

[jimdahl]

Page not Found.

Thanks. Link fixed. Forum software included punctuation in link.

[BigGreyAnt41]

The social media tracker page is supposed to be an expansion of the current Twitter feed. The breakout of social and news into their own pages reflects a combination of simplifying the front page to make it more mobile-friendly and intentionally putting my efforts into value-added (e.g. unique to siouxsports) features over things like scoreboards that are now trivially available from other sources.

That's disappointing.  I like the summary of latest posts and latest tweets all on one page. I can only imagine how much info I'm going to miss now with the Twitter feed gone.  Having to click to a separate page to see it probably means I just won't see it.  And since I don't use Twitter,  I really won't see that stuff anymore.

[jimdahl]

That's disappointing.  I like the summary of latest posts and latest tweets all on one page. I can only imagine how much info I'm going to miss now with the Twitter feed gone.  Having to click to a separate page to see it probably means I just won't see it.  And since I don't use Twitter,  I really won't see that stuff anymore.

I'm sympathetic to that point -- a one page summary of everything is a nice way to glance at everything that's happening, and those who want to dig deeper can follow a link to another page. I'll see if I can come up with something to get those back on the front.

Twitter is pretty strict about not reproducing the text from tweets, so I can't just make a clickable list like I do for the forum topics. Any reproduction of a tweet has to be a live tweet with the full name, avatar, timestamp, actions, etc... In somewhat comical timing, Instagram also just announced a crack down on its display requirements yesterday, so I'm going to have to dig a bit deeper into that, and I suppose there's some chance I won't be able to do this aggregation anyway.

[Goon]

The new changes look fabulous.