New Actinic web site

[cbarling]

We hope that you find our new web site enjoyable and much clearer than the old one.

Chris

[Darren B]

Only one comment, i find the light lilac/purple hard to read on the white back ground. The slightly stronger purple is fine (top menu bar area and drop downs for example)

apart from that it looks good

[gabrielcrowe]

I like it.

Its nice and dynamic, and the layout is sound. Sir Breakalot is right about the purples. On my screen they are just slightly too pastel. It needs more zing.

How about more dancing girls? or perhaps a batman style 'kapow!'?

[leehack]

I like it alot too, big big improvement, apart from the light text colors. There seems to be a persistent desire to have a text color that's a struggle to read, surely someone at the towers sees things like the rest of us do? The dark purple is the perfect text color.

The dynamic menu is almost invisible when it fires out, why does it have a transparent background, all you can see is the image below, not the menu options which is what you asked to see.

Great improvement, just a little too like a showhome, we all like to look at showhomes, but we certainly wouldn't like to use one, they're not practical in the real world. Sacrifice a bit of the look for usability every day of the week IMO.

[Ben]

Hi Lee,

You mentioned something yesterday about the drop-downs appearing differently in Firefox and IE8. There's no difference for me across browsers, but I've seen what I think you're seeing on just one machine in the office - the drop-downs appear fine in FF but transparent in IE8. What OS and graphics card do you have?

[fergusw]

Hi Chris,Ben,

I echo the thoughts of everyone above. Overall an attractive design and a much better flow and layout for the products and information available.

Also, if it helps I can confirm Lee's findings on the menu in IE8

I've attached a screenshot of the comparison to see if that can help:

[Duncan Rounding]

I also find the flyout menus too light and not easy to read. Maybe my eyes aren't so good.

[leehack]

Hi Lee,

You mentioned something yesterday about the drop-downs appearing differently in Firefox and IE8. There's no difference for me across browsers, but I've seen what I think you're seeing on just one machine in the office - the drop-downs appear fine in FF but transparent in IE8. What OS and graphics card do you have?

No idea what the graphics card is tbh unless radeon 1600 series means anythign to you? It will be a decent one though, although nothing out of the ordinary. OS is XP Pro. I'd be intrigued if any graphic card or OS had an effect on a website render though, this is a coding and styling issue IMO and one that a number of people seem to be seeing, so that would point to OS and graphic card being a cul-de-sac perhaps.

[gabrielcrowe]

the graphics card is not in any way responsible for a simple page render in any browser, unless the browser is using a plugin like flash with 3d extensions or opengl extensions: rare.

ie8 is useless. be carefull with your css.

Screenshot and contrast in photoshop:

http://www.gabrielcrowe.co.uk/forump...ple-towers.jpg

[Ben]

Thanks - yes, I was clutching at straws TBH, not sure why it would appear differently in IE8 on different machines. However, the code has been changed now to remove the transparency, so if you refresh you should see the difference.

Thanks for the feedback.

[leehack]

Transparency has gone for me, just needs to be readable text color now.

[Sean Williams]

Big improvement on the previous site.
I concur with others' comments - the purple is too light. The feeling it gives me is the site is afraid to promote itself strongly - a bit fey for want of a better word.
Gabe's stronger contrast image is much better.
Also - I think the central layout is too large and blocky with too much of a difference in text size when compared to the top and bottom layouts.
Reminded me a bit of a [childrens] nursery site.
Easier to find stuff.

[Steve G Griggs]

New website

Sorry but it does need a bit more contrast for readbility, and to give it some impact. The light purple does come accross a bit soft and lacking in OOMPH! and impact.

[Mike Hughes]

Ah.

Well if we're talking about the main website I wonder why everything is so large? It looks as if it was designed for viewing on a small screen. On a decent sized screen I have to back off about 10 feet to feel comfortable viewing it.

Weird.

Mike

[Rich Brady]

Are you bragging about your screen size? LOL

It could have been designed like that to read better on mobile phones where bigger is better?