What is Digg?72 Comments
- iliketurtles2, on 11/20/2008, -2/+27Turning a Photoshop mockup into a proper, functioning website takes a lot more time however.
- m1th, on 10/12/2007, -0/+13From the site:
A one-off fee of just £725 (US$1,250) gets you:
* A professional redesign of your site's home page by Ben Hunt
* Your site included in the book, and featured on this site, where it will be seen by like half a million people - guaranteeing great exposure
* All graphics files of the new design you need to help you implement your new design
So I take it that those 50 redesigns have already paid him the money.
And lets not forget the publicity he's getting from digg alone. - ionbattle, on 10/12/2007, -1/+13It just seems like the regurgitate the same Web 2.0esque ***** over and over.
- EsenceOfPoultry, on 10/12/2007, -5/+16Unfortunately I am not, but I think protomoting your site on digg is awesome if you have something useful to give to the masses.
- EsenceOfPoultry, on 10/12/2007, -2/+12I think I read it right but when they finish the 50 redesigns they are going to put them together into a book that can be baught or downloaded in pdf format.
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/redesigns-book.cfm - sembetu, on 10/12/2007, -1/+9okay... Here's my recipe for this obviously ridiculous scam.
1. Find 50 ugly sites nobody ever heard of.
2. Re-design them with wob 2.0ish interfaces a-la lime green, yellow, pale yellow, rounded corners etc...
3. Charge an ungodly amount to have the honor of being on a site nobody cares about, and redesigned by someone nobody ever heard of.
4. Profit.
5. Rinse, repeat.
Absolute crap, regardless of the truth behind the design principles.
What's next, I sold my plasma on e-bay, while building a rocket out of a swedish penis enlarger...
Next. - paulwilde, on 10/12/2007, -0/+7Usually you don't judge other sites if yours isn't good in the first place. Look at his banner for instance, he doesn't even know how to save images properly.
Also, http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/about.cfm
Look at the bottom right. The contents overflow. - asurroca, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7@rnmrnmrnm: I agree 100%. The first example is pretty enough, but the second example absolutely reeks of generic, mass-produced design. If these 50 redesigns are all going to be as half-assed as that one, then I'll pass.
- rnmrnmrnm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7nice though the second example is repugnant
http://www.webdesignfromscratch.com/50-redesigns-mediavolunteer.cfm
besides IMHO their site also needs a redesign urgently - dmsteg, on 10/12/2007, -0/+6>"$1,250 for a redesign . . . of your homepage?!
>Hell naw. Are you bitches crazy?"
I don't think this is for your myspace page there, I would imagine this fee is for smaller commercial(ish) sites that usually run between 5 and 10k to build from scratch.
$1250 is absolutly more than reasonable for a complete redesign. - defectDS, on 10/12/2007, -4/+10Wow. Is it possible to download that entire site in PDF format? :P
- GodsHand, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Doesn't look "great" at all. It's very generic and somehow unorganized. I don't like the colours either. It's better than the first design, but nothing to write home about. Or put in a book.
- rdwtux, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4this is just spam.. sad that this has reached the front page..
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Instead of spending $1,250 for a redesign of one page, I would rather invest that $1,250 in better code or developing a better idea behind my site to begin with. After all, if MySpace has taught us anything, it's that complex, ugly pieces of poorly coded crap can make you rich as long as the service that site offers is in demand. And if Digg has taught us anything, it's that sparse simplicity can be equally as powerful if the idea behind the site and service is good enough.
Personally, I thought the example site was average. I would be pissed if I paid $1,250 for that. Ooh wow. For $1,250, I get rounded corners and gradients. ***** AMAZING! - xfTwitch, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6try reading the whole thing... He will provide all files needed to create the page.
For your $1250, you get a re-design, and your site appears in a book. Not a bad deal at all actually. - chime, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I like fades, I sometimes like rounded edges. I even like huge fonts once in a while. However, applying the same exact stylesheet with bright pastels on every single site is ridiculous. The 2nd example looked very clean and direct before his "redesign." I don't care what awards you've won or how much blog-cred you have, not every site has to look like it's a Backpack/Tadalist clone.
