Slashdot CSS Redesign Contest

A few months back we went and redesigned Slashdot with fancy new CSS templates. The idea was that with a new clean CSS framework under the skin, we could more easily redesign the look & feel of the site. At that time I mentioned that we wanted to have a contest to redesign Slashdot. Well that time has come. Read on for the rules, instructions, and timeline. Oh, and did I mention that the top prize is a new laptop?

I will pick the winner based on a series of arbitrary and random criteria, many of which I will list below. The list is by no means comprehensive, but it should give you a good starting point.

I'm sure there are ultimately things that I'm forgetting. But the key goal here is to create the new look & feel for Slashdot. The winner is the one who creates what gets us the closest to a new site design.

This contest will be highly subjective. Ultimately tho, it falls upon me to select the winner based on arbitrary and subjective factors like aesthetics, as well as more tangible ones like implementability and compatibility.

CRITERIA

What follows is a brief list of criteria I will use to judge, as well as how to submit your entries. Remember that anything artistic I suggest is just that- a suggestion. If you hate green, go ahead and make a blue design. I'm just telling you what I'm looking for in a winning design... and while I am the judge, nothing is set in stone... like any good art student knows- you can do almost anything you want as long as you can rationalize it in your critique.

1. Uses our existing CSS framework - We are willing to make minor changes to our underlying HTML if need be, but the ideal winner is implemented entirely by using custom images and CSS. Almost every element on Slashdot is appropriately classed or ID'd now, so you should be able to do it.
2. Works compatibly on most browsers - IE, Firefox, Mozilla, and Safari represent the bulk of our traffic. Ideally a winning candidate works on these platforms, but also degrades nicely to the less popular browsers. We'll test winners against whatever we have access to. We're not expecting everyone's entry to work perfectly and identically on every platform that exists, but if your whole design hangs on CSS trickery that only works under 1 browser, you will lose!
3. Retains all major bits of information - unless you can make a case for dropping something! Articles need bylines. You still need space for our ads. We still need a submenu to list out all the sections. If you want to trim down menus or something, we'll consider that, but most items on our pages need to be there for some reason. You'll need to rationalize dropping items from menus or removing parts of the UI that we need.
4. Doesn't require us to add major new bits of data - There are a million great ideas for functions and features that could be added to Slashdot. This is not the place to propose them. This is about Look & Feel. This is not about telling us that we need voting on articles or tagging on polls. Those are valid feature suggestions that we would love to do one day. But this contest is about look & feel. Save feature requests for another time (and remember, patches are always welcome!)
5. Topic Icons - So we have 150+ topic icons. Your design needs to incorporate our existing icons, and not require that we rebuild all of them. That means most likely that the icons sit on a white background. The icons themselves vary from around 50x100 to 100x50 but most float around 64x64. I'd strongly suggest that a winning entry is submitted using our existing topic icons as examples. let me say that again we have 150+ icons, and we can't rebuild them all. Your design should use our icons. Not new ones. That means sizes, and white backgrounds. This is the one rule that is pretty hard and fast. And no we're not switching to anti-aliased PNGs yet. Sorry.
6. Entries ought not be bandwidth gluts. No hard/fast size limits here, but if your page requires 2 megs of jpegs to render, I'd suggest moving on.
7. Retains some sense of visual continuity with Today's Slashdot - This one is the real challenge I think. From the Slashdot 'Shade of Green' (#006666) to the curve on the upper left hand corner of the page & article headers, to the use of the Coliseo font, I really think that many of these design elements need to persist. You are welcome to ignore me of course. But I'm being totally up front about this point: the winning entry ought to echo the current design. How loud of an echo is up to you.
8. Entries should show as at least the index, but ideally a few other pages to see how their design might look showing other data formats. I really think Slashdot has 4 "major" pages: The Index, The Article, The Comments, and The User. I'm not saying you need to do all four, but the winning design needs to translate well to every data type on the site. The more guidance you give us, the more likely you are to win.
9. I have to like it. Design something pretty. Design something high-tech. Design something minimal. Design something elaborate. I don't know what the winner will look like. I'm excited to see what you guys come up with.

