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So I submitted my feedback to Deviantart on why I don't like Eclipse. At all. When I saw there was an option to submit a screenshot with the written review, I decided that I might as well be thorough. When it comes to visual design, any sharing of ideas requires visual aids, so I took screenshots and marked them up like a strict English teacher grading an essay. It's not quite as comprehensive as I could make it - there are plenty of tiny details about things like text color and size, border size and thickness, color theory, and the effects of space on aesthetics, but I think I covered the major points.

Whichever visual designers Deviantart hired for this know NOTHING about visual design. Everything about Eclipse aggravates the eye's natural way of tracking and focusing. There's either too much empty space or too little, poor (or no) delineation between sections of each page, and (most importantly for ARTWORK) no bordering or framing of any kind to help highlight the boundaries of each piece against the background and focus the eye on its contents. Any text on the page is often left without coloration or stylizing to help it stand out, and it floats around in the background (off on its own, with too much space around it) with no way to clearly connect it to what it's supposed to be a title/header for.

The art "thumbnails" on the main gallery pages are TOO BIG with almost NO space between them! It's not a gallery anymore! It's a teenager's bedroom wall crammed with posters! The original site's thumbnails are just the right size to give a sense of the details, but small enough that the eye can rest on the whole thumbnail and then quickly move on. There's just enough space around them to give a sense of roominess, to set each thumbnail on its own in the center of the gaze, but not so far apart that the eye has to move a far distance before finding the next piece.

Just as importantly as visuals, the original site grouped pages together in ways that were easy to navigate and made sense. You could click on one button to see all your notifications, watchlist updates, and a comprehensive widget that would take you to all your notes and site interactions. The gallery pages have a widget with links for all the art categories and refined searching, grouped together conveniently. In Eclipse, all of that is scattered to the wind, so each page you want to see you have to hunt down elsewhere.

I probably repeated myself quite a few times in this mark-up, especially on words like "focus," "organized," and "negative space." I'm not an artist myself as my gallery shows - I love deviantart for the fantastic art I can find here. I've been here for around two decades. I don't want this great site to die from poor decision-making that drives off creators and audiences.

To submit your own review of Eclipse: www.eclipsefeedback.com/

Continued here: Everything Wrong With Eclipse P.2 - The Profile

Description
So I submitted my feedback to Deviantart on why I don't like Eclipse. At all. When I saw there was an option to submit a screenshot with the written review, I decided that I might as well be thorough. When it comes to visual design, any sharing of ideas requires visual aids, so I took screenshots and marked them up like a strict English teacher grading an essay. It's not quite as comprehensive as I could make it - there are plenty of tiny details about things like text color and size, border size and thickness, color theory, and the effects of space on aesthetics, but I think I covered the major points.

Whichever visual designers Deviantart hired for this know NOTHING about visual design. Everything about Eclipse aggravates the eye's natural way of tracking and focusing. There's either too much empty space or too little, poor (or no) delineation between sections of each page, and (most importantly for ARTWORK) no bordering or framing of any kind to help highlight the boundaries of each piece against the background and focus the eye on its contents. Any text on the page is often left without coloration or stylizing to help it stand out, and it floats around in the background (off on its own, with too much space around it) with no way to clearly connect it to what it's supposed to be a title/header for.

The art "thumbnails" on the main gallery pages are TOO BIG with almost NO space between them! It's not a gallery anymore! It's a teenager's bedroom wall crammed with posters! The original site's thumbnails are just the right size to give a sense of the details, but small enough that the eye can rest on the whole thumbnail and then quickly move on. There's just enough space around them to give a sense of roominess, to set each thumbnail on its own in the center of the gaze, but not so far apart that the eye has to move a far distance before finding the next piece.

Just as importantly as visuals, the original site grouped pages together in ways that were easy to navigate and made sense. You could click on one button to see all your notifications, watchlist updates, and a comprehensive widget that would take you to all your notes and site interactions. The gallery pages have a widget with links for all the art categories and refined searching, grouped together conveniently. In Eclipse, all of that is scattered to the wind, so each page you want to see you have to hunt down elsewhere.

I probably repeated myself quite a few times in this mark-up, especially on words like "focus," "organized," and "negative space." I'm not an artist myself as my gallery shows - I love deviantart for the fantastic art I can find here. I've been here for around two decades. I don't want this great site to die from poor decision-making that drives off creators and audiences.

To submit your own review of Eclipse: www.eclipsefeedback.com/

Continued here: Everything Wrong With Eclipse P.2 - The Profile