This post is a little different. Instead of a lot of words about what I'm working on, this is the underlying philosophy of how I'm doing the revamp. In a sense, it's the spirit driving everything else. Very short and to the point, unlike the last post in this vein.
Design Philosophy
Finely polished simplicity
The core should feel like stone, water, and glass.
Dark layout, without full black or full white.
Sans-serif, medium font, decently extra spacing. Should be very readable.
Larger font size than the Old Web, smaller than the New Web. Looking for a balance between easy to read and easy to soak in.
Areas that allow for flexibility without clutter
Deep torquoise, with yellow highlights.
Deep colors allowed on diverse forums that aren't torquoise.. in small doses.
Development
Structurally complete core, interacted with by:
Multiple components
Generic components with specific "forms" so that new forms can be built very rapidly
Hacks allowed only in the final stages of development or post-development. High priority on fixing them.
Develop inside gtx0's existing core, but keep new parts isolated and self-sufficient.
hacks-only development policy to fix gt's existing code. This makes it faster so I can focus on revamp development.
Feel
Diverse, yet organized
Customizable, yet not cluttered Personalized
Extremely easy to use Strong User Experience
The site feels like it's alive
Addictive
Lots of stuff to see and do. Very diverse.
Cool stuff no one else is doing
Driven by new ideas rather than clickbait
Not complex in any way, shape, or form. Even the customization is presented in doses.
A staff culture that embraces feedback and new ideas.. but remains solid about vision and community.
The biggest takeaway from this post should be the shift away from complexity. gtx0's old philosophy was a simple core with complex features -- This is no longer the case!
Features are instead very simple. They are moving in the direction of being very user-friendly and integrated into whatever it is you're actually doing. Extra features are tucked away unless you use them all the time. Instead of fine granularity you have simpler choices to make that group options together logically.
For example if you want to change the colors in your forum, what you're really saying is "I want to use a different palette", not "I want to individually change 36 pieces with hex codes".
Instead of overloading smaller features with complex stuff you'll instead be able to interact with higher-level features. If you want more room for quotes and accolades and stuff in your forum, instead of overloading the forum description you instead switch themes to something more text-heavy.
This is a huge departure from the old philosophy. If you're the kind of person who could never remember [e][/e] or how to use admin tools then this change will impact you in a big way.
