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Sneak Peek: New Novell.com header

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15 December 2009 - 10:57am
Submitted by: ssalgy

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The design team in the Electronic Marketing department has redesigned the global header that will be used on Novell.com. It should be rolling live in the next week or so, and we'd like to know what you think of it. The objectives were to make it easier and faster to find content on the Novell website, and to make it more Google friendly as well.

Take a look, and then post your feedback as a comment.

http://www.novell.com/headerpreview/


Disclaimer: As with everything else at Cool Solutions, this content is definitely not supported by Novell (so don't even think of calling Support if you try something and it blows up).

It was contributed by a community member and is published "as is." It seems to have worked for at least one person, and might work for you. But please be sure to test, test, test before you do anything drastic with it.



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geoffc's picture

Loose the dimming!

Submitted by geoffc on 15 December 2009 - 12:23pm.

I can just envision the person behind me on the bus having an epileptic seizure as I try to work on the way into work from all the flashing!

The way I mouse, it flashed so many times it was making me sick!

On the other hand, it seems like a nice design, and was very fast in terms of drawing the menus and then the undrawing (aka, getting out of my way).

So a big improvement if they can get rid of the dimming and consequent flashing that it causes.

ssalgy's picture

Browser and OS info needed

Submitted by ssalgy on 15 December 2009 - 2:12pm.

Hi Geoff,

What browser and OS are you using? They think it's a bug specific to certain browsers -- nothing flashes and blinks for most of us.

nate_spears's picture

New Header

Submitted by nate_spears on 15 December 2009 - 12:45pm.

Big improvement. Roll out soon!

geoffc's picture

Flashing

Submitted by geoffc on 15 December 2009 - 2:49pm.

I think by flashing I mean the dimming in and out so fast and often as I mouse around. Win XP SP3, and Firefox 3.5.5

You know my email, if you want to try a webex to see what I am seeing...

ssalgy's picture

How exactly DO you mouse?

Submitted by ssalgy on 15 December 2009 - 3:57pm.

So I'm intrigued to know your unique mouse patterns. Do you Mouse Doodle while you're reading?

geoffc's picture

I mouse like cat!

Submitted by geoffc on 16 December 2009 - 7:58am.

I think I take mousing lessons from my cats.

Ever seen a cat stalk a mouse? Well I mouse nothing like that, since my cats are terrible mousers!

We lived in Manhattan and the cockroaches were about 50/50 with the cats. Some days you would find cockroach legs scattered about the apartment. Other days you would see a cat limping and looking severely embarrassed.

I have no idea how they would have handled a NYC rat! Those probably would have eaten one of our cats!

Of course, one of them was (she still is, thankfully not very good at it, and she weighs 7 lbs to my 270 lbs so not exactly a fair fight) trying to kill me: Her pics are in this article
http://www.novell.com/communities/node/5768/30000-...

Lets see if I can link to her pics direct:
http://www.novell.com/communities/files/ish-before...

jcrawfor's picture

Big improvement

Submitted by jcrawfor on 15 December 2009 - 3:25pm.

I agree that this is a huge improvement over the previous header. The information is laid out a lot better as well as the menu map is easier to follow.

I do have a couple things that seemed odd to me as well as some of the ordering. I am pretty sure that the majority of the English speaking world reads left to right. With that being said I wondered about...

General Feedback:
1. I do not like the idea of putting Partners & Communities together. The Novell Communities and Cool Tools areas are such a great/valuable tool hiding putting them with Partners seems silly. Maybe add links to User Communities under Support as well is a happy compromise (see below).
2. Will I be able to change the language by clicking on the language between Login and Edit?
3. Should there be an Edit button or is this specific to the devel version?
4. The Login button seems to small and poorly highlighted. What about making it bigger and/or switching the color scheme to black on silver? Or maybe ditch the button idea and just have it be a larger silver on black text link.

Under About Novell:
1. Shouldn't General Novell and Press be on the left as they apply to all visitors and Investor Relations and Analysts be on the right since they only apply to specific groups?

Under Services & Support
1. Novell has used the "Self Support" heading for years. I believe certain tools like Cool Solutions, Communities, Forums, etc. get lost in this menu structure. I believe you should add buttons at the top (like the one under Products for A-z) for the following: Downloads, Knowledgebase, Forums, Documentation, and Communities (not in any particular order).

Just my two cents,
Jeff Crawford

nate_spears's picture

Blinking

Submitted by nate_spears on 15 December 2009 - 3:42pm.

I can confirm some odd behavior in FF, same setup as Geoff except SP2, but not sure if it is the same thing he is describing.

If I put my mouse over (for example) Products, move it sideways to Services and Support, up to the "non menu" area, and back to Products in a circle, do that a few times quickly, and then stop on the "non menu" area, I see the dimming "catching up" to my mouse movements. It seems to be keeping track of how many times it should have gone from dim to bright and back and just working through the queue.

Chrome doesn't show the same behavior and neither does IE8, but I prefer FF to both of them even so because the dimming in FF is much smoother.

Gracal's picture

This is an improvement. I

Submitted by Gracal on 15 December 2009 - 3:49pm.

This is an improvement. I like the way the menu items pop up, rather than having the entire menu slab drop down the way the current one does. It works more intuitively to my way of thinking. The white-on-black text also is more readable on iffy-contrast monitors. Also a nice improvement is the shortened delay between when the mouse leaves a menu and when it disappears; the current menu-slab lingers to long in my opinion.

Looks great on both Firefox and Seamonkey on Linux and Windows. Opera-on-Linux isn't quite as optimal, but it seems the fade function is faster than FF. The menu font is not as bold as it is on the Mozilla browsers.

Firefox on Linux:

Opera on Linux:

As I said, a minor difference. Overall I believe the new style is an improvement.

Thnielsen's picture

Well we made it bad 1st time - lets make it worse

Submitted by Thnielsen on 16 December 2009 - 2:14am.

I am well prepared for all the comments I will spawn by this posting, but i still think the issue deserves a "touch ground" comment.
Feel free to put all the flashy corporate messages on flash, and all the hype words etc. as well, but the navigation menu, should be absolutely failsafe - meaning even the most stupid browser/platform must beyond any doubt be able to navigate the menus (did you all upgrade yout flashplayer on iPhone - or manually add it to your win mobile that is not shipping with flash) - think about all the hopeless mobile device accessing our homepage while waiting in the airport - and anybody still remember we are a linux company - yes it generally works, but it is not nice?
The windows workstation is the most common desktop - but is it the most common client accessing our home page?
OK that was it - let youself loose :-)

MHGlenn's picture

Big improvement

Submitted by MHGlenn on 16 December 2009 - 8:06am.

I like it.

tmstone835's picture

Better but I agree about the flashing

Submitted by tmstone835 on 16 December 2009 - 10:54am.

I think you are trying to be too clever by using the dimming and brightening functions. Just give me simple drop-down menus and forget the fluff. I know your web developers don't want to hear that because they can't resist using the newest cool tools to jazz up the web site. Minimal Flash, no Silverlight, just make it easy and logical.

amarquezxc's picture

Very good

Submitted by amarquezxc on 16 December 2009 - 1:53pm.

I like the change-- post it soon!

paulgear's picture

Looks good, until...

Submitted by paulgear on 17 December 2009 - 12:00am.

...you actually put the mouse on one of the headers. C'mon - those menus are WAY too big. And there should be one-click access to downloads and knowledge base - that's what long-term users come to novell.com for...

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