Recent site redesign

[circular]

You might consider having the topmost horizontal menu be the same between the Forum pages and the other Apoe4.info pages. Right now it's a little awkward. Most of the visuals allow the Forum to integrate nicely with the Apoe4.info website, but the topmost horizontal menu changes between them.

I think standard UI would show the Apoe4.info horizontal links across the top of all Forum pages, and then the Forum-specific topmost horizontal links might be included in a row below those, possibly in dark green or a different font or some other way to show that in the second row you are looking at Forum subpages of the Apoe4.info website?

Just a thought. Nice work. Changing the board index must have been monumental.

[Julie G]

Huge thanks to Marc for envisioning and masterminding our much needed site overhaul. Thanks also to Susan and Silverlining for serving on the logo/rebranding committee. It was an enormous pleasure to work with you all. I’m continually humbled by the talent and generosity of our team. XO

[Stavia]

Thanks Marc. You were correct.
Again HUGE thanks. Its awesome.

[Admin]

I think Teazer gets some kudos too for getting us from the 23andMe transition to this transition.

Ski did the original transition from 23andMe, and this transition was 100% Marc.

I'm the janitor -- Julie calls me when a lightbulb needs changing or a toilet overflows...

Teezer

[Julie G]

LOL, beyond true. I call upon dear Teezer almost daily. He's another of our many unsung heroes.

[MarcR]

You might consider having the topmost horizontal menu be the same between the Forum pages and the other Apoe4.info pages. Right now it's a little awkward. Most of the visuals allow the Forum to integrate nicely with the Apoe4.info website, but the topmost horizontal menu changes between them.

I think standard UI would show the Apoe4.info horizontal links across the top of all Forum pages, and then the Forum-specific topmost horizontal links might be included in a row below those, possibly in dark green or a different font or some other way to show that in the second row you are looking at Forum subpages of the Apoe4.info website?

I just spent some time reviewing other phpBB sites, and I see two basic approaches to harmonizing main and forum site designs. Functionally, ours operates like Gentoo or Cities XXL, which use different menus for the main and forum sites. Visually, ours is more like Pixelmator or South Park, which maintain a common header. So I think by using identical header styles, we have set the expectation that the menus would be maintained across both sites.

I see two broad directions to consider:

1. Reduce the visual alignment between the two sites so that they are more obviously distinct while maintaining a common identity via color cues and logo.
2. Move the forum-specific menu items, and maintain identical top header menus.

The latter may be easier because it doesn't require us to develop a new look. And as long as we don't consume more vertical space, it shouldn't reduce the functionality of the current forum design, which offers more dynamic content per page than the prior one did. Perhaps the forum menu items can run along the bottom of the header next to the notifications and user/login items. I guess they would need their own separate dropdown menu for narrow/mobile browser widths.

Thanks for the detailed feedback, circular. Food for thought. Comments welcome.

[circular]

You might guess I like the second option, but I'm not on any committees hehe. I just like it to be clear that the forum IS part of apoe4.info, rather than a separate entity that apoe4.info links to. It seems quite clear but just that there's one more step to complete the unification I defer to my guiding lights at apoe4.info

[buck3Maureen]

Thanks Marc. I like it. I didn't even know it was broken.

[Tincup]

Marc,

Thanks for your great effort! I agree that having the getting started presented on the first page will be very helpful for new members.

[Thx4thegenes]

I like it! And the green color is soothing, healing........Thank you.