Stop with the incessant application of the same exact style already. Come up with a new style for fark's sake!
To anyone who wants to say "Well chime! What you done?" - www.chir.ag / www.uvasun.com / www.edisondriving.com - These are a few examples of my sites and have one thing in common: There is NOTHING in common. I don't care if you like them or hate them. They work for the intended audiences. And I'm not even a full-time web designer, more of a programmer/sys-admin/proj-mgr type. So you professional designers better start coming up with crap that's not a rip off of every other 2.0 site out there. - Camissa, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3I agree with r2d7 and canadianguy33, there's a lot more to designing a site than giving it a face lift and making it look pretty. Consideration of business objectives and constraints are a key part.
But saying that, I think some of these are touched on in the article and some valid points are made such as considerations when designing for an older target audience. As long as people don't look at redesigns such as this in isolation I think they can be good learning tools. - SgnDave, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3These redesigns look like ads... when I first looked at the Sunhome redesign, I thought I was looking at an X10-style popup. Too much noise.
- canadianguy33, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Damn r2d7, you're getting dugg down hard and I don't get it?
As much as I want to 'go graphic' on users asses by making things 'pretty' I've learned (the hard way) that the functionality is the MOST IMPORTANT factor in web design.
With that said, I hate to be an arse and rip on this guys site but 'holy smokes' there are some big problems (and he's on digg which makes him fair game to rip lol) with his site alone that made say "so what if he's doing 50 redesigns?". I don't want to go into a nitty-gritty review so I'll just point out the fact that a lot of the buttons, headlines and articles are too vague for someone looking for 'web design from scratch'. Also, what the ***** is up with those ***** keyword ads? That's the worst thing you can put on your website IF you're sincerely trying to communicate with your users. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -3/+6Most of the "photoshop" websites I've seen were just dumbasses taking a layout they made in photoshop and then splicing all the images up and putting them back together in the actual page. Messy, ugly and pointless. I would rather have a smooth flowing quick loading site than something where it loads 10 images just to produce a "frame" for the page content.
- defectDS, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4You guys gotta read what he says and why he does things. He doesn't make the font bigger to follow the "Web 2.0 trend," he says that the site is geared towards older adults, so it is better for them to read the site. Plus the site needs a focal point, dragging they eyes directly where they need to be with high contrasting fonts and backgrounds. It all makes perfect sense. I find the design quite magnificent. For your average company, $1250 isnt that much.
- WeeklyGeek, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2I bet you every site design is going to look like that cruddy-ass web 2.0 design.
- settsu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Thank you. I didn't want to be the only one.
Once again, as a graphic artist, I must resist the urge to post a self-promoting "story"... - jrbryner, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2He's conflicting on his point about Font Size and Contrast. The initial design has white text on a blue background and he says it's not high enough contrast. His redesign uses white text on an even lighter blue background and he calls it high contrast. Even the logo is pretty low contrast. He doesn't follow his own rules on his own site, his designs are so-so at best. Too bad he's competition.
- postlogic, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sure, the design and all is well done. But am I the only one looking at the JPG artifacts on his navigational menu there?
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Validation != accessibility.
- joeyjojo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The thought process is excellent, describing each decision in a strategic way.
The aethetic execution, however, is just web 2.0 gradienty drivel. Alas, that overshadows the good thinking. - smb3d, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2It reminds me of something for kids, like Fisher-Price or Mattel, definitely not a website for seniors interested in a trailer park.
- whitter, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2The fades on his own site's numbering are "impressive". An not even a decent site map to be seen. Shoddy homepage for a "web designer". Spam city.
- neofactor, on 10/12/2007, -1/+3This seems more like an Ad then a design interest.
The second site looks worst than the inital. The initial looks simpler and did not require scrolling down.