HOW TO ENTER

My preferred method of submission would be that you email redesign at cmdrtaco.net with a URL to a place where I can see your design. Alternatively, if you have no access to a web server, I will accept a zip file or tarball, but would REALLY prefer URLs where possible.

I fully intend to critique good entries. The goal here is of course to get the best looking, bandwidth efficient, compatible, attractive Slashdot. If I think your design is ugly, I'll tell you. If I think it's close, I'll give you specific ideas. I'm the judge here, so this is totally unfair. But again, my goal here is not to be fair, it's to make Slashdot look awesome.

I'm going to give this 2 weeks, and then I'm going to share with you some of my favorites at that point in a story. I'll try to tell you all what I like about these designs. I'll ask at that time for your feedback. Then I'll give everyone one more week. The contest will continue to be open to anyone who wants. Everyone is welcome to refine their designs, or submit new ones right until the end.

Between now and then, I will try to post a few journal entries as I see good designs float through. I want this whole process to be as participative as possible.

At the end of this time, I will pick a winner. I will be biased. I will be unfair. I will pick the design that I think is the best for Slashdot based on the criteria I mention above as well as my own personal sense of aesthetics.

The winner will get a fancy laptop. We haven't picked the exact one yet, but it's going to be a good one- we're not cutting corners. You'll be able to choose from a MacBook Pro or else a bleeding edge Alienware laptop. We'll pick the specs when we pick a winner so you get whatever is supremely awesome, but valued up to US $4500. We'll also be offering a $250 runner up prize.

Lastly, our corporate lawyer tells us that you are required to read the official rules before you enter.

Good luck to everyone. Happy designing. Have fun... I can't wait to see what people come up with!

Linus Torvalds

[Anonymous Coward]

Linus Torvalds likes this one. [cuteness.org]

He said so. [lkml.org]

Improve it without changing anything?

[Heliologue]

If Slashdot is ugly (and it is), why are so many of its "characteristic" elements supposed to be retained? One of the first things I'd do in a redesign is drop the #006666. And why not let users submit new icon packs? Once again, the icons currently in use are pretty horrendous, and yet the criterion is "Make it look pretty while still using our shitty gifs. So let's see: The redesign has to keep the same title font, the same top-left curve, and the same green; it must have white content areas, because it must incorporate the lovely set of circa 1999 icons. What exactly are you expecting?

The whole shebang.

[Anonymous Coward]

Three things.

I'm assuming this is for the entire interface. e.g. registered users versus non-registered.

Would you reconsider if we redid all 150 topic icons?

Bonus points if we can target PDA's and cellphones?

Re:Typical Slashdot

[bigmouth_strikes]

Now, back to digg...

Heh... you mean back to a site where submitters and users spell like the 12-year olds they are and where the readers actually *do* all the work without credit ? Well, hey - who cares about content as long as the design is all about ponies ?

Here it is.

[Spy der Mann]

Thank the guy some posts below for the original link.

http://slashdot.cuteness.org/slashdot/slashdot_foo l.css [cuteness.org]

What about the /. effect?

[FortKnox]

The 'top selected URLs' you plan on using in two weeks... will you provide the webspace to host them. Because most of us have bandwidth expenses and fear the slashdot effect from the story...

Rethink the site...

[Stick_Fig]

...don't just redecorate it.

Your confines are really tight, and don't really provide any room for the identity to grow. Considering your competition (digg) has a much stronger, cleaner design because they haven't had to be tied to a decade of old design rules, I would almost say that you'd be better off throwing some of the rules out.

I think if you really want to redesign the site, you need to be willing to try new approaches with the architecture -- redoing many of the icons, cleaning up what can be a glut of information, and giving the site a more modern style that suits 2006. Tebrand the site and get rid of the font; create a new logo.

I hate to put it this way, because it's so cliche, but think outside the box. Your parameters make the box really hard to move around in.

I'm betting the best designs you get are the ones that ignore your rules and regulations the most.

Re:Improve it without changing anything?

