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  Patrick Meguid • 8 years ago

  I agree that a redesign is warranted. However, to be sure, I would much rather prefer a dark background; it would be, IMHO, easier on the eyes and play well with the "constellation" effect that gnod is known for. If you'd prefer the stark white (à la Google, no bells or whistles), then I suggest the title and left-menu items be emboldened. The font or scale used is a bit "hairy" or less aesthetically appealing, and a bit of work for the eyes. In a darkened room, this effect is magnified.

  Aside from that, keep up the good work. I've recommended gnod to countless music buffs and they too swear by it now. Cheers!

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    JustinBailey Patrick Meguid • 8 years ago

    Second this. An option of dark or light background would be a nice compromise and much easier on the eyes for those of us who spend too much time surfing music-map :)

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    Sasha Patrick Meguid • 8 years ago

    Same here, a choice of backgrounds would be great. Additionally it would be great to enter a new band on the same page.

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  Steve Kemple • 8 years ago

  I really like the new design. This is really nitpicky, but it would be great to be able to start a new search directly from the map. It's no big deal to hit back or click the "Music Map" icon on the top left, but a search bar at the top or left of the page would be super helpful.

  Thank you, by the way, for developing this. I use it heavily for a CD of the Month Club I run at my library. Here's an article I wrote about it for the magazine Library Journal, with a shout-out to Music Map: http://reviews.libraryjourn...

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    Marek Gibney Mod Steve Kemple • 8 years ago

    Yes, you are right. The name of the band in the title should probably be inside an input field. Similar to how its set up in Google Maps and Openstreetmap. I will try that out in a later stage.

    Happy to hear the Music-Map helps you with your CD of the Month Club. Its an interesting project you have there!

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  Andy Rogers • 8 years ago

  It's funny, when I read your rationale for changing the design/colours, I thought: that makes a lot of sense and is probably the right thing to do. When I saw the redesign I liked the fact that it was uncluttered and minimalist. However, I wasn't a big fan of the colour scheme...it is too stark for my taste. Upon reading the comments, I realized that I preferred the old colour scheme because it reminds me of a twilight sky and the band names are like stars in that sky (or like a solar system with the primary band name as the sun, and all the other band names are planets). That structure/framework/paradigm appeals to me very much and I would miss it in the redesign. I know that my preference is a "romantic" one and not techie or minimalist, but I do like that solar system metaphor and I feel that the current colour scheme reflects that paradigm nicely. If you want to tweak the shades to make them more current (a little bit), that would be fine. Uncluttered is always good as long as it doesn't come across as overly stark or cold.

  Advert/band info text is better in the upper left, as you have it in the redesign. That way I can quickly scan it and move on to the map rather than looking at the map and having my eye dragged down to the bottom-left corner.

  Thank you very much for the service you've provided. it has helped me find new bands and rediscover some older one. I appreciate that very much.

  Best wishes from Canada,
  Andy.

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    Andy Rogers Andy Rogers • 8 years ago

    I would also suggest that I be able to enter a new band name on any page so that I can move on to a new map without having to back out of the current map.

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      Andy Rogers Andy Rogers • 8 years ago

      Out of curiosity, if bands are clustered together in the map, does that mean that people who like a band within the cluster will likely like other bands within that cluster, or is the spacing more random/less structured than that?

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        Marek Gibney Mod Andy Rogers • 8 years ago

        Nothing random about it. Every band constantly tries to get closer to bands it "likes" and to get away from bands it "dislikes". So the clusters should be groups of similar bands.

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          simpig Marek Gibney • 8 years ago

          I'm more of a form-follows-function guy, so both of these are good with me as my interest is in the functionality (which is awesome...). As already stated above in other comments, there are visual pros and cons for the light vs. dark background. If I had to choose, I would go with the light. That said, further to the comments immediately above, I would love this to evolve more into a tool to help me find new music that I would like. If I do a search for an artist and get the cloud result, could this be enhanced to allow me to select other artists that I like from the resulting cloud to invert the cloud into a ring around a new (small) set of artists that I might like based on my selections?

