Should diaspora* jump into the "flat trend" bandwagon?
It's everywhere. Twitter, Facebook, Google+, even your good ol' Hotmail and iOS have gone flat.
Advantages :
* Minimalist : looks straightforward and "content first"
* Readability : There's less clutter and more contrast between the background and the text
* Speed : Not depending on any image, it loads faster.
Disadvantages :
* Originality : it feels bare-bones for some
* Familiarity : it feels cold and unwelcoming for some
This is basically a philosophical question about Diaspora's direction : should it become a minimalist emotion-less communication tool or a cozy social hub?
Michael Engelhardt Thu 23 Jan 2014 2:56PM
I would really appreciate a fresh design for diaspora* . Being a bit more clean and eye-candy might attract new users as well. Probably it should go along with some usability changes as recent discussions seem to prove there is lot of space for clarification and improvement.
Steffen van Bergerem Thu 23 Jan 2014 3:20PM
IMO bootstrap is a good start for a "fresh design". Let's port even more stuff in diaspora* to bootstrap and improve the usability when doing that.
Steffen van Bergerem Thu 23 Jan 2014 3:24PM
(The single post view, the sign in / sign up page and the conversations have already been ported to bootstrap)
Flaburgan Thu 23 Jan 2014 5:45PM
The actual design is pretty good and we have many work to do, so this is clearly not a priority, but as Steffen said, porting the view to bootstrap will update them.
Seth Martin Thu 23 Jan 2014 6:36PM
I really like the current design of diaspora*. It's very clean and easy to understand. Bootstrap is badly needed since the mobile view is unpleasant and doesn't work with the size of most peoples fingers.
goob Thu 23 Jan 2014 7:15PM
Diapsora has a lovely clean design. I wouldn't object to other designs/views being created as options that a user could enable if they wanted, but I wouldn't want the default design to be changed, especially for the sake of changing it or for the sake of doing what other websites are doing.
As Flaburgan says, there are far more important things to focus on at the moment.
Sean Tilley Thu 23 Jan 2014 9:56PM
I really wouldn't have a problem with a cleaner look. Really, all you'd have to do is port Diaspora over to Bootstrap 3, which has a great clean, minimalistic design.
goob Thu 23 Jan 2014 10:00PM
There's definitely scope for cleaning up the right-hand column, although I'm not sure that's what this proposal is about. And I'm planning to work on a new design for the default landing and sign-up pages.
Steffen van Bergerem Thu 23 Jan 2014 10:18PM
@seantilleycommunit I also thought about porting to Bootstrap 3 but it looks like we would have to update rails_admin to 0.6.0 first which needs Rails 4. In the meantime porting to Bootstrap 2 seems to be a good idea. ;-)
theradialactive · Thu 23 Jan 2014 10:22AM
I would really like to see a new design. But if we do this, we should have a really big feature going along with it, like chat or groups. Why? Because redesigns are what the tech news and blogs want to see and talk about. If new features come with the new design it, diaspora could get more publicity.