Please Help Finish Eureka Theme

December 8th, 2007 • Related • Filed Under

The designer Behind my new Eureka WordPress Theme has asked that I provide final feedback this weekend, so he can focus on fixing the final bugs.Â Can you please take 5 mins to haveÂ a look at the Eureka demoÂ and leave any feedback in a comment below.

Â Thanks in advance.

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About the Author

Everton is based in London and has worked in the internet and mobile space for over ten years now, and before that worked in corporate strategy and consulting. He has a degree in Economics from Cambridge University, and currently runs the Portal and online operations for one of the largest ISPs in the UK. He also writes for Windows 7 News.

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There Are 19 Responses So Far. »

#1

Comment by Bush Mackel on 8 December 2007:

I’m on 1280×1024 FF 2.0.0.11…

Maybe it’s just my screens, but it seems that your main header and the links below it aren’t centered vertically… The Home, About, Topics, Archive bother me more than the header… looks like they could be moevd up a pixel or two especially when you look towards the right at the search box..

In your right sidebar, the “Subscribe to RSS Feed” graphic looks like it could maybe benefit from some extra space on top of it since it feels like it’s really too close to the Home, About, Topics bar…

Under Editors Picks, I’m not sure that I like the gradient behind the Connected Internet logo that is to the left of the links.

In the footer, in the bubble titled “About Connected Internet”, most of the next is nearly black (except for the links Read more and Advertise on Connected) making the majority of that text PAINFUL to read.

In the footer, in the bubble titled “Latest Posts/New Comments”, “Find more posts in the” is really dark text making that really hard to read too.

And finally in the footer, that rectangle that says “CIAO! Read Reviews…” is going out of the black footer… maybe if that was moved under the META footer bubble it’d look a bit better. (Just my two cents)
#2

Comment by Everton on 8 December 2007:

Thanks for the detail Bush - some good new points in there.

Keep them coming folks!
#3

Comment by Joseph Plazo on 8 December 2007:

I like checking for the newest comments and posts first, so I find it vexing to scroll all the way to the bottom just to find it.
#4

Comment by Everton on 8 December 2007:

@Joseph

Sorry about that, but it’s a deliberate attempt to put the stuff that I think new readers will find interesting at the top, and the stuff that regulars use at the bottom. My theory is that regulars will know it’s there, whereas if I put the newbie stuff at the bottom they’ll never find it.

I’ll keep an eye on it when the theme goes live and I’ll switch if necessary
#5

Comment by mlankton on 8 December 2007:

sidebar is much improved

top nav would look better with images+css instead of html

looks a little flat, might be more three dimensional with a darker color for the page background
#6

Comment by Ernie on 8 December 2007:

To be honest I don’t think it is an improvement on your current theme. Infact I like your current theme more.

Are you going to theme your forum and directory to match your blog? It is not that difficult and gives a much more connected feel to your website.
#7

Comment by Everton on 8 December 2007:

@Ernie

Thanks for the feedback. What would you do to improve it?

I intend to make the forum and directory match once finished theme.

@Michael

not sure what you mean about the images+css bit. I’m not a designer so I don’t understand!

Agree about background colour - will experiment when live rather than bothering designer as he’s getting frustrated
#8

Comment by Ernie on 8 December 2007:

Hi Everton,

I am not a designer, and I don’t want to offend your designer either. It is just that I visit blogs such as johnchow, johncow and shoemoney and their designs just seem to have a much much more polished look to them.

I think your new logo is poor and the choice of fonts is poor. Sorry that I cannot give you any more decent constructive advice/criticism on your new theme, but as I say I am not a designer.

If I had a blog such as yours with great earnings and even greater earning potential I would maybe spend a bit more and make sure that I hired the best.
#9

Comment by Brown Baron on 8 December 2007:

Eureka would look great with a featured post section.