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  Toto • 8 years ago

  New page is ok but too bright, too shiny. Color should be darker. Nice work.

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  Catbriar • 8 years ago

  Stark, white backgrounds make me not want to linger. A velvety charcoal grey would update the look and be less blinding. Could it possibly be configurable for the user? I've noticed that I try to leave dazzlingly white pages as quickly as possible. I voted for the old design simply because it's the one I'd rather look at for longer periods of browsing.

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  Paul C • 8 years ago

  I like the redesign, but also like darker themes, as they're easier on the eyes. Any chance you could use the previous color scheme, or something like it? Also, as others have said, the music-map is FANTASTIC, really appreciate the thought you've put into this.

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  Noah Van Loen • 8 years ago

  I appreciate your time and effort on the site, and vote to continue evolving the UI. I like the lighter better than the dark, but agree with other posters that it might be too light - perhaps some sort of gradient fill going to the center. I'd also love to see connector lines between the results (but perhaps that's not a trivial ask).

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  starrystef • 8 years ago

  new layout ok but make it darker!

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  jes • 8 years ago

  I like the new design for it's starkness with the color mouse-overs, but... not sure if I dig the plain white bg, maybe too bright!
  plus I was wondering if there might be some relevance or heat map to the color mouse-overs, but that seemed random.

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    Marek Gibney Mod jes • 8 years ago

    The colors are derived from the first 3 characters of the name. The first character is used to calculate the amount of red. A equals no red, Z equals lots of red. The next two characters are used to calculate blue and green.

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      jes Marek Gibney • 8 years ago

      Aha. Never would have guessed that!

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  Frogwave • 8 years ago

  The new design is an improvement. However, I feel like the band name and "Music map" don't need to be that large. I would put the explanatory text on the top (one line, less space), and maybe keep the left column for the band/artist. You could scrap the artist's info, with a picture, and add a link to their page on AllMusic or any other similar site. Right now, it's only text, and could be made a bit more appealing. And I agree with others that all white with black text is a bit harsh. But thanks for the music map. It's a great tool.

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  Reba Franklin • 8 years ago

  I like the updated feel of the new site, but I also think a color background is better than stark white with skinny black letters. I love the music map! Thanks for reminding me it's out there.

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  Selena Hanet-Hutchins • 8 years ago • edited

  I can understand your wish to redesign, especially as you now want to incorporate advertising, but I'm with Patrick Meguid - I think it's lost some of the 'constellation' power, and some if the mood of discovery in a 'universe' of music. I really value honest, contextual feedback when I'm developing a project, so, to explain....
  When I found gnod, it was by searching google with something like 'map of reading tastes' (sorry, my journal notes don't record terms) and I found gnooks. The dark background with 'constellation' was a big payoff and its been mentioned by many I send to the gnod site: it adds to the sense of being part of something special and adds, I think, to the discovery feel. A blank white (perhaps read: Apple generic) background makes it feel less than the really cool tool of new wonderment that it is.
  I'm wondering if it might be smart to target the advertising...say an option to click through to an artist's iTunes page or website from the map (for small commission to you/gnod for link. I've bought a lot of new music by cutting and pasting into a new tab) and offer artists and music publishers the space you've allotted for advertising in the layout (or book publishers, film companies, on other maps). Could the advertising panel even click through to a map view of that product?
  Anyway, it's a brilliant project and I'm glad to know it's continuing. Good luck with it all!

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    Marek Gibney Mod Selena Hanet-Hutchins • 8 years ago

    I have the "universe of music" association too. Indeed, it would get lost with the white background. I'm undecided on this yet.

    As for the advertising: It's the same as in the old design. If you use some kind of ad blocker, you might not see it. It's pretty much in the same spot.

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      Selena Hanet-Hutchins Marek Gibney • 8 years ago

      Ah, you're right - I use an ad blocker :) I looked at the new site on an iPad too...it all seemed to work as I wanted it to.

