Attack Of Design(back to home)

[In keeping with the theme of this blog, Design Attack will be a recurring feature where I critique a site and try to show what could be improved]

Forrst is an awesome site. Just like Dribbble, it lets you post samples of your work for other designers to see. But it doesn’t stop at just designs, you can post code, links, or even just questions. And forrsters are incredibly helpful. Check out how many answers I got when I asked about faceted search.

The only problem I have with the site is its design. I’m not talking about “design” in the usual sense of “making things look nice”, because you can’t deny that Forrst’s interface is gorgeous. But from a functional point of view, I think there’s a few things that could be improved. Now I have no doubt that Forrst’s team is already well aware of most of those issues, but I still wanted to post my thoughts, if only to see if other people agree.

Changing the default page

When you log in to Forrst, the first screen you see is the “friend’s activity” page. Now I imagine this makes perfect sense for Forrst power users who already have a big network and want to keep track of what their friends are up to. But most new people joining will have at most two friends: the person who invited them, and Kyle (Forrst’s founder). The result is that for most people, Forrst’s content amounts to posts that Kyle likes or has commented on. It’s only by clicking the “posts” button that you can see what’s happening all over Forrst and realize how rich the site is, but on the net even a single click can sometimes put valuable content out of user’s reach. It would make sense to make the “posts” page the default screen, and I’m willing to bet Forrst would see user activity climb up instantly.

I wish someone besides Kyle wanted to be my friend…

Making better use of space

One of the hardest jobs of a web designer is deciding how to fit all the elements of a page together. Too much content and the page seems busy, to little and it feels empty. Too little white space and the page is cramped, to much and it’s disjointed. So it’s not an easy task by any means, but I feel like Forrst could do a little better. First of all, there’s a whole sidebar that goes unused just to make space for an ad. I’m not an advocate of using up every bit of real estate on the page, but this seems like a waste. I’m not sure what should go there, but stats or news about the site would be a start.

You could also remove the content’s border to save up a bit of space and lighten things up. Since posts are already enclosed in a speech bubble, that border only adds clutter to the page.

Removing the border around the content area lightens up the page

Tweaking the content

Another problem is that there’s often no clear link to the post’s page, especially for snaps. You have to click the words “a snap” which are sandwiched between other links and text of alternating shades of grey.

Which word do you click to access the post's page?

I also wish there was a better way to display snaps. Look how little space is given to the actual snap compared to the whole post. Maybe a grid view like on Dribbble or Fubiz would be more appropriate? You could even enforce a fixed height and width for snaps, or crop them. But the current layout gives more space to the description than to the snap itself, and that doesn’t make sense.

Space taken up by the whole post (in red) vs space taken up by the snap (in blue)

Fixing the header

Forrst’s header looks good, but it’s got a few issues. First of all, why do you need two “new post” buttons on the same page?

Adding more buttons won't make me post more, you know.

The header also suffers from banditis, a disease that many sites fall victim to. Its main symptoms are multiple color bands appearing across the top of the body. And the only cure is amputation.

If you can manage to have a single header zone, more power to you. If you need to divide it in two, it’s no big deal. But three separate bands is a little much. A simple fix could be bringing up the main section links and putting the search field in the sidebar in order to get rid of that middle bad (too bad, that wood texture looked great…).

Header alternative. Sorry for the bad photoshopping.

Another way to do it might be to put the third band’s filtering links near the content itself, like Dribbble does.

Dribbble sticks its filter links right on top of the content

In Conclusion

Well that’s it. I think Forrst is a wonderful site, but right now it seems geared a little bit more towards sharing code and less towards sharing graphics, which is a shame, especially since a few tweaks to the interface could really make a difference. But the site is fairly young so it’s not surprising that there are still a few details to iron out. I just hope it keeps growing and adapting, and wish the best to the team!

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