What is up with all of that rounded corner crap? No hard edges? That is BS... take a design class. lines draw the eye ... lines act as a guide and a container... that is not bad.
I mark this as LAME. - w0rd, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2"Validation != accessibility." That may be true, but you can make a good argument for valid markup being more universal, therefore a screen reader (for example) will have an easier time parsing the content for its conversion to speech. If everyone uses the same underlying coding standards for web pages, all browsers, especially accessibility related ones, will have an easier time relaying the content to the user.
- paulwilde, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Bottom left rather. My mistake.
- theCr3ator, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2His coding skills are as bad as his designs. Take a peak at the source code for his site, I would not let anyone near my site who is that sloppy. Also I didnt think anyone used coldfusion anymore? I stopped at version 6 because no one except for a few large corps wanted to use it anymore.
- asurroca, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Woah, I didn't even notice that till you pointed it out. Yikes.
- jake7457, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2the book will be FREE:
1. The Free PDF
There will be a 100-page PDF e-book that features all the before & after designs, with instructive notes.
This is going to be made available for download free of charge on this site.
We're going to aim for half a million downloads of this book. - smhill, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2Agreed.
Not only that his site is a bit of a mess and unattractive. Seem like a good idea from a traffic/business generation standpoint though. - gradient, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1high contrast colors & gradients & rounded rectangles. go go go!
not that we're all not guilty of using them these days, but c'mon.. this is sad.
this dude likes the most generic, boring, uninspired, bland (etc..) sites i've ever seen online. no personality at all.
next. - settsu, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Two-Point-Oh'd!!!
Seriously though, I'm torn about how I feel about this, uh, "exercise". It does add to the pool of sites that address important usability issues. But posting it on Digg? Isn't that preaching to the choir and willingly appearing pathetically self-important while doing so? - w0rd, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I think requiring that a site not scroll may be a bit dated. I can't think of a time I've ever heard of someone complaining about scrolling. As long as there is content to scroll to, it shouldn't be a problem.
- esaks, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1To me those redesigns still aren't that hot...
- spyrral, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3What you should take from this is that you should be making more money. If it takes them $10 or more to do a thoughtful redesign of a site, that's worth $1250, if they know what they're doing. Do you know what you're doing?
- kodeiko, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1How do you navigate to-and-fro the 50 redesigns? I'm stuck at SunHome, am I missing something?
- pngwnpwr, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Does the saying "any attention is good attention" hold true within the realm of Digg? I understand people want traffic to their site and may be tempted to throw a link submission at Digg, but damn...the response from this site is not the kind of attention I would want for my site.
Not saying he submitted the link, don't care either way. I don't think the site or his redesigns are that bad. He actually has some decent reading material on the site at least. I do think $1250 is a bit steep for a simple redesign. Possibly his clients will attract enough attention from the book / site to make it worthwhile though. - theadvinci, on 07/03/2008, -0/+1If there only wasn't a typo...
- EsenceOfPoultry, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I would like to clear up some comments that have been made. I am in no way associated with this website or the guy that made the website. I have never once contacted him nor has he ever contacted me. This is not an advertisement. I found this while surfing through delicious bookmarks and I find it to be somewhat useful because...
As many have commented some of the aspects of the design are not up to par, but an improvement. He deals with other aspects besides just design of the site, whether his ideas are something that you can agree with is up to you.
He will be doing 50 of these things and giving it away free. That is at least commendable in some respect.
If you or anyone can get a good tip, or design idea, or usability idea, or whatever then this is something worth looking at. - tyme, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I find it somehow humorous that the linked web page doesn't render correctly.
Although I am using an alpha version of Firefox...maybe that's why. - gukid, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2"Look at me, I am teh elite webmastor!"
- kickarse, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1I like the first two of your sites...
And I have to agree with most of the guys here... While the designs are okay they aren't really _that_ great. Not for what he's charging. - dystopia, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1It does look better, but then again - it was easy to make the old one look better.
- sembetu, on 10/12/2007, -4/+4I could, and do, dick.
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