[lpret]

I thought the exact same thing. The icons would be first to go -- requiring a white background is pretty archaic. Second, screw the whole left-curve thing -- we're talking a complete redesign, not just a sprucing up. I dunno, I'd be interested in seeing ones that don't necessarily follow these guidelines.

User-specific CSS as entries?

[MasterC]

Instead of requiring someone to set something up elsewhere, it'd be nice if you could post your CSS to your user account and have it applied (much like on wikipedia). Slap in an option on the URL to viewing the page with someone else's style sheet. Bam. All your entries are in one place; no one has to worry about setting up hosting elsewhere; anyone can view anyone's entry (or throw a admin-only thing on it or something if you care); etc.

Only problem I see is that you can't do anything outside of what you can do with a style sheet. If someone's that serious then they shouldn't have a problem/lack-of-motivation of setting up hosting elsewhere.

Better still: make this permanent. If I don't like X or Y then I can tweak my own style sheet the way I want. But I suppose that'd lead to user's finding a way to display: none the adverts.

Oh well, one can dream I guess...

A few real questions...

[Anonymous Coward]

I have a few real questions:

1. By redesign, do you mean graphic design or both graphic and functional design (functional != moving links)?

2. Where are your templates, provide a kit please (including logos and the topic icons you talk about). Pro-bono workers won't really like to waste their time fishing for files. Don't talk to me about firefox webdev extension.

3. What is trademarked, or has any legal aspects?

4. Is it open to residents of the Province of Québec (Canada)?

Give the winner some free advertising

[orthogonal]

A $4500 laptop is pretty cheap for a complete site makeover. Not to mention getting dozens if not hundreds of non-winning redesigns done on spec, any of which may be mined for additional ideas:

(c) By submitting your Entry you hereby agree to the following terms: The Design will be deemed a "work made for hire", as that phrase is used in the United States copyright law, and all right, title and interest in and to the Design will vest automatically in Sponsor. To the extent the Design is not deemed to be a "work made for hire," you hereby assign, transfer and convey, and agree to further assign, transfer and convey, to Sponsor any and all your intellectual property rights in the Design.

Taco's getting a great deal here.

And more power to him, but let me suggest he sweeten the deal a bit.

(I'm not suggesting this put of self-interest: I'm a programmer, not a graphics designer. And besides, I prefer the minimalist non-graphic Slashdot interface anyway.)

In addition to the laptop, give the winner a tiny link to his (or her) site on any Slashdot page using his design. On the bottom of each page, in a small font size, something like "Page design by Winner's Name/a>.

This costs Slashdot nothing, and gives the winner free advertising that lets him participate in his own success. He can link to a site that offers redesigns for as fee, or a blog that explains his design principles and gets him some ad revenue, or whatever.

For the non-winning submissions that become Slashdot's "work for hire" property, at least put up a gallery of those designs, hosted by Slashdot and linking to the submitters' sites, so that Slashdot's readers can check them out and give the non-winners some business or at least page views.

And Slashdot should relax the work for hire provisions of the legal contest rules; I understand that Slashdot wants to be unhindered in its use of submitted designs and careful not to open itself to any law suits, but maybe Slashdot could provide an more Open Source example than requiring that all submissions, even the non winning ones, "transfer and convey, to Sponsor any and all your intellectual property rights in the Design".

Again, more power to Taco and Slashdot. Taco's leveraged Slashdot's visibility to get some serious work done for free. Just use that leverage to reward the contest submitters too.

Re:#7 is kind of a dealbreaker

[tverbeek]

These are standard "identity redesign" constraints. When Pepsi or Burger King or AT&T or DC Comics redesigns their corporate identity package, they ask for something that has some continuity with the old one. Same here.

Re:Improve it without changing anything?

[NivenHuH]

i completely agree. i think the icon packs that are currently in place are VERY dated and need to be thrown out. for new icons, i'd like to see images with transparency so they could be used in future css modifications (you don't have to muck with the bg for each image)...

the the main logo is also terrible. i think a new logo should be designed and a similar font could be used to give you the same "feel" for the old logo...

i'd also like to see an off-shade of white used, it's MUCH easier on the eyes than #ffffff. and instead of using #000000, a nice dark, but not pitch black color makes things look SO much better... (like #353535)

the forest green #006666 is .. well.. shit.

i agree with the parent poster, it's easy to gripe about the current problems and it's unreasonable to expect a good design when you have to incorporate all of the existing bad elements of design into it. please please please do the readers a favor and lighten up your rules a little bit...

