Nov 24th, 2007
Articulation
Articles system is nearing completion. It is a fully searchable system that adds categories so now press releases are combined into the same system and we have greater scope for editorials and reviews.
New site’s article homepage. From here you can search for articles, narrow it down so you can only view press releases for instance, by year or the most frequent contributors.
The actual article page. It’s very similar to our current article system’s view, really a testament to the constant refinement that has taken place with that system over the past 18 months. The look has been tweaked however to just make it cleaner and easier to read. The new photo system can be seen in action here, where articles can easily include smaller thumbnail photos throughout; a feature we hope will help brighten up articles. I think this new look gives it a much more spacious and clean look.
The bulk of the design and programming is completed. The focus is now on tying up loose ends, tweaking design elements, adding user-friendliness and fine-tuning our backend system that lets users submit content and us approve it.
I’ll see how things go over the next week or so, but I envisage that the first announcements will be made in coming weeks. My December is chockers with work, travel/leisure and all that usual Decembery sort of stuff, so the plan will basically be get things out there so everyone knows where the site is heading (i.e. international, but still very much Australian) and has a chance to weigh in on it all, but not launch until January.
There will be a beta testing period in the weeks that lead up to the launch, so we’ll also be putting up a notice for anyone that’s interested in spending a little bit of time trying to break the site before everyone else gets to.
“Your Thrill Magazine. Online”
Nice catchy little slogan there. But where is the R-C branding?
Gotta say the eclectic style is looking good, it seems a lot more fun and upbeat than the usual edgy “extreme” look a lot of coaster sites go for.
Hopefully the Editorials and Special Feautures is a category that gets put to good use. I think the reviews on this site have been all very good, what is great about them is that they pretty much say what everybody is thinking in a very articulate manner (’Superman Escape Settles In’ was an example of this)
Sometimes I have felt it has been a bit of a lost opportunity that a lot of our new attraction openings (Like Whitewater World, Batwing and Mick Doohans) have gone by without ‘proper’ reviews as in these cases there was a good opportunity to look at the very definite pros and cons these attractions had.
The logo is in the top left; the site actually goes further at the top but I cut it off where I did to only show the menu as there will be a new logo which will be unveiled in due course.
What you’re saying about reviews is exactly right. The primary goal with the special features section will be so we can put up more reviews and not have it be considered fact or news, which is the main reason I’ve not put up any reviews since Superman.
^Really? Did you internally decide to change the focus of the site?
It was very much a conscious decision to not put up reviews, and it more or less coincided with the introduction of the article display system you see today.
Up until about 18 months ago I really don’t think there was a lot of focus to the article coverage. I don’t think I’d really come up with a journalistic style and appearance that worked until we went to what eventually became the current design. It was the introduction of images in articles that really brought everything together, and it became very clear to me at least what we should be covering, and how we should cover it.
The site then sort of became 100% news driven as a result; and when you have headings like “Latest Theme Park News” it becomes somewhat of a conflict to put opinion-based pieces in there, as they’re really not news.
All that will change very soon of course…
P.S. the “Your Thrill Magazine. Online” slogan probably won’t stay. It’s been there since the day I created this layout around a year ago and in that time the concept for the site has evolved considerably beyond what I envisaged at that time.
I’d be lying if I said I’ve come up with an alternative, but it’s probably something I’ll need to start thinking about given that the bulk of the site is now completed.
^ To tell you the truth Richard, I like the slogan. The site has a magazine-like feeling to it, which I like.
Oh,
I thought that slogan was a way of tying everything together since everything you publish (News, Reviews, Special Features etc) would techincally fit under the banner of what is in a ‘magazine’.
For a moment, I thought that slogan would actually fit in well with the total thrills name.
Yeah… I think it’s more the use of “thrill” that I want to get away from. As far as I’m concerned this is a theme park site, not a coaster/thrill site, so I want to play down references to thrills etc., just as we’ve done here.
I agree with what you’re saying about magazine… I think it will find its way into the description of the site, but who knows. Maybe I’ll put up a poll and ask for suggestions in the near future. At least that way I don’t have to stress over it quite as much.
This feedback is really appreciated. It’s helping me really start to see things from the perspective of the end user, which is difficult when I’ve been wrapped up in my own little world for over a year working on this.