Homepage Redesign Part 2

Boards.ie: Nicola

Hi folks,

As promised we're kicking off the discussion again here.

Following on from the first thread, we've reviewed all feedback and are going to be implementing the following changes on top of the changes we made earlier in the week:

• The tab layout will be changed; Trending is moving from its current spot to the left of Thanks so it will be Latest | My Forums | My Threads | Trending | Thanks
  
• We're adding an option to the User CP to allow you to set a default tab of your preference; at the moment it will load 'Latest ' by default
  
• Forum name is moving from under the thread title to just in front of the thread title and we will also be reducing the padding on the top and bottom of each row slightly
  
• To help differentiate between the rows we are going to add a background colour to every second row.
• Pagination has been added to the top of the thread list to make navigating easier.

All of these changes will be deployed tomorrow morning. As usual, all constructive feedback is appreciated and we'd be obliged if you could report bugs in Site Dev.

Please remember that whilst we greatly appreciate and review all feedback, simply saying "I hate it" or "Change it back" are not constructive posts. Any abusive posts will be removed.

We clarified a lot of points in the previous thread (for example: we won't be moving back to the old homepage, we have not gained any addition ad revenue from this change etc. ) so please don't repeat these issues here.

Thanks again for your input everyone.

Ken.

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

Hi folks,

As promised we're kicking off the discussion again here.

Following on from the first thread, we've reviewed all feedback and are going to be implementing the following changes on top of the changes we made earlier in the week:

• The tab layout will be changed; Trending is moving from its current spot to the left of Thanks so it will be Latest | My Forums | My Threads | Trending | Thanks
• We're adding an option to the User CP to allow you to set a default tab of your preference; at the moment it will load 'Latest ' by default
• Forum name is moving from under the thread title to just in front of the thread title and we will also be reducing the padding on the top and bottom of each row slightly
• To help differentiate between the rows we are going to add a background colour to every second row.
• Pagination has been added to the top of the thread list to make navigating easier.

All of these changes will be deployed tomorrow morning. As usual, all constructive feedback is appreciated and we'd be obliged if you could report bugs in Site Dev.

Please remember that whilst we greatly appreciate and review all feedback, simply saying "I hate it" or "Change it back" are not constructive posts. Any abusive posts will be removed.

We clarified a lot of points in the previous thread (for example: we won't be moving back to the old homepage, we have not gained any addition ad revenue from this change etc. ) so please don't repeat these issues here.

Thanks again for your input everyone.

Thank you for listening to us bunch of ingrates.:D

Sarky

Would you consider condensing the rows a bit? I think they could stand to lose 5-10 pixels of empty space top and bottom. Fit more rows per page, makes skimming through for information easier. The space between items right now is something I find gets in the way of finding info.

Glad you'll be adding a background colour to make them stand out. Just make sure it looks ok in the black skin and we won't have a problem.

Rabies

What will the thread count be on the home page?
Will there still be a "thanks" count at the end of the thread name and forum location?

Cheers for listening to the feedback.

Dades

Sarky wrote: »

Would you consider condensing the rows a bit? I think they could stand to lose 5-10 pixels of empty space top and bottom.

*cough*

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote:

Forum name is moving from under the thread title to just in front of the thread title and we will also be reducing the padding on the top and bottom of each row slightly

Boards.ie: Nicola

Sarky wrote: »

Would you consider condensing the rows a bit? I think they could stand to lose 5-10 pixels of empty space top and bottom. Fit more rows per page, makes skimming through for information easier. The space between items right now is something I find gets in the way of finding info.

We are going to reduce the padding, by how much exactly I'm not sure so I'll see if I can find out.

Edit: Derp, Dades got there before me!

Zaph

Thanks for the update Nicola, and to Danny, Ronan and co. for implementing the changes. I was critical of the new layout on the other thread, but that doesn't mean I don't appreciate all the hard work the dev guys put into the re-design. Some of the abuse they got was completely over the top and completely uncalled for. Of course as a dinosaur who refuses to leave the vBulletin default skin until it finally vanishes I do reserve the right to gripe about v2 as well if there's something I don't like.

wnolan1992

That list of updates is basically every issue I had with the new layout solved. Will reserve full judgement until it's rolled out obviously, but thanks to the team for implementing those suggestions.

