MediaCore: An Open Source Video and Podcasting Platform

This is a very nice looking site. Just a couple of things before you call this finished:

1. In the header, shorten the width of it by bringing in the back two browser windows more, so you don't show as much of them.
2. Bring the light ray in and center it behind the large window.
3. On the demo page, in the section marked "latest", you could improve it to look more like the other pages. Right now there is just one row and it feels very empty. Needs more content in that area.

Other than those things, I think you have a very nice site. Very well done, keep at it!

This is a fantastic design. it's very clean and easy to navigate. I had a few notes based on your screenshots - but they were no problem when I went to your site!

I would only think about three things (and it took me awhile to find them!)

1 - i found the little paragraph symbols that showed up when I hovered over headings in the documents page to be confusing. I clicked on them and honestly still don't know what they did - besides jump me down a little. I would consider taking those out or writing where they move you when you roll over.

2- for you promote mediacore button - I love it! However, I think you should put just a little tag line of sorts so somebody had some kind of idea what it is when they see it on someones website.

3 - In your demo page - that big black area that houses the videos. i would make the "header" and "footer" of that less tall. Make those buttons smaller as well. they just take up too much real estate on a page that should be focused on the videos.

Great job! I really like it!

Hi Simple Station,

After linking to your site, I noticed a few things that you may want to consider doing, just to polish things up a bit.

On your front page, the text associated to each of the subtitles "publish", "track","customize" and "administer" seem to have a bit to much space between the words. If you could bring them in a bit to each other the flow of reading it will be easier. Also, on the front page, you have two paragraphs associated with the subtitle "Mediacore". In the first paragraph you are talking present tense and then you switch your subject to past tense. I've learned from many english papers that keeping your tense the same throughout was noticeably important.

The three elements on your front page that feel misaligned to anything are the two dingbats between paragraphs, as well as, the "View Demo " button.

Having looked further into your site The two columns are way too close to each other in the "Features" page. The problem with columns being so close is the tendency for the reader to read straight across the gutter to the paragraph next to it rather than continuing to the next line.

Also under features, I would consider rewording or adding a word after the word "it" under the subtitle "Administrative Dash Board". Right now there is a noticeable gap of white space after the "it".

On your "Download" page, under "Release Notifications" I would bring the words"Name", "company" and "e-mail" closer to the empty boxes that they refer to. ( As to not confuse the reader.) Maybe, also consider leaving a bit more space between that fill in section and the "sign up" button.

Under the "Docs" page the search button is actually broken the pic of the magnifying glass and its frame does not align to the white space for putting in the info. It may be a glich just for Safari views as myself. Yet, it is clearly there for me.

Lastly, as a polish upper from my perspective, would be to change the type in the footer of the page. For example, If you notice the word "Blog" the type is slightly bold and the letters are practically bumping. Now notice how lovely that same word looks as it is in the navigation button at the top of the page. It's the space between letters that made the difference. Yet, for the word "Mediacore" on the footer, not only are the letters slightly bold and squished together but the "e" in "Mediacore" is almost unreadable. So by not bolding or finding another typeface will make the difference it needs.

I agree with Ania, about the line lengths as well.

Even though the light blue color is lovely, it is a cool, calm color. Associated to "Core" it is slightly contradictory. The core of something (your business)... do you want to be warm "hearted" or cold (cool) hearted. It only struck me slightly and I may be too far fetching.

Overall this site looks professional and interesting.

no complains love the easy going navigation and overall look!!

I think you've accomplished a great work here. Consistent colour scheme, well balanced layout, easy navigation, clear typograpy, etc. I like it.

Hey :)

It's an amazing clean and good looking site. What I woud change:

1. I would increase quality of the pictures / thumbnails. Some of them are really pixelated.
2. I would also move the radial glow (the light beams) to the middle of the page. Right now they look off.
3. Try to work a bit on the drop shadows of the green buttons in the content. Right now they tend to smudge the text.
4. I would also change the image for the hr divider. It doesn't seem to fit. Maybe it's just me but the old style of the divider doesn't match the glossy rounded look of the rest of the page.
5. On the community page the search field is not aligned with the icon. It's also present in your screen shots.
6. The documentation page has a different header (rounded green background) from the rest of the pages. Is there a good reason for that? For consistency's sake :)
7. Are you sure you can't work on the mediacore logo a bit? It seems to plain to me.

Overall I thing you've done an amazing job. Congrats!

Zeno.

Here are my initial thoughts when I first look at the website:

1. I want to see the whole web page-why did you hide half of the picture?
2. the navigation hover is not natural-you have a nice looking button for each item, but the hover doesn't correspond
3. after the main picture, I'm not sure where to look. I would make the words, "publish, track customize, administer" headings (a.k.a. larger text)
4. for some reason the header looks wrong...I think you've got the gradient upside down.
5. the sub pages are down very well-they are easy to navigate and have logical higherarchy

Fix a the things above and I think you've got a great design.

Nothing else to add really. Great design, and other reviewers have beat me to the very few points I saw.

Great job!

I am not sure there is much I can say that others havent already said. It looks great

Love the design - very attractive and nice to look at. Really like the colors and graphics used. Layout is very clean and intuitive.

Here's two thoughts for usability:

1) I would definitely get a call to action - a button of some sort - into that main content area directly under the header.

2) Consider adding hover effects to the main nav other than those small triangles that appear, like a slight color change, maybe just even a lighter shade of the same color.

I'd say you hit a line drive on this one overall. Good work!

Reminds me of http://invoicemachine.com but that's a good thing. Very clean.

very clean work.

