It has been three weeks of development so far on responsive web design, and it seems like progress on our group site is currently on hold. Oh sure, we've been able to implement responsive elements such as fluid grids and media specific style-sheets using media queries, but our site does not really look all that great right now. Instead of wasting time adding all sorts of responsive web elements, only to have the overall design remain a lasting issue, it seems prudent to take a step back and look at the big picture. As web design incorporates many "cool" technologies and features, it primarily hinges on having a good overall design. The design aspect of the site is what keeps the feeling of cohesion and purpose. Without a good design, or a good design plan, changing elements individually or even rearranging existing elements will not bring a site closer to a cohesive and appealing appearance.
In that light, our team has been focusing on brainstorming ideas for overall site designs and styles that would lend themselves easily to a responsive format. We want a design that doesn't "jump around" or look tacky when transitioning between viewing sizes, but which also looks engaging and purposeful. We also wanted to bring more of a relevant theme to the energy aspect of the makahiki framework. This is supposed to be a site that is related to power and energy, and something that is fun and engaging. So when you think of energy, there are two ways to go stylistically. We can either go towards the conservation aspect and have a very organic feel with lots of trees and foliage, or we can lean towards a more industrial/technical design, which is what we did. We decided that having a "Tron" feel might be the better design on two fronts. It is a very simplistic design, which incorporates a combination of black backgrounds with "lit-up" color panels and lines which give us the feeling that there is energy coursing through the site. Right now it is still in brainstorming mode, but such a design would be much easier to adapt to a grid layout than something that has a more organic feel.
Our group is still in discussion phase on how it will ultimately be implemented, but I would like the site to also have a game user interface "feel" to the navigation elements. In this, I'd like to see page links and links to widget pop-ups all collected into a control/navigation bar at the bottom of each page. We all agreed that this navigation bar should be "stuck" to the bottom so that as someone scrolls down a page it will remain in the same place on the screen so that users can always access it. We also looked at having a "menu button" for mobile devices which would cause a navigation menu to pop up on screen and allow you to jump to different sections of the site. This menu would therefore be "hidden" from view until called by the menu button, so that we don't lose valuable screen real estate on mobile phone devices.
We've made a lot of progress conceptually, but we haven't started implementation of these ideas just yet. Right now, we still need to flesh-out the ideas a bit more and have an overall consensus in the group before we move forward. Site design is a really interesting and fun process, and I'm excited to see these designs take shape!
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