AltAccount

What's the max number of threads I'll be able to see in one screen?

spix

AltAccount wrote: »

What's the max number of threads I'll be able to see in one screen?

It'll likely look something like this http://i.imgur.com/bWMqzR3.png

That's probably the most it can be compressed while keeping 2 lines of info per thread. Increases it from 9 to 10.

AltAccount

That'd be disappointing

GLaDOS

Will certainly improve things

spix

AltAccount wrote: »

That'd be disappointing

Since the new layout uses 2 lines for the thread info it'd be impossible to fit the same amount in the same screen space.

Here's a suggestion for the future though... since one of the main complaints with the new layout is the lower amount of threads therefore requiring more scrolling/clicking, maybe merge the menu bars into a single one to make space for more threads?

Here's what I mean http://i.imgur.com/Z5DPsb3.png

Sarky

Dades wrote: »

*cough*

Quiet, you. It's hot and I was trying to buy all the things in the Steam sale at the time.

AltAccount

My user experience :

Click on My Forums tab
Scroll to bottom, not finding anything interesting
Click to page 2
Scroll back up because the page has held at the bottom position
See a few threads I like the look of
Click the first one, read it
Go "Back" on my browser
Find I'm looking at page 1 again
Click to page 2 (again), choose next thread
Repeat frustrating cycle of being put back to page 1 until I run out of threads to read on pages 2/3
Be surprised that I've reached the end of the threads so soon, being offered only 3 short pages of posts
Continue being frustrated
Fire up Feedly

Masked Man

Use the middle button on the mouse or ctrl + right click to open to open the thread in a new tab. Problem solved.

There's also more threads on the three pages then there was on the old layout.

AltAccount

Masked Man wrote: »

Use the middle button on the mouse or ctrl + right click to open to open the thread in a new tab. Problem solved.

There's also more threads on the three pages then there was on the old layout.

Why create a design that inherently requires me to use a workaround?

A main forum page lets me go hundreds of pages deep, and it's often really handy/interesting.
Touch lets me go 100+ pages deep on MyThreads or MyForums.
Why wouldn't the redesign at least give 10 pages deep?
Probably because they're loading all those pages at once, so the very thing that creates the need for a workaround also limits my user experience.

I'm not saying it's insurmountable or a dealbreaker, but it is causing friction and sending me away from the site.

Newaglish

I'd still love to get the number of posts in a thread in brackets beside the thread title rather than across to the right (where I genuinely struggle to match the number and title with each other)

Masked Man

AltAccount wrote: »

Why create a design that inherently requires me to use a workaround?

A main forum page lets me go hundreds of pages deep, and it's often really handy/interesting.
Touch lets me go 100+ pages deep on MyThreads or MyForums.
Why wouldn't the redesign at least give 10 pages deep?
Probably because they're loading all those pages at once, so the very thing that creates the need for a workaround also limits my user experience.

I'm not saying it's insurmountable or a dealbreaker, but it is causing friction and sending me away from the site.

Opening pages in a new tab isn't really a workaround. It's just a far better way of browsing.

How did the old page let you go 100s of threads deep?

Insect Overlord

What time will the changes be kicked into life today?

mike65

So no category filters then?

Boards.ie: Rónán

mike65 wrote: »

So no category filters then?

Not in this iteration unfortunately, we want to do it right. It's top of the list for the next round of updates, aiming for early next week.

Boards.ie: Nicola

Insect Overlord wrote: »

What time will the changes be kicked into life today?

They have literally just gone live in the last few minutes

Insect Overlord

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

They have literally just gone live in the last few minutes

So I see! Great timing on my part, as usual. :pac:

Looks great.

sKeith

Why did you take http://www.boards.ie/? away from us? that is just mean. I was happily using old design while all this redesign nonsense is going on.

Boards.ie: Nicola

sKeith wrote: »

Why did you take http://www.boards.ie/? away from us? that is just mean. I was happily using old design while all this redesign nonsense is going on.

As we stated numerous times in the previous thread, that was going to be removed once we could.

