Survey posted 1999-08-27 01:06 by Andy.

Contribute ideas to surveys by sending a mail to survey@ticalc.org.

Hey, second comment, whoopie... Uh, one thing, when did we start focusing on the look of a site and not the content? Sure, you need a nice enough look and an easy navigation, however if you put the cosmetics of a web page before content, then that's bad. Agonizing over a color scheme while everything else suffers (i.e the file archives) will be one's downfall. If you can maintain a nice look without loosing content and meaning then more power to ya, but if not I strongly reccomend y'all just stick to what you have until you figure out how to run a good calculator site again. You knew once, sadly, some of the magic is gone...

Once we brought the new site up, a lot of people complained about the color scheme, so we decided to post a survey. BTW, this is NOT about the new translucent cases, it's about our actual site's colors :)

--BlueCalx

What?? You guys should make that a lot clearer. Can I re-vote? I voted 'They're Great!', and I want to change my vote to 'They're OK!'

I suggest you word the poll more clearly, so you won't have to do so many re-votes.

-Miles Raymond

The colours grow on you. You really don't need to change them this much. Who can I ask about suggestions to make this site better. E-mail me the persons name and e-mail. I have soooo many suggestions.

Huh, lucky bastard. I can't see a single one of them.You know what I mean....

I actually think that the colors are exelent and the site is still at a high point I dont know what you mean by the magic is gone but the site is still running properly and as it has always

FYI there have been many careless mistakes in the file archives, only 2 reviews have been written in the past month (All by Kirk) and yes, the site is still running, but if you've noticed, there's loads of hype over ticalc's new look. Sure, it has that super-professional look, sure, it may even look better than the old scheme, however the content's not changed a bit. I really don't mean to bitch, ticalc has it's faults like any other site, but just like any other site that people complain about, I'm gonna complain about this one. Wait, I have more to rant about... Ticalc is by far the largest and the most respected TI site other than ti.com but I think the time is now for smaller sites to gain popularity by offering unique services and abilities. Dim-TI, for example, first came up with preferences for users. Ticalc just implimented it better. Macross had a very very cool color and graphical scheme, now ticalc has one (kinda). TI-Files had and still has the underdog appeal. It's not the biggest, it's definately not small, but it's got some nice things about it. And to all those other sites, they make themselves unique and better by offering more specific information. Such sites like ACZ or the TCPA, offer programs, but they also have origional info for developers (TCPA's being routines). I guess what I'm trying to say is for a site to be considered great, it has to be original. When ticalc started, it was original, with all it's features and wonderfull archives. Then came along the ti-files (I'm not sure about the history back that far, please forgive any mistakes) and then Dimension-TI. All offering their own special things, however still with the same purpose. Origionality is the key to success y'all, do good,don't stop, <insert future catch phrase here>.

I agree with DOZIEDO. Many things have changed toward this site. The color schemes and things are O.K. It seems as though this site only cares about the external parts of this site not the internal (content). For example, this survey, what do you think of the colors? I just hope this site improves on content because if they don't, I just might change my homepage to either Ti-Files or Dimension TI.

---KPProGBoI

Keep up some of the good work. I still enjoy somewhat the old games you have. :-)

I personally like this site. Sure a couple areas could be improved on but it is possible to find areas of improvement on every site.
For example, I might suggest that your site (Unity Productions... http://members.tripod.com/doziebdo/)

-Add more content to the site
-Help pages and support
-Server hosting (what types of servers you use)
-Personal domain name for your site.
-Adds unique and return visitors as well as storage
-Submit to major search engines (requires metatags)
-Make site more compatible
-Doesn't fit 640x480 or 800x600 screens w/o scrollbar
-Some (about 76) HTML errors in Network Navigator
-Keep graphics to a minimum (speeds up load time)

I don't know what the ticalc people meant by doing this question but I think they wanted to tailor the site to something that the users like more and that seems like something nice to do.

To be even more accurate, we want to change the colors to something eye-pleasing to our audience. If you folks don't like the colors, it's not that hard to change them. Very little effort on our behalf could lead to the site being benefitted a lot, i.e. people not thinking our colors are fugly and going to other pages.

The main purpose of our creating the survey to be something this easy to respond to (for you guys) is so we have an accurate conception of what everyone wants. That way, we can improve our site in the future to meet your needs. Doesn't that sound so logical :)

--BlueCalx

Just a quickie suggestion: Put a border (blue, perhaps?) around the comments. It will make the comments a lot easier on the eyes by adding a little contrast.

Drew

Unfortunately, doing so involves putting each comment in another table. This literally almost doubles page rendering time in Netscape :(

Chris

Also, I forgot to add, the reason my page sucks right now is because I'm on a huge ass project so just chill, once this project's finished you won't even remember ol' Unity Productions.

> FYI there have been many careless mistakes in the file archives...

To what errors do you refer? As always, if there are any problems with the archives, email me and I will fix them as soon as possible. I know I'm not perfect, but I don't know of any existing errors....

Thanks,
Phil

You need to clarify what your surveying about, i thought it was about the case colors, not the site colors, therefore the results to the survey will be distorted.

adam

The question's wording has been updated a bit. This should clear things up.

However, I suspect most people voting figured it out, so the results won't be too skewed. Regardless, this is not life or death. :)

Chris

If it's really bugging you guys about trying to appease the masses with the color scheme, why not take a look at my.netscape.com or my.yahoo.com and check out some of their cosomizable color options. It's a nice idea, and that way, you don't have to worry about making everyone happy, and you can concentrate on calculator news and what not.

Amen, brother! Custom colors for everyone! Not only is it a nice touch (and pretty easy, in PERL/HTML), but it also makes the site more user-friendly. I, for one, am colorblind, so colors that might look good to other people can be very hard on my eyes. Color that _I_ think look nifty tend to give other people nightmares :)

Unlike some people, I belive that in order for a web site to be great, it must blend looks with content. If you cannot navigate or read a web site, then the content is meaningless. Who cares if a web site has 200,000,000,000 programs if you can't find any of them or read the wording on the site?

Note that I am not referring to ticalc.org here, but rather to sites in general and their design. You cannot have a good web site w/o giving any thoughts as to the look.

Personally, I LOVE the new ticalc.org. I think it looks MUCH better than the old one. On high resolutions, you don't see the LARGE blue section on the right anymore. It has content now, and that's good. Ticalc has brought together the best design ideas (partially from Dim-TI, but expanded A LOT) and content.

I definately like the new layout better than the old on. This one actually looks good in any resolution and makes use of less graphics. To be honest, before the change I was liking the site less and less. But I hope that since you have the layout finished, you will focus on the content now. I agree with everyone that you are slipping compared to other sites.

When the old site format was up, I NEVER came here because I hated the look and how everything was organized. But now, the site looks great and I come here every day. It really is a HUGE improvement in several aspects:

--Organization
--Load Time
--Format
--Professionalism (spelling?)
--More features (like these comments...I think these are new...)
--and overall: the site!

Well, those are personal opinions which I think have greatly improved this site! Keep up the good work guys!

Matt H.