This is such a great site that it is hard to find anything wrong in my opinion!

Very superb work!! Great job.

This is fantastic.

It looks very professional and clear. The layout is really nice, balanced, and it seems that it can have a lot of content without getting cluttered.

The forum looks a little bit like bbpress? Did you use it? I'm now building a forum based on it and I really like the idea ;)

Do you use the same font everywhere? I would maybe try to diversify it a little, maybe you have some areas where you can use image titles?

Sometimes the text looks a little bit too linear. I would try to find ways to use icons instead of some text links, or narrower columns, or anything that would make the long lines of text shorter. Long lines are hard to read even on paper, and on the screen it's even harder.

Sometimes the very dark grey background looks too overwhelming. It's nice, and elegant, but maybe only buttons should be "that dark", and the colour behind them - a little lighter?

On the demo site - I see that not only text lines are too wide, but you also have many menu bars which take full width of the screen, and browser screens in the header, which have long wide bars... this is too monotonous, some of them need to be shorter ;)

Every thing looks present and correct - nice Job.

I love the design. It's clean and effective, and I think you've done everything beautifully..

If someone put a gun to my head and asked me to change something about the design.. I'd tell him to pull the trigger.. lol.. okay maybe I wouldn't, 'cause there is one thing I would change and that is the top bar on image 4 & 7. I think it may be way too tall. reduce the height by half and I think you've got gold...

Keep up the great work!!

I like how the colors seem deliberate and integrate well into the overall aesthetic.

Everything is nicely aligned and easy for the eyes to flow naturally throughout.

I'm not entirely sure if someone who was directed to this page blindly would simply grasp the intended-idea right away. So I would like to see a "DOWNLOAD NOW" or similar "button" on the presentation page to at least present that this is for third-party type application.

The only 2 things that "demand" attention are; 1) The light-burst on the landing page's header. Should be center. And 2) The black background on the last couple of sample pages. The contrast really diminishes the appeal from the rest of the site.

Great project piece overall!

Hey,

this website looks really good, great job.

1-st thing I would change is the white background, the contrast between background and content area is a lil to much for me, I would go with a light grey. The " problem " is more visible on the pages where people watch the video, and leave comments ....the bottom part. There seems like things are not finished and part of this is because of the high contrast . I don't know if this is final but that part still needs some work.

Top menu, doesn't really follow the trend and this could be a good thing if intentional and for a specific reason or bad. The design of it it's retro and lacks originality. Again this couldnot be a bad thing if you have a well defined purpose for it.

Left navigation, looks unfinished to me and also the content area of docs and some other pages.

You have be a little more specific on what you want feedback, and mention if the draft is final or there are areas where you still haven't finished.

That's it for now.

MEster.

easy on the eyes. easy to find info. compelling imagery...

radial burst on the homepage throws my eye off a bit because the composition is so heavily centered.

headers in the media containers ( don't know what else to call them) seem a bit on the tall side... i'd rather pick up the vert screen space

it makes me want to try it out!

A really great design! Nice and simple and makes you want to look through the rest of the sight.

One thing I would change though, is the light ray. I would centre it more and maybe make it bigger, as at the moment it's moving the focus away from the rest of the image and just focusing on that bit on the left.

Other than that, it looks great!

I think the bar under the header image divides the page too much. Might want to consider making it less intense.

I would also center the light rays.

For one, this is a very nice site. The site makes you want to click. You can't land on the home page, without wanted to dive deeper into the site.

Adjustments if any:

• More content or headlines closer to the top so the purpose of the platform is obvious. It takes a minute or two to really focus on what the purpose of the product is.

• One fix could be to float the browser images in the header to the right/left and place the "view demo button" and "descriptive paragraph" next to them.

• Make the browser windows more narrow. Right nwo they are a bit overwhelming.

Very well done. I'd like to see more of your work on here. You could get some great buzz by submitting this site to inspirational blogs for simple/clickable design.

Very cool design-- simple but not boring. All the content looks very easy to find and use.

I'm concerned that the home page appears a bit chopped up around the second and third "rows". Consider combining the content in the blue space with the content below-- making the "view screencast" image smaller.

Hope this helps! Keep the good ideas coming!

RMH

It is evident that you have put a lot of work into the design and usability of this app.

I LOVE the consistent and clean execution throughout the whole experience.

I do think that the background rays should be centered horizontally. And possibly mixed or replaced with skinny 1px ray lines - masked and blended of course. There's something about the thick ray arms that feel a little like a stock vector shape. It's still my favorite though!

Strong work!

I think the website looks great, very professional, structured and clean.

It would only suggest to add a background or at least a gradient to make it even better.

I LOVE IT!

Nothing to say, great work

you've got a clean minimal paged thing going here which is great. i would make the text smaller when you're writing in all caps "A VIDEO AUDIO AND PODCAST PUBLICATION PLATFORM" this phrase could be much smaller, so it stops saying "SEE SPOT RUN" as my professor said when things were abnormally large and child-book-like. all of your visual elements seem to compete with each other for attention. im not sure the image at the top of the homepage helps convey anything. i am more aided by the set of four images and short explanations of features. and the blue backgrounded portion which explains briefly what this software does. hope this is helpful to you in some way..

I think this is a good design and as a user interface it works. Can´t say much more, it just looks good :-D (I like the sunburst center aligned).

...But somehow I feel that there are two different styles of design mixed in a way that doesn´t completely work, but I can´t name how and why so maybe it is just me...

I think the most important part of this site would be adoption and I didnt see any KISS principles applied to that concept.

I couldn't find anything more to comment that what is already given..