GLaDOS

Would still prefer the forum name in a separate column. The redesign is better, but it runs all in one line and isn't easy to distinguish.

Boards.ie: Nicola

Just in case anyone is wondering, the option to Set a default homepage tab can be found in UserCP / Edit Options / Homepage Options.

Toto Wolfcastle

I like that the forum name comes first but the left hand side of the page looks crowded and messy, especially when you compare it to the massive amount of white space between the thread title and post count.

Dades

I don't really use the homepage at all, I really just open any Boards page and use the "My Forums" dropdown.

That said having had a mooch through it I find it difficult to see where the Forum name ends and the thread title begins. The text for both is the same colour, wight, size etc. Possibly more padding could alleviate this.



Also, I still there's a lot of white space (okay, dark space). So much so that I wonder if you couldn't just keep all the info on one line and truncate long thread titles. Would be interesting to see how that might look - perhaps it was tested and proved to be too much of a wall of text.

I do like the overall look, though. Very clean and sharp.

sKeith

Can you unbold the Forum name
After Hours | Trivial things that annoy you

SVG

Thanks for taking on board some of the suggestions.

It looks good- I still find the old one a bit easier to read with the columns but I'll get used to this.

Dades

Just noticed something... since when did images in-thread start resizing when you shrink the browser? Cool. This just a Chrome thing?

Boards.ie: Nicola

Dades wrote: »

I don't really use the homepage at all, I really just open any Boards page and use the "My Forums" dropdown.

That said having had a mooch through it I find it difficult to see where the Forum name ends and the thread title begins. The text for both is the same colour, wight, size etc. Possibly more padding could alleviate this.

Also, I still there's a lot of white space (okay, dark space). So much so that I wonder if you couldn't just keep all the info on one line and truncate long thread titles. Would be interesting to see how that might look - perhaps it was tested and proved to be too much of a wall of text.

I do like the overall look, though. Very clean and sharp.

I get what you are saying, I think keeping all the info on one line was floated but not workable as it did end up being a wall of text.

Dades wrote: »

Just noticed something... since when did images in-thread start resizing when you shrink the browser? Cool. This just a Chrome thing?

I've no idea, that is quite cool though!

WIZE

Much better but I think the Forum name needs to be in a Column rather then attached to the Thread title

o1s1n

sKeith wrote: »

Can you unbold the Forum name
After Hours | Trivial things that annoy you

Would rather if everything was unbolded tbh. It's all a bit heavy on the eyes.

sKeith

o1s1n wrote: »

Would rather if everything was unbolded tbh. It's all a bit heavy on the eyes.

I was under the impression they were going to add unread bold / read unbold feature in the future. There is no reason to include forum in this, and as you said, its heavy on the eyes.

WIZE

Actually instead of the | after the Forum could you add and arrow -->

runawaybishop

The new home page is painful to navigate. Its a pity you couldnt keep boards.ie/? as it was before.

There is not enough content to browse, and what there is is spread over the page too much. How do you even get to the last post you have read, it just takes me to the first page

ahnowbrowncow

The tab stuff never bothered me it's just that there are only 25 threads were in the older version there were 50 threads in the same space. And now http://www.boards.ie/? is bringing us to the new home page so I'm not too happy.

Not sure if anything can or will be done about it but I just thought I'd give my view.

hi, thanks for the improvements so far

Could you please reduce the font size by one (I think it's one? one zoom on my mouse wheel anyway, lol) on the homepage, it's too big and out of sync with everything else and makes it more difficult to read

I would also like to echo the number of posts thing being added in a bracket again right beside the title, it's much easier than having to go hunting on the right

And lastly the forum name in a column suggestion too
edit: Ignore the forum thing now, did you guys just change that? It's good it's at the start!

There used to be a thing where once you logged out, you would be taken straight back to the forum/page you were viewing before you did. This was really useful for posting privately in forums that allow for anonymous posting. Now it directs you straight back to the front page. This is a tiny bit annoying - is there anyway to move back to the way it was?

