Our new 'heads-up' display goes live

We've been working on this update for some time and we rolled it out today. It was inspired by advanced computer interfaces in sci-fi movies like Minority Report, but also by the deep perspective and spatial imagery of the music we work with. In a word: spacey.

For casual users of the site, you'll notice a cleaner look and a "see-through" effect, with very minor changes to the actual operation of the service. But under the hood we've rebuilt the structural system of the site.

Our previous design used an old web technology called frames. While there were advantages to using frames years ago, they have been eclipsed by newer methods, and the new design takes advantage of a newer technology called iFrames. We also found a way to 'tint' the pages with layers of semi-transparent colors you can see right though.

One of the presenters at a conference I attended a few months ago said "Online the UI (user interface) is the brand." I don't think this is 100% true, but he's definitely onto something with this statement. Online the UI is critical — it's the place where you touch and interact with the site, the service and to a degree, the company.

There's one more feature we are working on and will add next month: deep linking.

Most websites support this naturally, because every page has its own URL or web address. But when you build a site with frames (or the newer iFrames) these URLs are hidden within the enclosing elements of the site. Our brilliant programmer Steven Brosseau has figured out a way to have the best of both worlds — a site with iFrames and individual URLs. What it means is that you will be able to bookmark or send a link to anything you can navigate to on HOS.com.

We'll be tweaking the new design in the coming days based on your feedback, so let us know if anything isn't working on your screen.

:: SH

Comments

[Erin Keniston]

Not sure this happened with the new interface, but under "the perfect review" (at least) it's impossible to read the text without highlighting it. In fact I thought the page was blank at first.

[Leyla Hill]

Dear Erin, It looks fine on all our systems here. Please adjust your monitor's contrast and brightness controls. Write to [email protected] and tell us about your equipment if you need assistance.

[Layton Smith]

Looks excellent!

[Bob Rindy]

LOVE the changes, especially now when I open a Program "Genre" - I can scroll a fullscreen window (a big improvement).

Now, what I'd really love to see is this:

Say I'm looking a a "Genre list" of programs and I click the "Pgm Details" tab to see what a program contains. It takes me there but, when I want to go back and continue looking at other programs in that Genre and click the back arrow - it takes me back to where I need to select the Genre again. I'd love it if you could have it take me back to the list that I just left. I know, it's not that much trouble clicking on the Genre again, but sometimes I forget what Genre I was looking at - and then it becomes annoying.

[Stephen Hill]

That's a good suggestion, Bob. Since the Genre table you are looking at requires a call to our database, going back to that page requires a "form" be resent, and the 'back' button of the browser doesn't know that because it's happening in an iFrame.

There's another way to skin this cat: you can use the 'NEXT PL' and 'PREVIOUS PL' buttons on the top right of the PGM DETAILS pages to navigate between programs in any genre list. These buttons appear automatically when you choose a program from a genre table.

You could also open each playlist in a new window or tab by right-clicking on the page and using the popup menu, but this doesn't work right now because it shows the playlist without the dark background and the page is unreadable. We're working on a fix for that and will roll it out as soon as our programmer returns from Burning Man!

Thanks :: SH

[Bob Rindy]

Thx Stephen for the suggestions and I must say your programmer is not only an excellent site builder but very cool for attending Burning Man.

Your suggestion: "you can use the 'NEXT PL' and 'PREVIOUS PL' buttons on the top right of the PGM DETAILS pages to navigate between programs in any genre list. These buttons appear automatically when you choose a program from a genre table."

These don't show up in my browser (IE 8).

I was thinking that if a programs "genre" could show up on the program details page, then at least we could look at that before hitting the back button (to refresh our memory for which genre we were in) - but then I realized that many programs are listed in multiple genres. So that won't work.

So I'll just wait till your programmer gets back and see if he implements your 2nd suggestion.

One last thing. The new "look" is one of the finest examples of what is possible with iFrames. And the artestry is fantastic.

[Stephen Hill]

Bob, thanks for the flattering comments on the artistic part of the design. Now, let's get it work right!

To clarify: the NEXT and PREVIOUS PL buttons appear only in the upper right corner of the program details pages, and then only when you navigate to one of those pages from the PGM DETAILS link on one of the various navigation tables, be it Genre, Season, Number, etc.

So for example, click PROGRAMS in the main menu bar, then "African/Subsaharan." You'll get a table with 7 shows in it. If you click the PGM DETAILS icon on the top show, you'll see the icon for NEXT PL > on the upper right of playlist page; if you click that to go to the next show in the list, then the icon for < PREVIOUS PL will appear as well.

These buttons allow you to navigate up an down the list without having to return to the source table, or deal with multiple windows or tabs.

I did add the large background image to the program playlist template as a temporary measure. Now you can open any playlist in another window or tab, and it will look very similar to viewing it within the rest of the site.

We'll figure out a global fix for the background issue next week.

Thanks :: SH

[Bob Rindy]

Hello again Stephen,

I've tried your suggestion: "click PROGRAMS in the main menu bar, then "African/Subsaharan." You'll get a table with 7 shows in it. If you click the PGM DETAILS icon on the top show, you'll see the icon for NEXT PL > on the upper right of playlist page; if you click that to go to the next show in the list, then the icon for < PREVIOUS PL will appear as well. " but neither of these icons appear in my browser.

I'm using Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit and IE8 (latest version) in both its 64bit and 32bit versions with the same results.

What browser are you using that shows these icons?

[Stephen Hill]

Bob,

You have found a stealthy bug;-)

I'm using Mac/Firefox 3.6.8, but our code for this function should work everywhere. We test in as many combinations as we can.

That said, we just tried it in Windows 7/IE8 and you're right. There is some problem with the Javascript interpreter in that browser, and it is ignoring our code for that function.

If you want to see how it should work, try using either the Windows version of Firefox or Google's Chrome browser. We just checked and the additional control buttons show up perfectly in both of those browsers.

We've put this on the list for our programmer to fix (when he gets back from Burning Man;-)

:: SH

[Bob Rindy]

Stephen,

Glad to hear I'm not losing my mind (occasionally wonder about that).

Without going into why I don't use Firefox or Chrome, we need to realize that IE has probably 80% of the market - so a fix is needed for the herd...

And I'm still envious of your programmer and his visit to Burning Man. Hope he blogs about it here...

[Bob Rindy]

Oh, and by the way... Thanks for all the years of the best music in the world, brought to us by one of the most sooooothing voices I've ever had the pleasure of listening to - yours.

[Babs]

I am running into problems when scrolling. I can't see the full page. For example, when I view this post, I can't get all the way down to see the comments (so sorry if this has already been commented on! ;)

Running Windows 7, Firefox 3.6.8. I tried in IE 8 and got the same results. I can't get down to the bottom of a page.

If I click on a right side link to a comment, I go get taken to a page with that comment, but I can't scroll up to see the post. I tested other areas of the site and the scrolling issue seems to be limited to the News page only.

I love the new look, though! Also, the pages seem to come up faster, so that's nice too!

[Stephen Hill]

Babs, we've found the cause of this problem and put up a temporary fix. You should be able to scroll the full length of any page now. We'll fix it for good next week. More detail here: http://blog.hos.com/2010/09/scrolling-problems-with-the-new-interface.html .

:: SH