"Answers" Page Design for MyGraphite.com

MyGraphite.com

MyGraphite.com is a lifestyle management application that helps people lose weight and improve fitness by tracking meals, exercise and body weight. Our application launched in March 2010. This page will be accessible for view only to non-registered users. MyGraphite.com registered member will be allowed to submit and answer questions.

Our target audience is broad and includes adult men and women of all ages and various levels of fitness. It is important that this page design is consistent with our existing site and brand guidelines.

This should be a straight-forward project. Our live production site is mygraphite.com. We licensed a php "Answers" script and it can be found on our development server at http://dev.mygraphite.com/answers. The script we like is at http://www.askpips.com. We would like our page design to be similar to this site, but consistent with our current live site and brand guidelines.

Our current application design is 'heavy' and dark. We would like our Answers page to have a somewhat 'lighter' look and feel.

The curved edges of the askpips design would be consistent with the curved edges within our application pages.

The space for the banner ad in the askpips.com design can be eliminated. The positioning of the search and ask buttons and categories and "Top Answerers" is about right. (Note: instead of "Answerers", use "Contributors")

We think a similar profile picture/avatar will provide some needed levity to our current application design.

Key elements to include:

Search/Ask Buttons with single entry field
Category list on left side
Top Contributors on right side
"Recently asked questions" in the center
Leader Board on lower right
"log in", "sign up", "help" buttons/links at top right