I love that you're taking the time to do this and that it's actually moving forward. It's something this site really needs and will hopefully draw great benefits from. I've been following progress for awhile and haven't really said too much because I was still waiting to see how certain things resolved themselves, but since some topics have now come up I feel I want to chime in on, here I go.
I will second Code's concerns regarding the bottom navigation, plus... Is that the only content that will be available at the bottom? It's hard to gauge the effectiveness of this homepage design when there is nothing in that big white space in the middle, the unknowns on this design are what concern me. If that's all there's going to be, I'd really challenge it. I want to be able to hop around to different areas of the site from anywhere on the site (one problem with the site now) whether I'm logged in or not. I also want to see the most important benefits/areas this site has to offer and get to them quickly and easily right from the homepage and any other page. It drives me nuts when sites don't have adequate navigation built in at the top or left that I have to scroll down and use their sitemap just to get around. It's just a very basic usability requirement, IMO - yes, have a sitemap as well, but most websites are built with topside and/or leftside navigation and that's why most people expect and are comfortable navigating websites that way. I don't see how forcing a different type of navigation onto a-m-v.org is in the site's best interest.
Also...I have to say that I look at this design and see something that is highly generic and is presenting a very cold, clinical approach to the AMV hobby. This last is a reputation a-m-v.org has which we all know has turned a lot of people away from this site. It's fine to look like we have a website that knows what it's doing, but where is the fun? Where is the casual love of AMVing? Where's the personality? The current site may be troublesome, but it's got fun colors, fun images and (in certain areas) fun copywriting that all help establish the feel of this site is. Do we really have to abandon all of that personality in pursuit of a more modern, updated website that's all whites and grays? To me this looks like you are re-branding a-m-v.org on top of designing a new website, and since we've been asked to share our opinions, I do not like the way this new a-m-v.org looks or feels for the reasons stated. Maybe more personality will be added into the center, but right now I can't really see what's going to be there...and that still leaves a frame around every page that doesn't exude great personality or brand.
Along these lines, where is space being allocated to effectively branding this website AS a-m-v.org? That whole featured video space at the top...I can't even make out what those images are supposed to be or represent (Princess Tutu, I know), but how is that compelling to click on? There's no hook there than "Featured Video" and a sliced up gallery of partial images. How is a whole, website-wide string of images the most effective way to get people to check out that video? I can't see why it needs to take up that much space or be presented like that. That whole areas is where I would expect to see something that clearly establishes "HEY, You're at a-m-v.org!!"
I Fight For The Users wrote:
1. Log in.
2. Sign up. (No sign up page yet, I know.)
3. Search the database.
Item #3 is the big one, which is why that search box eats up so much of the top. You should be able to get to any video, any event, any profile, any user-generated content from a single point. (Should I find a way to make phpBB behave, yeah, that may include forum threads.) The best way to do that, I think, is incremental search: as you type, you get suggestions. Properly executed, it's a very fast and satisfying feedback loop.
So...one highly likely pitfall here is the quality of the search results. Sure, someone can look for whatever they want, but what are they going to find? If someone searches for a "Princess Tutu AMV" are they going to get a list of totally random results, or is the search going to be controlled to display videos which meet certain parameters higher up on the list? Maybe those with the most opinions, highest star scores, most views? Allowing users to filter search results via a sidebar navigation scheme seems like it would be most the effective way to get people to the videos they want. Is this what you already had in mind?