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So here comes a good news that Chemistry SE is graduating soon. (Update: we have graduated now! Yay!)

Chemistry Stack Exchange has a steady flow of high quality questions and answers, and a growing number of users contributing to site health and maintenance. You're on a consistent upward trend, and the Community Team (of which I am a member) has taken notice.

Chemistry SE will be graduating soon. Congratulations!

from:Congrats, Chemistry SE is graduating!

Also in her post @Ana mentioned,

The SE Design Team will begin drafting site designs for you. I should warn you though, the team is a bit backlogged, and it may be a couple of months before you see our designers drop by to share mockups. Don't fret; graduation is on its way.

So I was wondering won't it be a good thing to get some design idea from the users themselves. I mean if designers are in any kind of dilemma regarding the designing issue then our mature chemist users will more be able to provide me chemistry-ish design.

Physics Overflow do follow this idea, in fact they are having a tag named 'design' on their meta site (I know Chemistry SE is also having one but is there any 'design' tagged discussion out there in Chemistry Meta). Some of it's meta discussion includes,

Designs for a more "physics-ish" 404 page?

Ideas for vote button design?

Simplifying the editor

It's a good thing. Isn't it?

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    $\begingroup$ I think badges design should also change. I was thinking they should be small test tube shape or something like that related to chemistry. In short badges should not be as they are at present. $\endgroup$
    – Freddy
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 6:25
  • $\begingroup$ We can certainly make suggestions, and they are normally very well-received, but the final call is up to the designers. $\endgroup$
    – jonsca
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 14:07
  • $\begingroup$ These are wonderful ideas all around, keep up the great work guys!! I have featured this post in the community bulletin to get more responses. $\endgroup$
    – jonsca
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 2:15

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I'd definitely like to see an improved editor (i.e., with the $\ce{}$ buttons and help) added. Anything that makes it easier to write out formulas will be highly appreciated by new users.

I wouldn't mind some notion of "alchemy" since that's where chemistry started. While I do quite a lot of computational simulations, I still like images of test tubes and retorts.

Maybe the background image could include semi-transparent line structures of common molecules like caffeine, aspirin, etc.

I think chemistry is a very visual subject and hope the site design can incorporate some interesting graphics.

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    $\begingroup$ For your viewing pleasure: area51.stackexchange.com/proposals/67605/alchemy $\endgroup$
    – LordStryker
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 20:54
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    $\begingroup$ We had an alchemy tag once and i remember there was some dispute. We have however a history tag. But i agree, that our history should be reflected in the design. Chemistry is a fairly old topic, it would be foolish to ignore that. $\endgroup$
    – Martin - マーチン Mod
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 0:54
  • $\begingroup$ I like the idea of having some molecules in the background, but the designers should upload to meta images of all molecules they intend to use so the community can ensure they're all actual molecules. Too many websites and graphic designs have completely implausible molecules in them! $\endgroup$
    – nhinkle
    Commented Oct 2, 2014 at 20:32
  • $\begingroup$ @nhinkle I think a better idea would be for us to suggest some common molecules for designers to use. :-) $\endgroup$
    – Geoff Hutchison
    Commented Oct 20, 2014 at 19:25
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Badge Design Ideas

Being fully aware that these brainchilds of mine might be outright ignored, here are two ideas for the badges:

  1. This is a more traditional, "chemistry is all about the lab" kind of take on it: Erlenmeyer flasks! Just colour them gold, silver and bronze.

    This is, however, also more of a cliché; we now have the opportunity to strive to better the perception of the public about chemistry. It's not all about poisoning yourself in a lab...

  2. Here is the more serious suggestion: Elemental plates. I was thinking of slightly bevelled, round-edged squares that are of the badge colour. And on these plates is engraved the element that it corresponds to.

    Au and Ag are no-brainers, and I was thinking about the bronze badge. Maybe Cu is all right, but that entails a renaming of "bronze" to "copper". If someone has an idea for this, I'm all ears.

    A possible drawback here is that the badges are far too small to be able to legibly "inscribe" the element symbol on such a plate.