The text size of the nav links are a little too big.
#10

Comment by Micah on 8 December 2007:

I agree with Joseph about seeing new posts first, however I know most readers are probably going to be new…so I can deal with scrolling down.
Also, a featured post section would be pretty neat, like Brown said.
#11

Comment by Everton on 9 December 2007:

@Micah

The ‘editors picks’ will show featured posts. I’m going to try and rotate them fairly often to try and highlight good old posts
#12

Comment by Everton on 9 December 2007:

@Ernie

Sorry to hear that. I agree there are aspects of the final build that I would have liked the designer to sort out rather than me having to point them out. Hopefully once the theme is tightened up using the long list I’m sending through (it’s growing every hour) it will look very sharp and professional.
#13

Comment by Smackall on 10 December 2007:

I like the brightness of the theme. Its good to read in such a theme…
#14

Comment by D Web Design on 10 December 2007:

I hope that the new layout would come before the end of the year.
#15

Comment by Jalaj on 10 December 2007:

The most apparent error are:
1) The CiAO ad flows aout of the design.
2) The submenus are aligned otherwise. Currently the complete box containing the submenu items is alined to the Main menu text. Instead the submenu texts should should bear the same line with main menu text.

the design shows fine in Safari and other browsers too.
#16

Comment by keikun17 on 10 December 2007:

i like how the colors blend together and the font size are just ok. ads would seem to be nonintrusive and would blend well
#17

Comment by Amanda on 10 December 2007:

Hello Everton,

I see where you’re headed with the “web 2.0″ style, though as others have said before, it really needs a little polishing before it’s perfect.

I don’t mean to offend your designer at all in saying this, especially as I understand how difficult it can be to design a website for someone, only to be asked at every turn of this and that could be changed. At the same time, I understand the necessity of the blogger to have a perfect template. I have several blogs and design them all myself, though unfortunately I’m never completely happy with my own themes!

Anyway, here are my suggestions to help polish the template a little:

1. it would look better to me if the logo was slightly smaller, perhaps the same size as the text (before the reflection).

2. The “Subscribe by RSS” image would look so much better if the font matched the rest of the blog. The serif-style fint looks so awkward among the rest of the theme (Helvetica/Arial/Verdana would appear so much better to me).

3. I really don’t like the comment buttons on the home page, especially as they contrast the other colors so greatly. On the single pages, perhaps. Think of it this way: most of your posts will only appear in full on single pages. Few bloggers will leave a comment until they have read the whole post, so there is no need for a big comment button on the home page.

4. I would love to see the comment count, tags and author/publishing date in small letters beneath the post titles, especially if separated by a horizontal rule. I think this looks great and rather professional. It’s also very useful to read such details at first glance of a post, rather than as an afterthought.

5. No sidebar ads above the fold? This I was surprised about. Perhaps a couple of 125px square images right at the top followed by the popular posts would add colorful variety while the top picks would still be easily visible for newbies? You could always add extra sponsorship further down the sidebar too.

6. The footer sections need a little more padding within their sections so the text isn’t quite so close to the edges.

I do look forward to seeing the finished design, Everton. Although I don’t often comment, I do often read your blog!

Best wishes,

Amanda
#18

Comment by Everton on 11 December 2007:

Thanks Amanda!

1. I think the designer has made the banner the same height as the banner - I think you’re right that smaller would look better

2. I’m going to get that logo redone as it’s bugging me as well. Will do after theme goes live

3. That’s come up a few times about the colour - will change. I might even scrap them altogether

4. That’s a bug - they are supposed to be displayed like they are on this theme

5. There will be ads above the fold. The top posts isn’t working properly so more are being displayed than should be. At the moment the sidebar has little ad value to me so the fold isn’t that important. will change if start selling sponsors

6. The footer sections are very messy at the mo….

Thanks again!
#19

Comment by Mark from Bloglyne on 7 January 2008:

Everton - I tried to read all the comments, but it is pretty darn early here… I noticed on small blog posts that the larger Google Ads block is not sized correctly.

I think that could be fixed in the CSS with a separate container, with specified div height and width.