Home Page Redesign

nesf

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

The front page at the minute doesn't paginate. The new one offers pagination and 5 pages of 12 posts for 60 posts total. It also has an additional benefit of standardising the number of posts with touch (which only shows 12 per page).

Five pages of 50 or 60 is more useful than five pages of 12. 12 would only make sense on a much more tightly focused site where the average thread was on interest to the average user which is certainly not the case on here.

the_syco

No time/date of the last post, very little info, blergh. Looks like a stripped down version for a phone.

I look at the front page to see if there's anything on the latest posts view (only view I use), before I goto my "usual" forums.

LizT

There's too much empty space and I have to agree with the comments about only 12 threads, just don't understand the reasoning behind that at all.

Xavi6

Looks awful. Too much space and not enough info (last poster etc).

What's the reason behind the change? Don't see the need personally from an aesthetic point of view.

Xavi6

Yeah, just noticed that there is very little information. Any idea when the rollout will commence?

Xavi6 wrote: »

Looks awful. Too much space and not enough info (last poster etc).

What's the reason behind the change? Don't see the need personally from an aesthetic point of view.

It seems like they're trying to really push the Talk To... forums - that is pretty much the only purpose I can see.

quarryman

pickarooney wrote: »

Looks awful. About 60% screen wastage and massive ads all over the place. Hope this won't be forced on everyone.

Agreed.

Why is the homepage changing at all? It works fine.

Is this similar to the last change where advertisements were placed between posts in each thread (which was then reverted)?

Canis Lupus

I like the homepage as it is.

Mollywolly

As an old grouch, I like things the way they are. I'm not intolerant to change but the current home page allows me to "stumble" into forums and threads where I wouldn't normally venture, as mentioned by Zaph earlier.

The new home page is pretty much like the Boards App, and I tend to get frustrated with that.

Apologies if it's not what you want to hear, just my opinion that's all.

wnolan1992

I like that Announcements are now separated from latest posts.

I like the new tabs across the top.

I don't like the fact it only shows 12 threads before I have to click to the next page. That's fine with a small screen like a tablet or mobile, but with a full screen it just seems more awkward and more work for the user to skim the homepage to find something interesting. I can't be the only one who'll go to the homepage and randomly pop into a thread that could be down near the bottom. If I've to keep clicking through the different pages and constantly move my eyes up and down the screen instead of just focusing on the one spot and scrolling, I know I won't be browsing as much. I'll just stick to the forums I know and the ones that are at the top. Terrible idea IMO.

I agree with an earlier post saying that if ye're going to insist on this pagination thing, please give us a drop down to select a larger number than 12.


But really this whole redesign seems like progress for progress' sake. Has anyone ever complained that the current homepage is not user friendly? Why not just move the announcements out (that's the best thing about this redesign) and leave the rest as is?

Boards.ie: Nicola

Hi guys,

Firstly, thanks for all the feedback - it's an important part of our design and development process.

The first screenshots of the new homepage were posted back in April and the development team have been working on it for a good few weeks now. We're not changing things for the sake of changing them, there is method there

Why we're making the change:
- vBulletin is not built for Boards-sized sites so we'll eventually need to move onto our API in order to ensure that the site is stable and fast
- developing new features in vBulletin is difficult and moving off vBulletin means that future development will be faster and more flexible
- On the logged out version of the homepage we're exposing and (hopefully) encouraging people to login and register - the obvious aim here is to grow the community and make Boards a more vibrant place to be
- Likewise, we're aiming to expose more relevant content to logged out users who visit the homepage, so instead of seeing the latest post they'll see 'popular' content that people are actively discussing

Our design team have tried to balance white space with content whilst giving Boards a more modern look. This necessitated the removal of some information that we considered less critical, but we think we're got most of the main information relating to the threads which we're displaying.

We explored exposing more content on the homepage, but quickly ran into the problem of the homepage looking a bit like an Excel file (again!). When you load the homepage you'll actually be loading 60 threads (rather than 50 previously), but they're presented slightly differently; there's now the facility to scroll between five pages of twelve threads.

