DevImg.net (community screenshot site)

[CGameProgrammer]

I run a website, DevImg.net, that's for amateur game developers to upload screenshots of their work, or desktop captures, or anything like that. It sports a unique design and I've done a lot of revisions of it... what do you think of it? The site is fully functional (except the FAQ, it's unwritten) and has existed for about 9 months so there's plenty of content already.

Anyway I'm very interested in hearing criticism/suggestions/praise of the design.

 

[insomnia]

You certainly won't find praise in this post but don't let it discourage you...

I'll do this in points

• The grey looks groos
• The image border looks unprofessional
• The navigation could have been done better
• To much info in one main area
• make the thumbnails bigger
• Stick to one color scheme
• Changing link name over pictures in light grey box is annoying
• Try to keep everything uniform
• The bottom most text, is useless
• Make distinguished areas between text and your background, keep in mind the color scheme
• Your logo doesn't match everything else
• use gif more then jpg because it has the transparency option. For high res images use png for the transparency
• The icons are pukey, try somethihng more cutting edge. No Try something very retro... That would kick. http://www.acidfonts.com has an awesome retro atari like font
• Again color scheme
• Lighting up the links text in your menu is annoying, in fact the entire menu is annoying. Try something a little less annoying. perhaps maybe standard text or even a flash drop down...
• *crys out* COLOR SCHEME!!!
• Red and Blue don't go together, Neither do grey and that shade o blue, neither does that yellow grey and blue with the red

Srry a bit harsh but that's how it is. Hope this helps. If you are stuck with color scheme I have a friend, he's a bit gay, but does some awesome color schemes for my simple sites. If you'd like to meet him I'm sure he'd be glad to help you out.

 

[Deathdart]

I don't really like the design (for the reasons mentioned by insomnia), but I did like browsing through the screenshors

 

[CGameProgrammer]

Thanks for the replies. This reply is very late, but I made pretty major changes to the layout of the main page, and to the image posts themselves. I believe I addressed most of the issues you brought up... please visit again and tell me what you think.

 

[insomnia]

You still have a problem with colours. They are raunchy. Overall though I am quite proud to see that you can change your site from gross to great. If you want help on colour schemes let me know. I can set you up.

 

[CGameProgrammer]

I'm open to suggestions, but I want to keep the overall color scheme gray-based as opposed to colored, since that way the screenshots are emphasized much more. Also since posts can change their color scheme (something no one took advantage of...) I felt a gray background would help ensure things always looked fine.

Oh, I should mention that only this post uses the new default colors for posts; the others use the old one because I haven't changed that part of the code yet. That's pretty important.

And if you don't like the menu... well, I really like the buttons though I know at least one or two visitors said they didn't much. But one suggested a better logo and I may use something like that instead.

 

[clintre]

Please check out http://www.colorschemer.com/online.html

 

[Alpha]

I actually like your site. The colors are great. I go to sites for the content, not the backround.

 

[deadserious]

I also like your site and the whole concept of it. That looks like a whole lot of great custom programming you've got going there. :D

 

[CGameProgrammer]

Thanks, you two... that's very encouraging. Yeah, I consider the site as being programmed rather than designed, since I did much more of the former than the latter.

 

[NeoBoyJ]

I won't say that anything on the site is 'raunchy', but I will say that against that gray bg you got, that beveled razor blade of blue cut through my eyes like nothing else (maybe the last 5 hours in photoshop cs did that, hmm?). Also, I'd make it a big less top-heavy as well. After the big gray bar (?) it feels like veeryting just drops off into clutter...much like the outside of my closet vs. the inside of it. I think that the retro idea is great. I look forward to seeing the progress!

 

[CGameProgrammer]

Originally posted by NeoBoyJ
I won't say that anything on the site is 'raunchy', but I will say that against that gray bg you got, that beveled razor blade of blue cut through my eyes like nothing else (maybe the last 5 hours in photoshop cs did that, hmm?). Also, I'd make it a big less top-heavy as well. After the big gray bar (?) it feels like veeryting just drops off into clutter...much like the outside of my closet vs. the inside of it. I think that the retro idea is great. I look forward to seeing the progress!

What blue do you mean? The titlebars? If they look bad, I suspect it's more to do with the shadow used than the shade of blue...