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  rebecca doane • 8 years ago

  I like the new design. Simple and clean. I also like that it's not flashy or overdone. Easy to use.

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  Ahmed • 8 years ago

  The color scheme is definitely an improvement but overall it's very much the same. I'd like to see the visual relationship between items become more pronounced. This could be as simple as "bubbles" with their color set by a heatmap of some sort (not a gradient but a selection of colors).

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  Amber • 8 years ago

  I would spy on Rdio.com for their design work to get some inspiration, as well as the new Starbucks.ca site - both are so clean and easy to navigate, and hold the bar pretty high when it comes to slick, good looking, massively used sites. I LOVE your stuff - you are AMAZING and I am so glad that I found your site. I use it to recommend new authors to customers at my bookstores in BC all the time.

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  janneman • 8 years ago

  it's not that I use it a lot, but i like musicplasma and its functionality.

  though the new design is a bit more modern, i'd say using connecting lines and info-balloons could add a lot of usability.

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  Andrew • 8 years ago

  The redesign is infinitely better. I don't agree about the dark background stuff though - I think a light background is better. I think if you're going to make it dark, make sure there's an option for light as well

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  k • 8 years ago

  In the redesign, the help menu (the question mark icon) doesn't display well on current Chromium under Ubuntu Linux, for what it's worth.

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    Marek Gibney Mod k • 8 years ago

    Really? I cannot reproduce that.

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  Joel_S91 • 8 years ago • edited

  I like the new light design. Fresher, more modern.

  It would be nice to be able to do new searches at the top of the page (instead of having to click "music map" again).

  Probably impossible, but it would be nice to have some info of the artist in a column to the left, a brief biography and discography. Or instead, just the genres related to the artist, and "years active".

  But the similar artists results I got was not great... they could be more accurate. "Jeanne Mas" wasn't recognized. I guess some artists will give better results than others. "Syd Arthur" was registered as "Sydarthur", so there may be misspellings.

  Another interesting thing would be to get results of artists were the band member/s have been active. So Phil Collins, he was a member of Genesis and Brand X, so those artists would get listed with a special color, meaning that Collins was/is a member of that band. That would be more complicated with session musicians though (who have played with hundreds on individual albums). But maybe that's not the sort of info you're supposed to get with this thing. But it would have been a nice way to get such info, a quick overview, like a map.

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  jnickg • 8 years ago

  New design, light AND dark themes

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  J. Traynor • 8 years ago

  I appreciate the thought of moving to a more tablet, smartphone platform that is easier for me to show off to others. However I still prefer the older "heavy" ui. For much of the same romantic opinions, that the darkness reminds of the night sky, with the band names be stars in that night sky. I found the new design to be a little bit hard on my eyes, but I prefer darker skins pretty much universally over lighter skins.

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  Jeasen • 8 years ago

  I would prefer a darker background, white backgrounds are stabbing my eyes. Maybe a button/dropdownmenu that inverts the colors, or changes between 2 (or even more d^_^b ) Themes could solve that.

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  John • 8 years ago

  I prefer a darker theme (representing a constellation map), but I'll gratefully use whatever you decide to use.

  Site note: I really enjoy when two bands "fight" for the same spot. :D

  As others have mentioned, the ability to start a new search directly on the map would be nice. Perhaps by making the band's name (up top) an editable field?

  Thanks for doing this, but more thanks for asking for our input!!

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  remmie • 8 years ago

  Looks so much better.

  Suggestion for how the results of a search are displayed.

  If i cut and paste as plain text in a text editor it will show the names like this:

  VivaldyTheRedHotChillyPeppersSoldierBoyBach

  Now,
  Perhaps there is also a band called The Red and a band called Hot and a
  band named Chilly. If you leave a space before and after the band name
  it will be displayed like this.