Could we get a tar file with whats there now?

[nizo]

It might be useful, since we could stick to whatever layout you are used to now anyway.

Re:#7 is kind of a dealbreaker

[telbij]

This one made me forget about entering. You listed the main things I hate the most about the current design. And while you say 'you can ignore me of course', it is strongly implied that this would be an exercise in futility.

Love it or hate it, /. has a strong brand. To throw away the brand in pursuit of aesthetics would be kind of silly.

Let's stop making this about Digg.

[Stick_Fig]

Three replies thus far, all of them basically pouncing on a very minor part of my post.

95% of my post wasn't about Digg. It was about Slashdot. Digg and Slashdot are two different sites that mine a similar market.

I wasn't basing my point around Digg. I was merely exemplifying it. I know a lot of people around here don't like Digg, just as a lot of people here don't like Slashdot. But really, I think both sites could learn something from the other.

The truth is, though, Slashdot has ten layers of old structure that it should peel away and clean up, and that'd be true whether or not Digg existed.

A redesign is more than skin deep

[eston]

I'm sorry, but I can't throw any support behind this endeavour at all. After all, I think it's time to go back and look at what was just said:

Hey guys! I'm more than willing to let you redesign this place. Oh, keep that shitty logotype, and that "Slashdot Green", and the crappily-compressed icons of yesteryear. Actually, what we want is you to just change things minimally, and we want to do as little work on the Slashcode backend (and information architecture) as possible.

The point you guys are missing here is twofold: first, a redesign is more than just skin-deep; second, it's hard to even get to the skin-deep side of things when you're stifling creativity to the point of where the only thing you want to see is exactly what you've got now. Just go do a find/replace and change section heads to Helvetica and body copy to Georgia, space out your line-height a bit more, and voila! instant Slashdot "redesign". I wouldn't even call it much of a facelift.

You guys are trying to compete with places that are obviously out of your league from a UI perspective at that. As my friend Stick_Fig said above, Digg works because it's drastically cleaner on the frontend, and the only way to get that cleanliness on Slashdot in a CSS change would be to add a ton of display: none; to the code. This offers no benefit in decreasing load time to the user and just makes the site that more frivolous.

You've already lost some part of your readerbase to sites like Digg (which is a forbidden term around these parts) and quick-access links lists like del.icio.us popular [del.icio.us]. Asking for a facelift isn't helping your cause.

Anyway, let's get to that point: Changing a CSS file is not a "redesign". Saying so is just fooling yourself. A true redesign would take into account plenty of information architecture, markup optimisation, and a total re-thinking of Slashcode's interface. It's not enough to simply change green to blue and underline your links with dotted borders. A redesign requires changes to the markup both for semantics/accessibility as well as to maintain a coherent architecture across the redesign. A redesign requires thinking outside of the box on comment layout, administrative interface, and site structure.

You should be allowing designers and developers to tweak Slashcode itself as well as the template's markup. This readerbase is more than talented enough to do so. Once the aging Slashcode dinosaur is brought into check and architecture has been optimised, things can move along smoothly on the CSS end of things. And no, that HTML/CSS thing that you guys did a few months back (that CmdrTaco is saying was so snazzy) really doesn't change much of anything. Changing markup and not changing any internal IA structure is useless, and this contest is exactly what designer Khoi Vinh complained about in October [publish.com].

Slashdot, you're pretty much keeping yourself right on the same track. This is just as short-sighted as the original concept was, and I don't see anything changing drastically here in the near future. From the article on Publish.com:

Without the freedom to rethink, for instance, Slashdot's comment threading, or its presentation of search results, or its topic pages, the net effect of a redesign will be considerably less impactful than one might hope for: prettier but not sturdier. This is because the linchpin of effective online graphic design--a mindful awareness of architecture and usability--will be hampered by the existing code. There may very well be new improvements to these architectural challenges in development, but even the best design based on today's feature set will have difficulty adapting to significant future changes in the user experience. Like a lot of facelifts, this one may be pleasing at first glance, but will likely prove somehow unsatisfactory afte

Re:Improve it without changing anything?

