I made a screenshot in photoshop of the start page.
Screenshots: start - personal - charity page (click to enlarge image)
I made it even more sober than the storyboard I made for the start page. Do you think I left too much out for the start page? I think less is more, but it has to be clear what you can do.
Storyboard startpage - visitor view (click to enlarge image)
Again, feedback would be great.
Staring at the screenshots, I didn’t like the way the evaluations and the blog part are underneath each other. So I came up with this idea; tabs with some content in the tabs. My (not yet patented) Big-Tabs idea:
Looks rather obvious in a way, but I haven’t seen it online somewhere. Could you give me some feedback if you think it would work for you?
My screenshot for the personal page. While I was working on it and did the comments piece, I thought it’s probably a good idea if you can also comment/leave a message at a charity page. Now you can write an evaluation, but not every message is an evaluation. Anyway, here is the screenshot for the personal page:
(click to enlarge image)
Any feedback?
I have about one week left to hand in my concept document and my Thesis. The Exams are August 25, so I can work on the test version later. Today I worked on the screenshot, I changed it (again).
Update: some changes, thanks Sjors for the feedback.
(Click image to enlarge)
The lay-out is now much more easy on the brain, here is the older version of the screenshot.
The quality indicator icons are also not really what they are supposed to be, but I’ll leave it like that, because I don’t want to waste time on icons.
In responds to Sjors; I’m keeping the links rather blue and I don’t want to make the type any smaller for readability. I agreed there was a problem with the names with the pictures, so I hope this solution will do. I changed the left part a little and the color of the titles on the right.
Feedback?
So the deadlines are coming closer. I have 10 days to write my thesis and concept document. My graduation exams will be August 25, so it would be really nice if I would have my test version ready and some feedback on how it works before the 25th of August.
Building the test version
There are some new developments on the test-version front; I’m working on my Drupal test version, and as I now understand how Drupal works, I also see its limitations. I’ve spoken to my uncle and we’ve found a strategy to tackle the problem I have with Drupal. But, that strategy would include hacking some modules and changing the database a little. I would be able to do this, but hacking would take a lot of time.
The new plan; make a Joomla test site. The advantage of Joomla is that the Joomla community is bigger and older. I’ve learned from the way Drupal works and can use this knowledge to work with Joomla. What I need to find out really quickly is if I don’t run into the same problem I ran into with Drupal. It comes down to this specific part:
The problem
There must be personal profile pages and charity pages, on a profile page you must be able to link to other profile pages (buddy-list) and to charity pages (support-list). On a charity page it must be possible to write news items by the charitypage owner and people with a profile must be able to rate and evaluate the charity so that it influences the overall rating of the charity.
Drupal solution
The Drupal hack would consist of making an extra atribute in the buddylist, making it possible to devide the user table in people and charities. I won’t go into details, but it can work if I change some functions in the buddylist and user module. The problem is, hacking always brings new problems to solve, so that will take too much time.
Joomla solution
For Joomla there is the Community Builder and the groupjive module, making it possible to set up a sort of charity profile page. I’m not sure if is possible to put evaluations on such a page, but there are rating modules.
I shall now put my energy in the Joomla test site, but I will not kill the Drupal test.
Final solution
After my graduation there is a really good chance I will be able to build a real version of Helpalot based on a social network site that is being built right now.
I’m working with someone who’s making this social network site and likes to make Helpalot a reality too. We are doing some research together and I’ll probably do a 9 Questions interview to introduce him. Still, this Helpalot version would not be available in time for my graduation, so I’m still going to build my own test version.
How you can help
If you happen to be an expert on Joomla, maybe you can point me to some important modules I’ll need to use for this test version.
If you happen to be an expert on Drupal and/or PHP and you would like to try to do this buddylist hack, I’ll explain in detail what the strategy would be and perhaps it can be done.
Off topic
Now for some fun; check out the new video clip from Muse - Knights of Cydonia, featuring a kung-fu cowboy with a laser gun. Oh, and unicorn, robot, holograms, police car, communistic flag and much more. Hilarious, at 3:14 you can see ‘the crew’ in the mirror, including fake moustache and everything.