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    $\begingroup$ As a computational chemist I would have to disagree with your first point. :P $\endgroup$
    – LordStryker
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 12:58
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    $\begingroup$ @LordStryker FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! FIGHT! $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 13:02
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    $\begingroup$ I love the elemental badges idea, though I agree that they would be teeny. What about simple text of that color? Brown Cu for "copper" badges, etc. Still has the problem that copper != bronze though :/ $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 13:03
  • $\begingroup$ @ManishEarth Apparently when it comes to design I'm just a non-contributing critic. $\endgroup$
    – LordStryker
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 13:03
  • $\begingroup$ @LordStryker When it comes to design, I'm probably worse :P $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 13:04
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    $\begingroup$ Bronze is primarily copper. $\endgroup$
    – Ian
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 20:59
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Physics Overflow isn't an SE site, they have their own processes.

Yes, we are allowed to suggest designs, some other sites have done this in the past.

I recommend use of the jelly benzene as our logo!

I had a theme I was working on here, but I'm not so sure it still works. I planned to use charged cyclopropanes for the vote buttons, and green benzenes to mark accepted answers on the front page.

Here's an old sceenshot of the theme I'd come up with:

enter image description here

The background is random, I just thought that the benzene looked nicer with a dark background.

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    $\begingroup$ I personally hate the jelly benzene and I have for many years but its not a dealbreaker for me or anything. $\endgroup$
    – LordStryker
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 11:29
  • $\begingroup$ I really like the charged cyclopropane idea for the voting buttons! $\endgroup$
    – tschoppi
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 12:09
  • $\begingroup$ @LordStryker Heh, sure — I don't mind nothaving it either, I've just always liked it. $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 13:01
  • $\begingroup$ Maybe we can render a benzene with "cloud" orbitals? I know some friends who wrote these kinds of things: davidlonie.blogspot.com/2011/07/… $\endgroup$
    – Geoff Hutchison
    Commented Sep 24, 2014 at 15:32
  • $\begingroup$ I thought after graduating beta would be removed. $\endgroup$
    – Freddy
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 6:29
  • $\begingroup$ @hey this is a skin, which I made to apply on the beta theme. At that time we hadn't graduated, so the beta would still be there . $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 12:11
  • $\begingroup$ @ManishEarth I know Physics Overflow isn't an SE site. Also I know that they have their own processes and also they are a bit efficient (at least in this case). Se the main thing that I wan't to convey is their process itself. Further your proposed design is really good. Especially your jelly benzene logo, however the background is giving a bad contrast. We will need to work on the tab design and the sidebar design also. $\endgroup$
    – Saharsh
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 15:11
  • $\begingroup$ @Alpha The background was random -- Jelly benzene looked really bad on white so I tried black. This is an old, incomplete design, I know we need to work on everything else -- I assume the SE design team will do that :P $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 16:44
  • $\begingroup$ @ManishEarth That's alright but are site designers implementing these suggested ideas? $\endgroup$
    – Saharsh
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 8:16
  • $\begingroup$ @Alpha I don't know. I'm not an employee, and I suspect they'll post the design when they get to it — there's still time for that since there's a large queue. $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 8:58
  • $\begingroup$ @ManishEarth Can't you being a moderator promote these ideas? $\endgroup$
    – Saharsh
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 16:41
  • $\begingroup$ @Alpha Yes, I can, but this meta thread is enough for now -- they look for thee before starting, and ask for plenty of suggestions once they have a tangible design too. Like I said, there's still time for design to start, so I wouldn't worry about it now. $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 16:44
  • $\begingroup$ I really like that! $\endgroup$
    – L.B.
    Commented Oct 14, 2014 at 23:32
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Okay, I gave this some thought and here are some initial images i could think of.

In terms of an image at the top and center This old image that illustrates combustion is really rad. Something done in this style might be cool.

Another possibility is the Bucky-ball, which is thought provoking but might also be confused as a football.

In terms of an "Answered" logo, i thought a Bunsen burner might be fitting (obviously the combination of this and the combustion one might be too much.) Done something like this:

For badges, maybe something like the Bohr-model?