[Anonymous Coward]

Its hard to be creative when you are shackled by arbitrary constraints on your part. Especially regarding the slashdot 'color', which is so horribly ugly and painful, I dont think there is anybody besides yourself that would want to keep it. It is probably the number one thing that people would want to change. The reason slashdot is popular is not because of its graphic design or the editorial quality, but in spite of it.

Seriously Taco, wake up. If you are bounding entries to slashdot's current scheme, you won't end up with anything much better. It'll be like rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. This site needs a complete overhaul, unless you want to be the only site on the Internet that looks like it was designed in 1998.

Re:Selectable Stylesheets

[mrdaveb]

Yes, but you can't make the page 'lightweight' can you? You still have to download the whole HTML page even if the CSS rules tell your browser to throw most of it away.

Re:Selectable Stylesheets

[mstahl]

Exactly! When I saw this rule:

Retains some sense of visual continuity with Today's Slashdot - This one is the real challenge I think. From the Slashdot 'Shade of Green' (#006666) to the curve on the upper left hand corner of the page & article headers, to the use of the Coliseo font, I really think that many of these design elements need to persist.

I was crestfallen 'cause the very first thing I'd thought of with this contest was that I'd find a cooler colour scheme. Also, when the OMG!! Ponies!! design was still active I was really wishing that it would become an option later that you could have Slashdot displayed that way via your preferences.

CSS is a wonderful thing in that changing just one file (or a set of Javascript objects in the DOM) can instantly transform the look/feel of a website. I'd see this as an opportunity not just to have a really great default design but to have a small group of different stylesheets registered users can switch between.

Of course, if multiple entries win, then they'll have to saw that MacBook Pro into pieces for everyone to be happy ^_^

Re:Unsavory

[VJ42]

On the other hand for a student, like me, being able to say that your work is daily being watched by around 500,000 people looks good on your CV. I'l be entering, for sure.

Re:Give the winner some free advertising

[RideTheSpiral]

I'm considering makeing a submission and a laptop is cool but the link statis just from that 2 week mark with people jumping to my server to view the submission would make my google rank sky rocket...and if you acctually have some sort of web design business that could eqaul big bucks.

Re:Improve it without changing anything?

[88NoSoup4U88]

Er.. Almost all -commercial- creativity is limited by arbitrary restraints: Be it webdesign, gamedesign, or even that weird painter-dude that keeps re-copying his previous works because they sold.

Keeping the color (which I personally 'identify' Slashdot with) isn't one of the worst restraints one could get.

This site needs a complete overhaul, unless you want to be the only site on the Internet that looks like it was designed in 1998.

Damn, I just think I read a Pimp-my-Slashdot request: Isn't it a plus that with the 'looks' of '98, it also has the loadtimes of '98 ?

On a sidenote, I wonder why scalability (eg. mobile phone) isn't one of the judging points/requests: I would love to have a decent browsing experience on my phone.

Re:Selectable Stylesheets

[DrSkwid]

Ever wonder what these do :

http://slashdot.org/users.pl?op=edithome [slashdot.org]

[x] Simple Design
Simplifies the design of Slashdot to strip away some of the excesses of the UI.

[x] Low Bandwidth
Reduces the size of pages for people with slower network connections

Re:Minors can sign contracts.

[Jerf]

AC says:

Minors in the USA can sign contracts.

(And provides supporting links.)

Point, but I believe your links also provide evidence for my assertion that in this case it's just not worth it, as it can get much more complicated.

But thanks for the correction.

Re:#7 is kind of a dealbreaker

[ajs]

I imagine that I don't really need to tell you this, but I'll do so for the sake of the improbable case that you have not yet realized it: Slashdot's core "nerds" audience is generally offended by restrictions of any kind, and moreover are fascinated by the concept of the edge case. If you suggested that the contest would give $1,000,000 to all entrants as long as they submitted their entry as a bziped tar file, you would get 100 responses on this page about how unreasonable it is to require bzip over gzip/compress/zip/arc/etc.

