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As you can see the new design just went live. Congratulations! Thank you for your valuable design feedback.

We have also themed the twitter account and newsletter template for this site, and adjusted the privilege levels to higher thresholds.

If you see any CSS/styling bugs, please start a new post and tag it with "design" and "bug".

Congrats again and thank you for being an awesome community!

Oh! And by the way, we have also updated your Chat theme!

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  • 5
    Hah, I was lost in the site for 15 minutes. It looks so much different.
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 20:21
  • 4
    The gift of the year! #Kudos!
    – Maulik V
    Commented Feb 26, 2016 at 9:57
  • 1
    Hooray! Much gratitude!
    – Ben Kovitz
    Commented Feb 27, 2016 at 7:30
  • Looks pretty spiffy to me. :)
    – BobRodes
    Commented Mar 4, 2016 at 7:30
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    Just noticed the new icon in the hot network questions. Congratulations, ELL!
    – Ajedi32
    Commented Mar 4, 2016 at 15:05
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    The abstraction of using the bookmark as the icon is a bit hard to fathom, but certainly a bright and distinct icon...so it has that going for it.With the bookmark now taking center stage, it might help to contextualize it more if the stylized "E" as two books just became a solid viewed-from-the-cover literal book graphic (flattish) with the bookmark sticking out of the pages, to help people make the connection. It would assist with the drop-cap EEnglish concerns mentioned below as well.
    – HostileFork says dont trust SE
    Commented Mar 4, 2016 at 23:07
  • 18 months on, shouldn't this now be tagged status-completed?
    – Chenmunka
    Commented Jul 6, 2017 at 7:35

9 Answers 9

Reset to default
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The icon on the tour page and the smaller icons have been updated, they will be live after our next production build.

Not really a bug report, just expressing my surprise.

I'm surprised the tour page shows only the bookmark, with no dictionaries. That is, I thought the artwork would resemble the button on the right, but instead it shows the button on the left:

enter image description here

I think it would be nice to get that E on the Tour page.

Also, it would be nice if that E were incorporated as the tiny symbol used in the SE pulldown (perhaps sans bookmark, if it's too hard to read it with a bookmark):

enter image description here

If we switched to the E, the logo would look like both an E, and a stack of dictionaries. As it stands now, when an ELL question appears in a list of Hot Questions, it really doesn't resemble much of anything:

enter image description here

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    I'd also say I like the E more.
    – wythagoras
    Commented Feb 26, 2016 at 12:31
  • @wythagoras - It appears that we are not alone in this regard.
    – J.R. Mod
    Commented Feb 26, 2016 at 16:28
  • I think if there was one version of the logo specific for small icons (with a larger favicon relative to the E) ti could work. It might have to take up more than a half of the width of the E.
    – Peter
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 4:15
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    The E logo with the bookmark looks like a waiter with a napkin folded over his arm to me!
    – CJ Dennis
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 11:26
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    Oh, the E is a book? That's a bookmark? Never would have figured that out. Was wondering why someone put a ribbon on the E.
    – DCShannon
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 20:05
  • @DCShannon - Well, it's actually two books, one atop the other, as was explained in the initial Design Concept.
    – J.R. Mod
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 20:11
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    I agree with @Lucky's cherry-on-the-cake comment. So long as our notifications are depicted with the end of a bookmark, I'm a little disappointed this has been labeled as status completed.
    – J.R. Mod
    Commented Mar 4, 2016 at 11:29
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    "As it stands now, when an ELL question appears in a list of Hot Questions, it really doesn't resemble much of anything" - my thoughts exactly. I had no idea why is the ELL symbol now a flag ribbon instead of the ELL letters that were there originally. (And even now that I know the reason - and that it's not actually a flag ribbon - I don't understand it anyway.)
    – January First-of-May
    Commented Mar 21, 2016 at 10:57
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    @JanuaryFirst-of-May - It is what it is. This issue has sat dormant for awhile now; I'm afraid we're stuck with our Lincoln Logs chimney.
    – J.R. Mod
    Commented Mar 21, 2016 at 15:47
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full title logo

The shape on the left looks like a drop-cap E, so the word looks like the site is "Eenglish." I couldn't even figure out what the dictionaries were supposed to be until Wendikidd told me. I think it would be better to go with the drop-cap, but if not please add some page lines to make it clear the dictionaries are supposed to be books that resemble a letter, not an actual letter.

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    Yeah, I had no idea what that was. That's actually why I'm reading this thread, to figure out what that logo is. And the medals, what are... those are ribbons... oh, bookmarks. Also bookmarks? Where did this come from?
    – DCShannon
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 20:07
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    It does look like "EENGLISH" to me.
    – Sнаđошƒаӽ
    Commented Mar 3, 2016 at 9:21
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    I'm not going to lie I think the E looks absolutely terrible. It floats between dictionaries and a childish "E." it doesn't commit to either one and suffers for it. The rest of the site looks great but the E sticks out like a sore, sore thumb. I think it needs to be filled in with yellowish pages or something and committed more fully toward looking like books with an E inspiration, rather than something that looks like it took two minutes to make in Illustrator
    – Azor Ahai -him-
    Commented Mar 4, 2016 at 1:33
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    I like it personally. I didn't see it as looking like another E.
    – BobRodes
    Commented Mar 4, 2016 at 7:30
7

In the Select your next badge section, when the badges are in progress we can able to see the bronze and silver badges but the gold badge is not visible like the reaming badges due to the color transparency. Hope this need to be fix.