  Vivaldy TheRedHotChillyPeppers SoldierBoy Bach

  Or perhaps you could even come up with something like this:

  Vivaldy | TheRedHotChillyPeppers | SoldierBoy | Bach

  Just some suggestions. Perhaps its easy to make.Perhaps not.
  Thanks for your great tool which i`m using often

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  Dawn Waldron • 8 years ago

  Keep the old design - but change the background to charcoal - would be my vote. Instantly more contemporary. Love the site, thank you!

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  KEW • 8 years ago

  I agree that having a search bar on the map page would be a big help. What would be awesome if you could integrate with a system that gave you a description of what you've clicked on.

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  hailey • 8 years ago

  I suggest adding more variety of books and movies.

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  April @ My Shelf Confessions • 8 years ago

  I too love the idea of "wonderment" and "discovery" that the constellation theme seems to go so well with. I was wondering if you'd considered perhaps buying a stock image for the background? I found some great ones via stocklib.com (that's my go to stock image site because the images are so cheap.) Here are some options I thought would enhance the original concept of the website and yet give it a bit more color and visual appeal:

  I hope that sparks some ideas, there were a ton of regular star constellation ones but I figured that it might be cool to add a bit more color (since you're wanting more of a change) than the regular blue background with some stars. That's a great site and I only looked at about half the results I got for "star backgrounds." (And I promise I''m not affiliated with the website in any way.) :)

  Good luck! I am glad that I got the email about the design change because it's been so long since I've visited Gnod and I really love the book and music maps! <33

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    April @ My Shelf Confessions April @ My Shelf Confessions • 8 years ago

    For some reason it didn't let me post the links so here are the pages, you'll have to copy and paste them in your own browser: http://us.stocklib.com/imag...

    http://us.stocklib.com/imag...

    http://us.stocklib.com/imag...

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  Jim • 8 years ago

  I like the redesign minus the foreground/background colors. As others have said, I think a dark background is easier on the eyes.

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  flagblagg • 8 years ago

  it´s ok, but a darker color would be better. ;) i love Music-map. one of the best sides ever

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  Greg Tzar • 8 years ago

  The redesign looks much better than the old one, and works great for me on Ubuntu/Chrome. I would however love to see the option for a dark theme, as I have my whole computer themed dark as it is easier on the eyes. Perhaps that could be a phase 2 after this release. Just an idea, but I think the re-skinning could be made somewhat trivial with an alternate stylesheet and a toggle control that stored the setting in local storage.

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  Stephen Marsh • 8 years ago

  I'm in the keep improving camp. I like the update so far though it might be good to highlight the searched artist so you can focus on proximity to the artist in question.

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  Jean Jordaan • 8 years ago

  I'll add a vote for a dark option .. on mobile all my apps are dark so far as possible. Otherwise, the new one is modern and stylish, I like it.

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  homosporocarpus • 8 years ago

  First things first—I really appreciate your work and would like to thank you for your music-map, it’s helped me a lot during my musical journeys, whatever the design (which is all great, but, at least for me, of rather secondary importance). And as far as my design ‘taste’ is concerned (I work as a graphic designer, if that’s of any relevance), I like the update/re-design—definitely warranted, fresh and simple, a bit new google-ish/metro-ish, surely more contemporary (frankly, I’ve never liked the blue background, but that’s just me), although, probably, I’d like it even more if it was inverted, with a dark, grey-ish background that would retain the ‘constellation’, or ‘the universe of music’, association that many music travellers have appreciated and mentioned in the responses and which does make sense. That’s all from me, thanks again for having put this all together. All the best.

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  Dan • 8 years ago

  The new version is fine, but I kind of prefer the old one, maybe I'm a bit nostalgic about old school web design. The "inverse video" text might not be as easy to read in some circumstances but it does look more interesting.

  Great site either way.

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  Stephen • 8 years ago

  I like the new design. It would be great if it were possible to slide the map on a tablet.

  I hadn't looked at it for a couple of years. Since my first use years ago (could it be 10 years ago?) it has become heavily populated with bands now. It's very good!

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    Marek Gibney Mod Stephen • 8 years ago • edited

    Yes, it's been around for over ten years now! And this is the first redesign :)

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