There's nothing at all wrong with having made the mandate that continuity be preserved, but that doesn't mean that the bulk of /.ers aren't going to jump all over you for it.

Re:No offense CmdrTaco but...

[Ron Bennett]

This parent is spot-on...

I rarely mention slashdot anymore to other people, and visit slashdot much less, and for less time, than I used to because of the lack of professionalism - how difficult is it to get story summeries right?

I'm not talking about simple typos, but story headlines / summeries which are just outright wrong.

Then there are the "dups" ... it certainly appears that Slashdot purposedly posts duplicate articles to boost traffic. I'm sure the tactic works, but if greatly reduces the credibility of Slashdot.

And then to add insult to intelligence of visitors, the "slashvertisements" - sometimes coming in "dups" too; numerous article postings by the same "slashvertisement" submitters; does slashdot offer submissions in multipacks? -it sure seems that way.

In a nutshell, the points the parent raises are those that Slashdot should focus on way before worrying about tweaking the CSS or whatnot.

Ron

Re:Improve it without changing anything?

[Haeleth]

This site needs a complete overhaul, unless you want to be the only site on the Internet that looks like it was designed in 1998.

What's wrong with looking like you've got a bit of history?

I think many buildings that were designed in 1860 look nicer than buildings that were designed in 1960. I think many books that were printed in 1960 look nicer than books that were printed in 1996. So why do all websites have to be identical ZOMG-ITS-TEH-WEB-2.0? Why not hark back to the 1990s and the golden age of internet growth?

Re:Improve it without changing anything?

[localman]

All creativity is shackled by constraints. Arbitrary or not it hardly matters.

Cheers.

Lets collaborate to de-GIF the slashdot icons

[fossa]

Collaborate to de-GIF the Slashdot icons for the benefit of all. [slashdot.org]

Thoughts from a profesional designer...

[Aqua OS X]

Not to sounds like a know it all SOB, but 3 weeks for pro bono design and development is somewhat rushed. At the very least, this time table is going to alienate the best professional designers that frequent this site. In my experience, the really good designers are busy, and if you want to get free work from them, you need to give them some time. On the other hand, there are tons of mediocre "designers" that have all the time in the world.

Slashdot is a large site and could be a great portfolio piece. I will probably forward this info to my colleagues. Yet I don't think this contest properly geared toward the design process. That could result in a final site that isn't as successful as it could be.

For a high traffic site you really want something more then a shinny skin. You want someone to consider more then development and contemporary graphics. You want someone to who understands branding, interaction, typography, psychology, and other aspects of visual communication. Realistically, a small site for a paying client might need two weeks for sketches and or photoshop / illustrator comps, and an additional week for an interactive comp. For a non-paying client, I'd doubt that time frame.

Once again, I don't intend to sounds like a whiny SOB, and I'm sure someone will flame the hell out of this post, nevertheless there things the boys behind Slashdot could do to assure a better end result. At the very least, give the contest a 2 month deadline, and pass this information to organizations like the AIGA. You'll get a better selection of successful solutions.

Re:A redesign is more than skin deep

[Fear the Clam]

Anyway, let's get to that point: Changing a CSS file is not a "redesign". Saying so is just fooling yourself.

Don't tell the folks at csszengarden.com [csszengarden.com].

PNGs

[Apotsy]

And no we're not switching to anti-aliased PNGs yet. Sorry.

But you'll bitch and moan about broken PNG support in IE?

Also, have you unblocked the W3C validator yet?

This is Spec work...read, UNETHICAL

[SpecWork]

I think you will find the information in the link below pretty valuable. The fact that you are offering this contest is disgusting, and in the long-run contests like this do harm to the design industry as a whole. Congratulations, news about this contest is going to spread like wildfire, and many designers will look at Slashdot with negative implications:

http://www.no-spec.com/ [no-spec.com]

Gee, next time I can't afford to get something done, I'll just label it a contest and have designers do it for free in hopes that they'll get a prize.