Screenshot for reference:

Badge icon not visible properly

After the new UI Change for the profile page, this display issue has been fixed.

Screenshot for reference:

New badge icons with better visibility

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    This seems to have been solved with the (global) new design of the profile page.
    – Glorfindel Mod
    Commented Jun 28, 2017 at 16:27
  • @Glorfindel : Thanks. When verifying this issue, I found another bug
    – Arulkumar
    Commented Jun 30, 2017 at 6:38
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This should be fixed after the next production build, #bringbackoursidebar

The sidebar has decided it doesn't fit on the side, and has instead moved down below the posts. top of ELL main page middle of ELL main page

This is on Firefox 44.0.2 (OS is Windows 7).

Chrome looks OK. IE11 is fine if I'm not logged in, but looks exactly like Firefox as soon as I log in. (It's possible Firefox also works if you're not logged in, but I ain't logging out to check.) And like Colleen said, this is only for the main pages - if you open a question, the sidebar is up where it's supposed to be.

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  • Thanks for the report! We're looking into it.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 16:56
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    Repro on Firefox 43.0.4 on Ubuntu, but it looks okay on Chrome.
    – user230
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 17:02
  • Also a problem on IE 11 on the main page, but the layout is fine when I click on a question.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 17:07
  • The review page also has the same problem.
    – ColleenV
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 17:10
  • When will the next production build go live?
    – Martha
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 18:02
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    Never mind, I see that it's already in place. Yay, I can haz sidebar!
    – Martha
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 18:06
  • +1 for personifying the sidebar
    – AAM111
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 1:13
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    @OldBunny2800: I take it you're not a developer? As anyone who has wrestled with CSS can tell you, you don't need to assign a personality to these things: they come with personalities built-in. Generally ornery, sometimes downright evil personalities.
    – Martha
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 1:23
  • No, I code as a pastime, but I usually would say "the sidebar is off" or "my code is not working, gimmetehcodez"
    – AAM111
    Commented Mar 1, 2016 at 1:58
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The icons have been updated, they will be live after our next production build.

This design bug was posted as a separate question on meta; I wanted to place it here so that it would come to the design team's attention, as I agree wholeheartedly. (And thank you for being awesome; the design as a whole is incredible, and you have ELL's thanks!)

Link to design bug post: Bookmark in favicon is too small and the circle blends into backgrounds too easily

The overall gist of the post is that the tiny icon that appears for ELL when you click the left sidebar is much smaller than on other sites, and that the gray circle is very different than the style of other icons. OP requests either the orange bookmark only, without the circle, or the E dictionary with the orange bookmark (I support the second option, but the first would also be an improvement).

Thanks!

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  • I, too, hope the design team implements the second option. By itself, it looks more like a chimney than a bookmark. (Interestingly enough, I don't mind the bookmark ends being used as badge logos, because they also resemble the end of a ribbon on a gold seal, so they are quite apropos for that. I hope the badges stay as is, but I'm looking forward to favicon being revised.)
    – J.R. Mod
    Commented Feb 28, 2016 at 9:52
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In the tradition of manuscripts and early typeset texts with large ornamental capitals, couldn't the ornamental E be made a part of the word, so that it served more than a decorative function? I find the EE a little disturbing.

enter image description here

I would also like to see the title of questions in a little darker hue. I find the current color too pale:

enter image description here

It's a strain to read after a while. Not enough contrast.

P.S. Sub-pixel font-rendering technology works poorly with low-saturation colors (pastels). A pale teal for a text font is a poor choice from the point of view of legibility. This complaint cannot be dismissed as merely a matter of personal taste. Just the opposite is true -- the current design gives the personal aesthetic of the designer primacy over legibility.

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  • Isn't this the same as meta.ell.stackexchange.com/a/2956? (They're asking for the same design change to be made, based on most of the same observations.)
    – Nathan Tuggy
    Commented Mar 8, 2016 at 20:13
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    The rationales given for the desired change are quite different, and I show an image of what I'm talking about in terms of a revised design; in that respect they're different as well.
    – TimR
    Commented Mar 8, 2016 at 20:38
  • FWIW, the "Double E" hasn't bothered me at all. That said, I wouldn't consider this a step in the wrong direction. I like this version, too.
    – J.R. Mod
    Commented Mar 8, 2016 at 22:01
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When I link to the site from chat, it shows the old beta-style header:

links to sites from chat

But as you can see, when I link to EL&U from chat, I get a snazzy EL&U custom design header.

Will we get snazzy chat links for ELL, too? :-)

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    That should already be in place: i.sstatic.net/bvG5c.png. You may need to hard-refresh the page, though.
    – Adam Lear StaffMod
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 17:59
  • Yep, when I look at that post in chat, the ELL header is all snazzy, too.
    – Martha
    Commented Feb 25, 2016 at 18:00
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I really like the site's design, but I'd like to know what the significance of the "E" and the bookmark is. I imagine the bookmark has something to do with learning, i.e. marking a page that is useful.

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  • The rationale behind the design is explained in Stéphane Martin's other meta post. If you want to see how the design evolved, I'd recommend scrolling down, and then starting at the header that reads Design Concept. That should answer most of your questions.
    – J.R. Mod
    Commented Apr 1, 2016 at 14:22
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The new logo/icons are not yet updated in the Stack Exchange site, it still showing the old logo/icons. Those are need to be update.

Sample screenshot from top and accounts section:

top section

ELL old logo

Those icons were updated correctly in the Stack Exchange site.

Screenshot for reference:

New icons were updated

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