P_1

Looks better but www.boards.ie/? doesn't work anymore. Shame but I suppose ye can't have people not using the new page I guess

Myrddin

Dades wrote: »

That said having had a mooch through it I find it difficult to see where the Forum name ends and the thread title begins. The text for both is the same colour, wight, size etc. Possibly more padding could alleviate this.

Agreed, same here. It would be better if there was a clearer distinction between the two

Boards.ie: Rónán

Deleted User wrote: »

There used to be a thing where once you logged out, you would be taken straight back to the forum/page you were viewing before you did. This was really useful for posting privately in forums that allow for anonymous posting. Now it directs you straight back to the front page. This is a tiny bit annoying - is there anyway to move back to the way it was?

We pass a redirect param when logging in from a particular forum / thread view, after a quick think there shouldn't be any reason we can't do the inverse.

Let us take a look into it, I can't put any sort of timeline on implementation at the moment but we'll definitely stick it on the list.

P_1

Dades wrote: »

I don't really use the homepage at all, I really just open any Boards page and use the "My Forums" dropdown.

That said having had a mooch through it I find it difficult to see where the Forum name ends and the thread title begins. The text for both is the same colour, wight, size etc. Possibly more padding could alleviate this.



Also, I still there's a lot of white space (okay, dark space). So much so that I wonder if you couldn't just keep all the info on one line and truncate long thread titles. Would be interesting to see how that might look - perhaps it was tested and proved to be too much of a wall of text.

I do like the overall look, though. Very clean and sharp.

Perhaps having the forum name in its own section to the left, similar to how the posts and thanks metrics have their own sections would help make it easier to distinguish between the forum and thread name and also fill up a bit of the white space?

Nate--IRL--

ahnowbrowncow wrote: »

The tab stuff never bothered me it's just that there are only 25 threads were in the older version there were 50 threads in the same space. And now http://www.boards.ie/? is bringing us to the new home page so I'm not too happy.

Not sure if anything can or will be done about it but I just thought I'd give my view.

Now that we are forced to use the "Improved" page, I'd also like to see the option for a condensed View that doesn't use so much whitespace, so we can see 50 lines where there are now only 25.

Nate

wnolan1992

It's much better now.

Still a few problems:

1 - Forum name needs it's own column. The OCD in me hates having the start of the thread titles out of line. Plus it just looks untidy. Having forum name in it's own column to the left would tidy things up, and take care of a lot of that nasty whitespace.

2 - Can the background colour be made slightly darker please? I'm still finding it hard to distinguish.

3 - Can a button be added next to the name of the last poster to go to the very last post in the thread? Similar to the one in the CP?

Boards.ie: Nicola

o1s1n wrote: »

Would rather if everything was unbolded tbh. It's all a bit heavy on the eyes.

sKeith wrote: »

I was under the impression they were going to add unread bold / read unbold feature in the future. There is no reason to include forum in this, and as you said, its heavy on the eyes.

Regarding the forum name it is bold, as it was too hard to scan threads when it wasn't bold. We hope to roll out bold/unbolded unread/read eventually. Our designers tried a lot of iterations of forum and thread font styling and size - this one worked best.

bluewolf wrote: »

hi, thanks for the improvements so far

Could you please reduce the font size by one (I think it's one? one zoom on my mouse wheel anyway, lol) on the homepage, it's too big and out of sync with everything else and makes it more difficult to read

I would also like to echo the number of posts thing being added in a bracket again right beside the title, it's much easier than having to go hunting on the right

And lastly the forum name in a column suggestion too
edit: Ignore the forum thing now, did you guys just change that? It's good it's at the start!

Cheers for the feedback bluewolf, I'll add it to our list now

Myrddin

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

Regarding the forum name it is bold, as it was too hard to scan threads when it wasn't bold. We hope to roll out bold/unbolded unread/read eventually. Our designers tried a lot of iterations of forum and thread font styling and size - this one worked best.

Forgive me if this has already been answered, but is there any merit in giving the forum name its own column? It'd read much neater. I like neat

Boards.ie: Nicola

EnterNow wrote: »

Forgive me if this has already been answered, but is there any merit in giving the forum name its own column? It'd read much neater. I like neat

We all like neat It has been requested, again we're going to review all feedback next week-this has been mentioned a few times at this stage.