Design for UX.SE

Question

I'm Jin, the designer for the Stack Exchange sites as they graduate from the beta phase. Each site will have its own unique theme that will reflect its topic. However, all sites will share quite a bit of common elements so they feel like they're part of the Stack Exchange family.

For the UX.SE site, the stats aren't quite there for an official launch just yet. However, I believe deploying a final design of the site would help to engage new UX users who aren't familiar with the Stack Exchange sites.

As for the site design, I decided to commission a talented designer and respected UX blogger, Dmitry Fadeyev. I have been a long time fan of Dmitry's blog, Usability Post and many of his articles on Smashing Magazine. I was very thrilled when he agreed to take on this design project.

We both agreed to go with a clean and simple design. It should serve as a "pleasant shell" to the excellent content we have. It shouldn't be over-styled to overwhelm the content, but at the same time it needs to be polished enough not to be barren.

I am very pleased with the designs Dmitry came up with.

_{click on images to see the full resolution version.}

I am aiming to launch the new design sometime this week, or early next week.

Please let me know if you have any feedback. When the new design launches, the site will remain as a "Beta" site. Once the site stats improve a bit more we'll launch the site officially, so share the site with people you think would be interested!

Answer 1

Wow, it's so good!

Favorite parts:

• Clean nav — Stands out and very easy to read
• Ask Question button — it stands out perfectly
• Tag design — Subtle and clean
• Badge design — Stands apart from tag
• Answered check mark
• The standard action buttons

Possible areas for improvement:

• Star - what does it mean? — I'm not sure I understand the significance. I think especially in UX, every component should have meaning. Focused meaning and reduction of noise are very important in UX.
• Up and down arrows — I'm being very nitpicky but for some reason I think the standard triangles would fit the design better.
• Sub tab highlight style — Ok, again, being picky.

Answer 2

Love it!

With all this talk about the star, I've noticed the three stars have slightly different shapes. The one in in the logo has slightly more convex interior angles, which make it look more relaxed.

I think if you used the same relaxed shape in the favorite icon and badges, the association with the USA (which ultimately comes from the flag) might not be as strong.

To put it another way, and perhaps over-analyzing just a bit, the star should suggest slightly slouched shoulders, like a user in the flow state, rather than straight-across, like a soldier standing at attention or a basketball player poised to make a play.

Answer 3

I have absolutely no problem with the star in the logo. Iconography of a logo does not have to do anything with the actual product being represented by the logo, and in most cases it doesn't. I honestly can't even think of any logos where the product is represented via icon in the logo.

And the star is a fairly common graphic (both in logos and elsewhere). Take a look at the logo for Macy's:

It has a star in it, and what does a star have to do with a department store? Absolutely nothing.

Answer 4

I generally agree with Charles that a mark is a mark, and doesn't have to represent anything.

However, a mark still ought to evoke the right feeling. Because of the strong connection of checkmark = answers, I think Vitaly's suggestion to integrate a checkmark is a good one.

So, here's a play on that idea, just for fun.

Answer 5

In general I think it's a very good design - very clean, not a sea change from the current site, and easy to engage with.

However, I find the "star" embedded in the logo to be without meaning (and an unfortunately amateurish touch in an otherwise professional design). In the badges etc it works okay as a simple aesthetic element.

Answer 6

Hi Jin,

First, I must say that I was extremely impressed with the present design when I first found this website. It was one of the things that attracted me here, and as I explored the site more, I had lots of fun discovering new elements in the notebook theme. I was actually very disappointed to find out later that the design is going to change when the website graduates, and so far I still like it the most of all the other SE sites I saw (but there are some I didn't see...). So a great job there.

As to the suggested design - in general I like it. I agree with the clean and simple approach, and I think you nailed it. But I really really didn't like the star theme. On the badges and the Favorites icon it bothers me a bit, but not much. But on the logo it really feels like it shouldn't be there. It also reminds me very much of some other famous logo, but I can't place it right now. It think it's also blue-and-white, with a star inside, and possibly two or three letters. This is all very subjective, of course.

EDIT

OK, Jin, I'm not a graphic designer so the following might not look good, but as a concept - how about this?