On a slightly separate note, Talk To forums are now #1 in the menu - the reason for this is quite simply that Talk To forums help pay for the site and we need to promote the fact that they're there

Please keep posting your feedback here, as always we appreciate any input we receive.

Toto Wolfcastle

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

We explored exposing more content on the homepage, but quickly ran into the problem of the homepage looking a bit like an Excel file (again!). When you load the homepage you'll actually be loading 60 threads (rather than 50 previously), but they're presented slightly differently; there's now the facility to scroll between five pages of twelve threads.

That's fair enough but could you not give people the option? The five pages of twelve could be the default if you feel that that looks better and those of us who just want to be able to use the site like we've used it in the past could choose the option to see all 60 threads on one page.

LizT

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

We explored exposing more content on the homepage, but quickly ran into the problem of the homepage looking a bit like an Excel file (again!). When you load the homepage you'll actually be loading 60 threads (rather than 50 previously), but they're presented slightly differently; there's now the facility to scroll between five pages of twelve threads.

Surely that's just making browsing more difficult for the user though? Instead of loading 50 threads, you can only load 12 at a time and have to click through to get the next 12 and then the next 12 etc, even if they're already loaded, it just seems like change for change's sake to me.

Sofiztikated

When I'm on the mobile site, and it's a busy time for posting, when I flick to the second page of posts, it usually contains the majority of the posts from the first page.

I like the main site as it is.

Rabies

No time? Its handy for those of us not on Irish time to see the time of day back home when posting.

Short front page thread count.

With every new front page design, the Boards mascots get less and less real-estate. So they have finally been killed off now Sad day.

Boards.ie: Danny

OSI wrote: »

The mobile site reloads the list every time you change page. The new one seems to load all the threads into the list when you first load the homepage, so changing page in the list of threads shouldn't have the same affect. Could be wrong though.

You're right

the_syco

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

On the logged out version of the homepage we're exposing and (hopefully) encouraging people to login and register - the obvious aim here is to grow the community and make Boards a more vibrant place to be

Your plan to do so is by giving them less content? I'm confused.

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

Likewise, we're aiming to expose more relevant content to logged out users who visit the homepage, so instead of seeing the latest post they'll see 'popular' content that people are actively discussing

I suppose this makes sense; always logged in, so won't be seeing that side of things.

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

This necessitated the removal of some information that we considered less critical, but we think we're got most of the main information relating to the threads which we're displaying.

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

We explored exposing more content on the homepage, but quickly ran into the problem of the homepage looking a bit like an Excel file (again!).

Not quite sure how this is a bad thing. I view homepage to see what's happening in other forums that I wouldn't usually visit.

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

there's now the facility to scroll between five pages of twelve threads.

Not quite understanding the part about "scroll between five pages of twelve threads"... unless you mean clicking between five tabs of twelve threads? Which would suck.

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

On a slightly separate note, Talk To forums are now #1 in the menu - the reason for this is quite simply that Talk To forums help pay for the site and we need to promote the fact that they're there

Hrm. Maybe an option to jiggle that section to the bottom if you're a subscriber?

=-=

Hoping you'll continue with the support of the Cloud theme, as it's very easy to my eyes

hardCopy

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

The front page at the minute doesn't paginate. The new one offers pagination and 5 pages of 12 posts for 60 posts total. It also has an additional benefit of standardising the number of posts with touch (which only shows 12 per page).

Why would the user want to standardise with Touch? The Touch design has to be compromised to account for the reduced screen size on phones. If someone is on a desktop, use the massive screen to it's full extent.

Boards.ie: Nicola

Bobblehead Panda wrote: »

That's fair enough but could you not give people the option? The five pages of twelve could be the default if you feel that that looks better and those of us who just want to be able to use the site like we've used it in the past could choose the option to see all 60 threads on one page.

LizT wrote: »

Surely that's just making browsing more difficult for the user though? Instead of loading 50 threads, you can only load 12 at a time and have to click through to get the next 12 and then the next 12 etc, even if they're already loaded, it just seems like change for change's sake to me.

The one thing we are really mindful of is current standards in design, we don't want to design something which has multiple configurations-this leads to messy development which in the long term won't make the site any better.

