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Wanted: Web sites whose design you like

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Jakobud:

--- Quote from: SirPoonga on August 12, 2004, 04:06:18 am ---Just because you can;t find stuff on their site doesn;t mean the layout is not a good design :)

I can find stuff on M$.  You don't think M$ obviously.

--- End quote ---

I guess I don't... I think a little bit more straightforward than M$... let me give you an example.  I goto microsoft.com and do a search for "visual basic command reference".  Microsoft basically came up with/standardized their visual basic.  There are a lot of visual basic commands that I am sure are in some sort of 'command reference' page.... but where is it?  My search yields these results:

search results

I see "how to call vb assembly for .NET..."
"visual basic directory list info..."
"visual studio directory list"
"invoking command line .NET compilers"
"top 10 reasons to use visual J++ 1.1"  <--- what the heck?  hahaha not even close, Bill!

the list goes on and on and I don't see anything close to "visual basic command reference..." :)  In all my experience in MS's website over the years I have had to dig dig dig dig just to get to something simple.  I usually give up :)  I guess you find stuff easier than I can.

Oh well, sorry about the thread hijacking!  On with the much needed BYOAC redesign!

PS - I saw someone mentioned the idea for a user submitted tutorial section.  I love that idea!

patrickl:
I don't think VB statements are constructed from commands, but rather from methods, objects, properties API's and such. So there is no "command reference" for VB. Besides you just press F1 when your cursor is on the "command" and the help file pops-up. That's not why I reply though.

I have to agree that it's sometimes hard to find stuff on sites that carry a huge amount of info, but that's why they tend to get split in sub sites. Microsoft has done that really well. Your example actually shows very well how that works. You entered a search command that's basically searching for non-existing info. The search function is never gonna work if you don't know the name of what to search for. Still you get a "related link" to the "Visual basic Developer Center" if you go there you'll find all the documentation, examples, patches and what not a Visual Basic developer might need (and where your answer is).

So, a global search function is nice, but a well structured organisation of the information is much more important.

But then I guess people were talking layout more than overal structure. I don't think BYOAC is big enough for splitting into several sites (apart from the forum) I personally like their clean layout very much too.

Sir Auros:
The big problem I have is that the Step by Step Newbie Guide really isn't much of a tutorial. Seems more like simply a newbie guide.

I thought I remembered there being a more indepth tutorial covering pretty much all aspects of building a cabinet on here a year ago when I first joined. Did that get axed once the book came out?

It also seems like a lot of stuff found on the forum FAQs really should be available on the mainsite.

Jakobud:

--- Quote from: Sir Auros on August 13, 2004, 01:37:37 am ---It also seems like a lot of stuff found on the forum FAQs really should be available on the mainsite.

--- End quote ---

Agreed.  Saint, when you are ready to start revamping the content of the site, I would recommend you get a handful of 5-10 volunteers to comb through the existing 400+ pages of information on the message board.  We could mark specific topics where we would pull that information from those threads into the actual content of the site.  

There have been so many threads where questions have been asked and people join together to answer the question and it gets answered and then the thread is basically over.  Perfect example of information that needs to be in the content of the site instead of getting lost in the messageboard (which results in people just asking more questions on the messageboard about things that have already been covered).

Sasquatch!:
I'm sure this will come across as a shameless plug, but I'm really happy with the design of arcadeparadise.org.  It's clean-looking, it loads fast (because the graphics are at a minimum), and all layout is done via CSS.

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