[ubuntu-art] Ubuntu Forums design assistance

[Thorsten Wilms]

Hi!

A bit late ... but looking at
http://www.mikesplanet.net/forums/forum.php I see a couple of issues.

"Help" sits between the closely related login controls and "Register".
Flipping "Help" and "Register" would fix that.

"Remember me?" should not have that question mark. Haphazard placement.
Would better be on one line with the rest of the login stuff. BTW, do
users understand what that is about?

The fist 2 tabs belong to the forum, but the other "tabs" are lying to
us, as they are outward links. Same presentation for 2 different kind of
links and breaking the notebook metaphor ...

"What's New?" and "Today's Posts" are actually the same link. Don't use
different labels for the same thing. Avoid duplicates, especially that
close together.

We have "Forum", then "[house-icon] Forum" and "Ubuntu Forums". At least
2 of these are redundant.

The speech-bubble icons rely on their tooltip: "Double-click this icon
to mark this forum and its contents as read". Even if a better icon can
be found, I would lean towards relying on a text link/command within the
forum page (not on the overview).

http://www.foopics.com/showfull/0a404f14eb9b5fee61518d808c5dd177
A rough mockup, trying to address the issues with the header. If we
really feel a need to link to several other Ubuntu sites, an approach
like the very top on http://www.heise.de/ should be considered.


-- 
Thorsten Wilms

thorwil's design for free software:
http://thorwil.wordpress.com/