I'm not outright saying no or that we won't review this but I'd really like to convey to people that we're doing our utmost to build something which is really great for everyone. We are a community at heart and the last thing we want is to make changes which ostracize our core community.

challengemaster

It looks dreadful and Zaph hit the nail on the head IMO.

LizT wrote: »

Surely that's just making browsing more difficult for the user though? Instead of loading 50 threads, you can only load 12 at a time and have to click through to get the next 12 and then the next 12 etc, even if they're already loaded, it just seems like change for change's sake to me.

Bingo

Surely the most important 'rule' when designing any website is accessible content. The more page clicks it takes for the user to get access to the content they want, the more you're annoying them and discouraging them from using the site in general. And I don't think "trends" is the answer to that either.

I can understand the need for moving away from vB, particularly as boards keeps growing, however there's a lot of unnecessary design changes going on. Boards got to where it is by "looking like an excel file", and it's how 99% of forums in existence look - I'd imagine mainly because it works and works well. The latest skin design did vastly improve the look and gave the site a much needed revamp, but I don't think it needs to be "improved" on from there.

Between this and the removal of skins, it seems like the opinion of the community isn't being considered at all with regards to these changes, which is a shame considering boards was originally set up for the community aspect. I certainly wouldn't call it progress, though.

stop animal cruelty

dont like the new layout felt the old one was more straight forward

kaimera

Is there an option to display more than 12 threads on the front page?

Don't like the next page option

The_Morrigan

Is it just me or has the 'My Forums' option gone? Anytime I've clicked on it I get the latest posts from all forums in the new layout...

Mech1

No its terrible compared to the original!!!!!

Wheres the timestamp on posts?

Not enough, or even half enough posts on the page.

Call it back please.

How do I get to my subbed threads now?

Can't say I'm digging it just yet.

Wile E. Coyote

Please put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back, put it back!

I don't like it....:(

Boards.ie: Danny

Deleted User wrote: »

How do I get to my subbed threads now?

Can't say I'm digging it just yet.

The My Threads tab

TheDoc

Well for starters it seems to only work on the default skin. I'm on Dark and I still have the old homepage. I've moved to Default to give it a run for a while.

If I'm honest though, I don't look at anything on the homepage, I go straight to the usertab to check updates on threads I post in. I might be in the minority, not sure, but there is about maybe 2-4 forums I frequent and only a few threads I contribute to regularly. So the new homepage in one sense is kinda better, in that it reduces the clutter, but as I said, since I rarely take notice I'm not really interested.

Does seem to be alot of wasted space, but if the alternative is to have that space filled with ads, I'll happily take the white space instead of anything flashing, moving , or something for me to accidently click on. Are we looking into potentially allowing users to edit the tabs and what will be contained within the homepage slot as such?

I've zero interest in seeing high thanked posts, and definitely don't care about trending topics ( to **** do I want to read more ****e about Rugby). Be cool to have that sort of minimalistic approach.

While I appreciate the company requires revenue to operate and be sustainable, the increasing introduction of advertisements has been nothing short of a nuisance, and a bit annoying considering its a forum. Using the site via a mobile or tablet is actually painful with the intrusive advertisement.

Appreciate it is a big deal to move away from vbulletin, best of luck with the project

Toto Wolfcastle

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

The My Threads tab

Well I have the same problem I had the other day in that I have no tabs so perhaps it's the same with other people.

Princess Peach

If I click on a thread it's automatically brings me to the first page. With the time stamp gone I can't even go to the last post. Used to bring me to the first new post.

Zaph

Just had my first experience of the new home page and it wasn't a pleasant one. Apart from a technical issue that I've posted in Site Development, there are a couple of things that really aren't great:

- clicking into a thread I've already posted in brings me to the top of the thread, not where I left off.

- it's difficult to see what forums each post is in as it's buried in the text below the thread title

- the actual thread title gets a bit lost with the "Latest post less than 1 min ago by..." line below it. Despite the fact that there's now acres of empty space on the screen, each item on the list appears to be a bit "busy"

- one thing I'm more curious about than anything, what's the point of displaying the number of thanks each thread has?