FA UI seriously has some rookie design failures
10 years ago
General
Specifically because a lot of FA is visually information based (as mainly a gallery site), the way the layout is set up now makes it incredibly hard to take in information easily. The eye is not led in any particular direction. Instead, the eye is easily confused/overwhelmed with the placement of objects in the profile, the different font sizes, the HUMONGOUS zone of of information (literally no padding on either side) and how nothing inside the seperate boxes and the boxes themselves are not justified the same. Added to this confusion is the palette, which TONALLY is great being gray (unquestionably the majority of artists prefer a dark neutral BG) but there are too many shades of gray and then some added buttons that get lost because they are the same tone, even on the more defined, darker(darkest?) colored background which I assume is meant to highlight the area. 3 is pushing it, and it looks like there's actually 4, not including the font and buttons
My actionable solutions are:
—reduce color scheme to 3 colors. The watch and send note buttons look incredibly terrible and get lost in spite of being on the darker BG, you should make them 3d (beveled edge or transparent reflection/shine) or bubble them out in a similar way in the same scheme, that way they match but still look like clickable elements.
—Least important information in the bottom either free floating or in a smaller font READ: stats et al/comment. Most important information gets mixed up, things like contact info and artist information should be at the top and not completely separated from the body of art.
—The boxes (Stats/journals/ profile image/user profile) are staggered in a way that makes everything in them look cluttered. Reduce boxes to one side or the other. In spite of there being ONE LESS box (favorites is now a tab) it still looks jumbled to hell. Putting a lot more padding on BOTH sides of the screen might help reduce the eye wondering effect since the eye doesn't have to scroll so far—having information cover so much of the damn screen PROMOTES eye wondering and the eye has no single area to focus on. I can't emphasize this enough, it's incredibly bad when they key to galleries is getting the eye to focus one KEY ELEMENTS but the art being at the top is simply not enough with everything else—with the art box being in the top center of the page, BUT left justified (with the preview on the left) either every box after that needs to be left justified OR the elements INSIDE the box needs to be centered so the other boxes stand alone/seperate from the main feature (the art)
-The backend is MORE complicated, LESS streamlined, LESS intuitive. I shouldn't have to go to my FA to edit submissions or journals, and honestly having to do that to delete them in the previous setup was also not intuitive. The option should be directly available in each element. Less clicking = less stress
—Fonts. Don't oversize, always undersize. One basic size, and all the minimal/less important information should be around half that size. 12/8 is typical.
I really hate to diss the designer of the UI but it's truly awful for someone in the design field to feel this was acceptible when so many basic elements of design were tossed out. Beginner bloggers with limited design understanding can figure out better tumbler pages, it seems incredibly a site entrusted. I understand one of the biggest challenges is being able to do /ANYTHING/ but working with limitations created a very cohesive design in most cases.
My actionable solutions are:
—reduce color scheme to 3 colors. The watch and send note buttons look incredibly terrible and get lost in spite of being on the darker BG, you should make them 3d (beveled edge or transparent reflection/shine) or bubble them out in a similar way in the same scheme, that way they match but still look like clickable elements.
—Least important information in the bottom either free floating or in a smaller font READ: stats et al/comment. Most important information gets mixed up, things like contact info and artist information should be at the top and not completely separated from the body of art.
—The boxes (Stats/journals/ profile image/user profile) are staggered in a way that makes everything in them look cluttered. Reduce boxes to one side or the other. In spite of there being ONE LESS box (favorites is now a tab) it still looks jumbled to hell. Putting a lot more padding on BOTH sides of the screen might help reduce the eye wondering effect since the eye doesn't have to scroll so far—having information cover so much of the damn screen PROMOTES eye wondering and the eye has no single area to focus on. I can't emphasize this enough, it's incredibly bad when they key to galleries is getting the eye to focus one KEY ELEMENTS but the art being at the top is simply not enough with everything else—with the art box being in the top center of the page, BUT left justified (with the preview on the left) either every box after that needs to be left justified OR the elements INSIDE the box needs to be centered so the other boxes stand alone/seperate from the main feature (the art)
-The backend is MORE complicated, LESS streamlined, LESS intuitive. I shouldn't have to go to my FA to edit submissions or journals, and honestly having to do that to delete them in the previous setup was also not intuitive. The option should be directly available in each element. Less clicking = less stress
—Fonts. Don't oversize, always undersize. One basic size, and all the minimal/less important information should be around half that size. 12/8 is typical.
I really hate to diss the designer of the UI but it's truly awful for someone in the design field to feel this was acceptible when so many basic elements of design were tossed out. Beginner bloggers with limited design understanding can figure out better tumbler pages, it seems incredibly a site entrusted. I understand one of the biggest challenges is being able to do /ANYTHING/ but working with limitations created a very cohesive design in most cases.
FA+

I mean...
WHY IS THE RATING the LAST thing in the description area?
actually why is it IN the description area instead of the submission info area?
One suggestion of yours gets me though - font size. Maybe I'm misreading, but you want 12pt font to be the largest available and 8pt font to be a step down? We stare at computer screens all day and you want our eyes to be strained even more by tiny font? That makes no sense to me.. Am I misunderstanding?
I can totally see how it'd take more focus off text and put it onto the art without destroying the social aspect of the site. I hope it gets taken in that direction.
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