"Fidgeting to stay focused...Imagine that! Sounds counterintuitive, but that is just what Dr. Rotz and Sarah D. Wright are recommending in their new book, Fidget to Focus. Advocating repetitive sensory-motor activities as a fundamental strategy for improving attention and other cognitive abilities, they present a unique and fun way to turn outer chaos to calm focus."
Patricia O. Quinn, MD
Director, National Center for Gender Issues and ADHD
Hi Sara, Sarah, and Juli,
Sarah great comments! Your views help center me. I too am partial to 4. I like your suggestions about considering change in passage selection and fonts. Would we not include testimonials on the home page or were you thinking we would have those there? Sara, do you have Pat Quinn's quote? Those may need to be on another page; I don't know what works best from a selling perspective. I would remove psychologist after my name. They can get that on another page. Sarah, on the color for #4, I like the blue, and would like to see a light shade of the orange in place of the yellow. If it changes it too much or doesn't look good then I'm fine with the yellow and blue.
-Outstanding job!
Thanks
R
Dear Sara -
After printing these out, I've spent my lunch hour happily doodling, folding, cutting pasting - you gave us so much to play with!
Now that I've been through that exercise, here are my thoughts.
Roland - Please add, veto, amend, or whatever, to my reactions to the mockups...
1) I prefer versions 3, 4, and 5 because they have good visual anchors/visual reference points that can be carried over from page to page.
2) I prefer to have all navigation in one spot as they are in versions 4 and 5, not some here and some there as with the "disclaimer" and "links" in versions 1, 2, and 3.
3) If the page is to be framed top left and bottom right as with versions 3 and 4, I hope it will be designed to always show up in the middle of the browser window (white space to left and right) so that it will maintain it's balanced look.
4) The "aliens", as my family has come to call the head sketches, don't fit in well on these home page concepts. I think we can still use them, but maybe on the "concept" page rather than the home page.
5) There's a lot I like about the banner and navigation in version 5, but overall (including the rest of the page) the effect is too block and top heavy.
6) Of the new verbiage, I like the "How many parents have heard..." the best. It's easily related to, gets the point across, and makes it immediately relevant. I definitely think this belongs on the Home page. If I could only have two bits of text on the home page, it would be the book blurb ("Until now...") and the "How many parents have heard...".
7) For navigation and a framework that will work well for all the pages, I like version 4 the best. I like the doodly effect of the swirly gold and blue background. I like all the navigation on the left. I like the font and the multi-colors of the navigation, and the fact that it's centered, not left-justified. I would remove the aliens.
a) I would either put the "How many parents..." quote in the top right where Thom Hartmann's quote is now, and then put the subtitle and book blurb in the frame made by the top left and bottom right "doodles"
or
b) extend the gold and blue background doodle all the way across the top to the right of the window, and not include the stuff in the lower right corner at all. Up to you then where all the text would go.
or
c) use both - use (a) on the home page and (b) for subsequent pages.
8) I liked the layout of the text in version 1: the centered headings and text. Since the navigation in version 4 is centered, maybe using blocks of centered text would also work...?
9) I didn't like the font used in version 4 for the subtitle - just looked heavy and blocky to me. Sara- it looks like you tried two other fonts for the subtitle in the other mockups. Either of those look fine to me.
Thanks,
Sarah