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Portal:AboutUsDesign

AboutUs Site Design

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Over the course of the next few months, we will be designing and redesigning the look and feel of AboutUs.org. This portal will act as a place to harvest ideas and critiques about the many upcoming changes. A quick summary of the changes is below.

This portal is in early, early development stages. Please pardon any non working areas or missing information.

  1. LogoDesign: create a logo representing AboutUs
  2. Skin/Template: changes to the "frame" around the main body content, based on logo decisions
  3. Usability/Navigation: "fixing" major navigation and usability issues such as
* the front page and page layout
* main site navigation
* article, edit and history tabs
* the sidebar links and tools
  1. Template Overhaul: adjusting templates and badges to match the new site design
  2. Everything Else: miscellaneous site changes, to be determined

AboutUs Logo

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The logo concepts and proposals have been moved to Portal:AboutUsDesign/Logos/Concepts.

We used a consensus poll to decide the final logo for AboutUs. The logo in question is below:


Questions For You

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These are questions that I am proposing to you. Feel free to answer them as briefly or lengthily as you like. There are never any wrong answers...

  1. In a sentence, how would you describe the AboutUs mission?
  2. When it comes to usability, what do you consider the most important aspects of AboutUs and wikis?
  3. Name the top three characteristics you would like to see in a new AboutUs layout.


Question 1

  • AboutUs is people, people, people, technology, people. (Thanks MeatballWiki)
  • Building how we work together.
  • It's about us and the things we care about.
  • To allow people to interact in meaning full ways that build a better future.
  • Synergy across the the world
  • Bringing people to one forum to work and learn together.
  • Simply Great

Question 2

  • Quick ... I should be able to pop in, make a change, and be back out without ever even thinking about it
  • Easy Linking ... it should be really easy to create links ... pretty much as easy as it is to create text
  • Discoverability ... I should be able to easily view, understand, and copy things I find that I like
  • Simplicity ... bells and whistles kept at bay
  • Easy Accessibility ... I should be able to find what I'm looking for with ease

Question 3

  • Simple, Clean, Friendly
  • Simple, Clean, Friendly
  • User-friendly, Uncluttered, Attractive

Timeline

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This is a working schedule for various phases of the AboutUs site redesign.

Today is 10/21/2009

Logo Design
Description: To create a logo for AboutUs that reflects the company's foundations and goals.
Proposed Deadline: 06/01/2007
We didn't meet the proposed deadline, but we're not far behind. Not bad for a community decided identity!
Status: In the midst of a ConsensusPoll. Follow the development at AboutUsLogo.
Other Info: With an identity like this one, in which the main goals and foundations are rather loose, it might be best to reach a compromise between all those involved in the final decision. Some themes to think about--that reflect upon AboutUs--are emergence, community, the WikiWay, organic organization or organic information, and connections.
Site Redesign and Usability
Description: The largest phase of the project, this will involve major usability and layout changes affecting the "skin," the navigation, the front page, and all article/edit pages. This may be broken down into further steps.
Concept Deadline: 06/18/2007
Publication Deadline: 07/09/2007
Status: Starting initial sketches of various wireframes. Will publish a few wireframes for review and develop from there. The wireframes will be found to your left, on this page. Notes about the things that need to be addressed on Layout can be seen and added to at Projects:SiteRedesign#Tasks of SiteRedesign.
Other Info: Two weeks from the Concept Deadline may be pushing it as far as deployment goes. We may need more time for testing, debugging and browser issues. In fact, I'm pretty sure I'll need more time. Pushing that publication back a week.
Templates Work
Description: Reworking the Templates currently used and creating newer, standard templates for use across the site.
Proposed Deadline: After the Site Redesign
Status: Notes and ideas can be seen and edited here.
Other Info: Creating a more complete set of Templates--in conjunction with per-page CSS (user created style sheets)--should allow for easier and better looking manipulation of page information. The idea being if User A was using Template X and saw User B with the same template dressed for, say, Halloween, User A could load User B's Template X Halloween Style Sheet (e.g. CSS:UserB-Halloween) and their Template X would now have orange and black colors.

Possible Site Palette


#EEFFDF

This is a working template for the AboutUsPalette. When done if someone wanted to see the colors, for some reason, they could use a template tag call.

#EEFFBF

These colors might possibly be used for various navigational systems. All text will probably be set in black or a very dark gray, and white will be used as well for most pages.

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