Ruby on Rails

Return of the 'low-fi' CSS approach...(or is it that the designers couldn't do anything better? Being cynical there!)

I agree James - this is a refreshing alternative to some of the mainstream CSS on the web right now, and I like the way it still makes good use of colours and web standards.

Personally, I feel the flow-diagram on the 'about' page would have looked better near the top of the page - and the text content in the centre of the page is slightly at odds with the look of the content in the head/top of the page. This minimalism might be making a comeback (as you put it James) - but it's lack of an arresting design could also be its biggest failing though because several minutes later and I'm already forgetting it already! The flow-diagram and the logo are the most memorable features...the rest...mmm, what is it they do again? Oh yes, server-side web-dev stuff (congrats - you'll always be in demand!)...well done :)

This site has been made to a high level, score: 8

This site isn't that good. It's broken in Safari and doesn't have enough color beyond the ugly yellow header (other than "restricted" color).

There are MANY more better minimalism-based sites out there that have probably been submitted, which is making me scratch my head and asking, "Why feature this one?"

I think this site is really nice but could do with more color beyond the header.

The leading is all screwed up in the header .... and the padding between the two lines of text is goofed as well. Small touches could have made this site a lot better.

The logo is mad cool though, gotta give props where they're due.

I've tried to understand Rails, and even Ruby, and I was really hoping a lite and attractive (somewhat) site like this would lead me in the way; unfortunately I'm lost in the intro jargon. I'm not sure what a full-stack framework is and I don't need another geek acronym (AGA) like don't repeat yourself (DRY, ha—cute.) The site should have no problem putting things in human terms (David of 37signals certainly knows how), but as a novice, even one who's trying very hard to grasp the concepts, it's still too abstract with nerdery and jargon; something the site should strive to avoid (at least in some 'Ruby and Rails for the uninitiated' section, perhaps as a link on the home page?)

A non-geek flow chart is in order, sans the CRUDs, active record and action view terms, which are meaningless to the uninitiated. If the site expects to turn some non-nerds into followers they're gonna need to try much harder.

The site looks good from my point of views especially that they don't do web design but they develop a framework for web applications. And as for the framework I think is great not as for the language used ( Ruby - which I think is pretty hard to understand for a novice) but as for the features and for the great community around it.

Keep up the good work and we will wait to see new AJAX stuff implemented into rails.

I have to agree with DMR in that I expected something more human out of the content of this site. I too am interested in learning Rails, and being a complete noob at programming, I was hoping to see a "37better" style site, very straightforward and to the point. However I can't even find any sort of beginners guide without digging.

I have no problem with the design itself (it's no surprise coming from these guys), but when it comes to 37signals, I expect more in the realm of human-friendly content.

Thanks for the addition and for the comments, guys. I suspect we might be revising the frontpage at least in preparation for the v1.0 launch to address some of the concerns voiced here. It is indeed not as friendly as it could be.

The iframe in the website is our way of getting around trying to tie a multitude of applications in different languages and with different templating styles together while still being able to not repeat ourselves. Loading a single HTML document into the header using an iframe allows us to do this. It still pains me it's there but it works.

Kristopher: I can't seem to find any brokenness in Safari. Where exactly do you see this?

The design of the site is appropriately simple - not every site needs to be overflowing with aqua deliciousness. The thing that surprises me, given that this is a 37signals project (I think?), is that the content is pretty impenetrable, even for a moderate nerd. And to be an arse, I think that the site uses tables to display non-tabular data. But I guess it's a Transitional layout, so maybe that's okay.

Well to be fair, this site's goal isn't to teach newbies how to use Ruby, it's how to teach hardcore Ruby people to use this framework. Ruby on Rails is NOT a new programming language, it's an application framework built on top of Ruby.

The analogy is similar to if you find a really good crypto library full of routines for C — the website for the code probably wouldn't have tutorials on C, but would assume you have a good understanding of the language before attempting to write crypto with it.

That being said, I suck at Ruby and the syntax boggles me haha.

In case anyone's wondering about the difference between the screenshot and the actual site, that's just the fast moving nature of the web -- Mike (above) took the initiative to tweak the header based on his comments, and the RoR guys liked it and implemented it. Quick turnaround!

Props for the tweak since for me the header looks much better now.

For the rest, I think it's a nice lightweight site that serves its purpose reasonably well, but I guess if it's worth a mention on stylegala per se.

My opinion is that this site is underdesigned, in terms of layout grids, typographic treatment, information architecture and navigation schemes.

If it's cited to demonstrate the point that "underdesigned" is better than "decorated", I'm all with it.

Mere "decoration" does no good, except for wow factor, to any design work, and especially in web design, where it consumes bandwidth and creates unnecessary functional complications, as pointed out in the review.

But the point is that design is not decoration, and I think there's much more about good design than avoiding eye candy.

If you are going to 'go minimal' with a site, then how you layout your content needs to be absolutely spot on.

Unfortunatley, this site does not get it right - the composition does not sit pleasingly on the page, the left column is way to narrow when you consider the content, the right column, especially on the home page, looks too low because of the extra space the logo has created.

I would hardly regard the logo as being particularly minimal and in keeping with the page (although, as a stand alone logo, I think it is ok)

I'm sure what they do is very clever - this site isn't though. You can get a wow factor from keeping things minimal, but only if you get the subtleties right and use 'white' space super-intelligently.

Hey guys. Thanks a bunch for the feedback. Especially to Mike for redesigned the header. We'd *love* to see more of that. After all, we're mostly a bunch of programmers who can only hope to imitate good design.

If any of you guys would like to "show us how it's done", we're more than willing to play along. With code we get patches from people all the time that would like to tweak something or add something. I'd very much like to see the same thing happening to the design of the site.

Thanks again for the critique.