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    $\begingroup$ Bunsen burner idea is too good. $\endgroup$
    – Freddy
    Commented Sep 27, 2014 at 5:51
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We should also have some nice up vote and down vote buttons. It should be related to chemistry.

I am most impressed by Academia's vote button.

I was thinking of simple arrow which we use to show gas and precipitates. But don't know whether it will look nice or not.

enter image description here

For badges something like this can be done.

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    $\begingroup$ Arrows towards energy levels might work as well. $\endgroup$
    – Mad Scientist
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 10:34
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    $\begingroup$ @MadScientist spin-up/spin-down electrons? *shudders :) $\endgroup$
    – LordStryker
    Commented Sep 25, 2014 at 11:23
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What about the orbital spin direction arrows for the vote buttons? I imagine they would be recognized by most people.

For example,

up and down harpoons with a line through the middle

Then we could have votes be in halfs, because spin values are $\frac{1}{2}$ and $\frac{-1}{2}$. (Just kidding on that last part).

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    $\begingroup$ While the concept is good and conceptually reasonable, I think it would look ugly given the asymmetric nature of the arrows. $\endgroup$
    – LordStryker
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 22:05
  • $\begingroup$ True. The best way would be to combine them and have the score underneath, but I don't know how much that pushes the limits of SE. $\endgroup$
    – Ian
    Commented Sep 30, 2014 at 1:51
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    $\begingroup$ @LordStryker I really liked this idea. Few changes in design (like color or strokes) can make it look much better. $\endgroup$
    – Saharsh
    Commented Oct 1, 2014 at 16:00
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Considering @tschoppi idea of Erlenmeyer flasks I had designed these badges.

Here are the chemical flask badges that I'd made. Gold, Silver and Bronze.

Or these ribbon like designs,

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  • $\begingroup$ I like the ribbons! $\endgroup$
    – John Snow
    Commented Sep 29, 2014 at 3:22
  • $\begingroup$ Ribbons are awesome, but maybe need a different color scheme. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Dec 26, 2014 at 19:21
  • $\begingroup$ @MARamezani I had colored them Gold, Silver and Bronze, as per the SE sites tradition. $\endgroup$
    – Saharsh
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 8:23
  • $\begingroup$ Wouldn't it be better if the gold was more golden and the silver was more pure? I don't mean the color itself, but you could make changes to the rgb code. $\endgroup$
    – M.A.R.
    Commented Dec 27, 2014 at 9:06
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Since the site is graduating I feel like there should be some improvements for our website user interface.

I believe that for each and every different website there should be a different text editor that meets the user's needs.

So for chemistry I feel like there should be a button that does the following:

  1. Person clicks the item he wants to format.
  2. The button automatically does this: $\ce{"Person's text"}$.

There are two types, one that does the inline formatting: $\ce{"text"}$ & one that does break-line: $$\ce{"text"}$$.

I know that this might be a lazy way of doing things but I believe that it will promote more users to format their posts more efficiently thereby improving the look of Chemistry StackExchange as a whole.

So should we do this?

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    $\begingroup$ Yes, I think it's important to have some level of customized formatting buttons. Hopefully that will come up when we get further along in the design. $\endgroup$
    – Geoff Hutchison
    Commented Apr 2, 2015 at 18:18
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I found some alchemist symbols for gold silver and bronze (brass).

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    $\begingroup$ Your alchemist symbol idea is really good but Chemistry SE is more firm about the logical (or practical chemistry). Area51 is having another proposal for Alchemy site. One will need to be practical with the design. $\endgroup$
    – Saharsh
    Commented Sep 28, 2014 at 16:39
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My thoughts:

Perhaps something along the lines of a Bunsen burner for the logo, or maybe just some flasks filled with chemicals.

And for badges, I always did like the picture of the planetary model of the atom.

Also, as a user I would like a preview function like in mathematics stackexchange when answering a question for the sake of ergonomics.

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  • $\begingroup$ We have a preview already. $\endgroup$
    – ManishEarth
    Commented Oct 4, 2014 at 21:16
  • $\begingroup$ @ManishEarth OK. $\endgroup$
    – Sherlock Holmes
    Commented Oct 11, 2014 at 6:01

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