Site upgrade

I agree - change is good. Overall I like the new look, and am glad I don't have to look at the same ol' anymore. My only critique is that the site is a little busy and harsh on the eyes - I think the grey striped background is the culprit there. However, I'm sure once I'm not broke and join the club the other color options will fix that.

I especially love the customizable nature of the homepage - just like Yahoo!, except I can get my coaster news first! How else will the new design improve the functionality of the site? So far all I've really encountered are differences in the visuals and slight variations in the layout (although I've only been surfing for an hour or so, so I'm sure i'll encounter more as i go).

Thanks for spending all that time on us - I for one would say that Coasterbuzz is the best site on the internet for coaster junkies. It's allowed me to go from being a fan of coasters and gawking at them on TV or the Web to actually taking trips to ride them! And i can honestly say it's the only site on the internet that i visit religiously every single day.

~me

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peace, love, coasters.
*** This post was edited by nelson324 1/30/2003 1:49:12 AM ***

I am definitely feelin' this. Nice work Mr. P. Since black and gray are my favorite colors.....perfecto

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Jus' gimme de light!

It's certainly impressive, but I can't say that I like it. As far as I'm concerned, black text on white is the way to go. This black is making the both the font and the whole box look smaller. Plus, all the grey is a bit of a distraction.

However: I have never reacted well to change at first. You can rest assured that I will probably come to appreciate this look much more in the coming days. Also, I really can't complain, 'cause I haven't seen all the options. But I'm working on that.

Not too bad for an American! ;) It really looks nice, but I do think you should reconsider your usability. The search box, and all what's beneath that really make the forum pages a bit too narrow for my taste. I don't have such a large monitor for nothing. That's a bit of a shame.

One of the ten webdesign-commandments still is "thou shallt use thou widht"! Seeing that normal resolution have a width of 4 and a height of 3, it is logical to fully use the width, and try to really limit the scrolling down.

You did a great job Jeff, sorry I'm such a perfectionist.

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Dutch Coastin' :: European coasters, thrills and theming!

Something that I absolutely love about the new site is the fact that users can post photographs for the coasters in the database. With some of the talent on these boards, I'm sure the database will have plenty of great stills for our viewing :). Thanks for your hard work and all the time you've "wasted" on us over the past month or two! :)
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Corey

Well, it is a little tough on my colorblind eyes but I think I will be able to get used to it.

WOW! Kick ass Jeff!

-Tina

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Feel The Adrenaline....
www.intenserides.com

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JoNoJ27 said:
Looks good. But I did send it straight to classic green. :)

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A failure in society is a failure of society.

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How do you do that?

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-Sean Newman

Click on the "YOUR ACCOUNT" button at the top right hand side of the screen.

Then click "Change the color scheme of CoasterBuzz " on that screen. You will have 5-6 choices to go through. Have fun.

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My website - Zero G Thrills

I like the way it is organized but find the colors very hard on the eyes.

:(

Thanks for all the work you do on the site though.

You need to be a Coasterbuzz Club member to change the color scheme though..

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Dutch Coastin' :: European coasters, thrills and theming!

Great look, Jeff.
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Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former." - Albert Einstein

Jeff, I never considered myself much of a brown nose, but this site is dope! You have SHOCKED THE WORLD (again)!

Regarding the width... I've been involved in more usability studies than I care to mention, and while I'm sure some of you will never be reasoned with over it, controlling the width is a good and right thing to do. Why? Read on...

Remember newspapers? Those things they used to send to your house, news printed on cheap paper? Those pages are more than a foot wide. However, you may notice that they choose to break up the text into really narrow columns. Why do they do that?

Well, going back to college and newspaper production 101 (OK, there wasn't such a course, but they did teach it somewhere along the line), the narrow columns are there because it's a lot easier for the eye to follow shorter lines.

For years no one in the Web world seemed to care about that, myself included. Then, at a previous job, we were involved in a usability study where, sure enough, we were testing our own news content online. What we learned was that people were irritated with reading online because they'd lose their place. It was especially bad for long paragraphs (which is common in the forums, unfortunately). When we restricted the width of the text, those problems went away.

So that's why dynamic width tables are bad for text content.

Regarding the background and colors and such, fear not, they may change over time. For this project I don't exactly have my own usability lab. ;)

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Jeff - Webmaster/Admin - CoasterBuzz.com - Sillynonsense.com
"The world rotates to The Ultra-Heavy Beat!" - KMFDM

"If you don't learn something new everyday, you've been dead for quite a while."

Great look!

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There's nothing like a woodie...

I definitely prefer the fixed width as well. Being a graphic design, this is an issue that has definitely bothered me as well.

Your description of short width columns being easier to read is dead-on. What makes it so difficult is that when you complete each line of text, your eye then has to track back over to the left edge of the text and begin reading the next line. The longer the line, the more likely your eyes will get confused.

There are definitely some color combinations in the cool blue palette that are a little difficult to read.

Great upgrade to an already great site.

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Is that Freedom Rock? Well turn it up dude !!

Great Job Jeff the site looks so sweet now !

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"Rock over London..Rock On Chicago..Wheaties, Breakfast of Champions"! -Wesley Willis

Thge new look is nice, Great upgrade Jeff.

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Apeman

I like the new site well done

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check out Infenro!!

www.zonezero.co.uk

the colors suck, but everything else kicks major butt. I suppose I'll either get used to the colors or eventually join the club.

you know, I thought it was a little weird that you made the games site so different from the main site, but now its pretty obvious.

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-Bob (formerly Coaster Jedi)
Matt 1989-2003