Proposed changes to site look

28064212

Dav wrote: »

I edited in a comment about about the +'s - they were just something Jason was testing as I took the screen shot and they're gone again.

So will there be a way of accessing 2nd (3rd?) level forums like Home Brewing from the menu?

Dav wrote: »

It's based on a hover - I don't think it's any more or less difficult to use than any other menu, but it's something we'll keep an eye on - it could be that a click is a better option to "lock" in that selection on the left, but I'd personally feel that it's a little bit unintuitive that way.

Arguably a little less unintuitive, yes, but only the very first time you use it. Hover will be annoying on a continuous basis. For example, say you want to go to the a music forum. Instinctively, you move to the word Music, and the forums are displayed. You now have to move your mouse very carefully between the yellow lines to get to the forums. If you move even slightly outside the lines, all the forums get replaced

Myrddin

^ good point, but is their enough space to list the categories horizontally so they'd expand downwards?

Dav

I can't do anything about poor mouse accuracy tbh I don't mean to just say "tough" but you don't need to hover over the word Music in your example, just the cell/div/line with the word on it, so you can hover just to the left on the edge of that vertical line and that should minimize these sorts of things. There's other stuff we can do like delay the change when you move the mouse around and so on - these are the sorts of things we'll definitely be getting feedback on when we can put it somewhere to let people test - but we're not going to be at that stage for a while yet. Today I just wanted to let you all see it so we can make sure there's nothing glaringly out of place or wrong with it - we're all quite happy with how it looks and behaves in here, but that's just us of course.

The 3rd level forum is something that Jason's working on at the moment too, I'm not sure how he's gonna roll it out, but I'll keep you posted.

Myrddin - I believe they looked at that and it's not really workable when we start the resizing and so on. This will be a responsive site so it has to be able to change sizes easily and yet remain looking the same, so this way suited that better.

Dades: Arts will open by default, yea. The Burger menu button is a work in progress as to whether or not it'll go on a "full size" screen, but it's definitely in the mobile as you can see. It's duplicating functionality to have it and the regular headings there on the full size, so maybe it can be taken out until we need it. The menu will fall out of the headings (and by those I mean Boards | Talk To | Topics | Regional) and all sub-headings will be on the left as shown (so it'll be the same for the Boards and Regional menu) with the exception of the Talk To one which will have the company logos in it and because there aren't sub-forums to contend with, we've got the flexibility for that.

When we're able to show it off in action, it'll make a lot of sense - I think I'll be able to grab a video of it later on and hopefully when you see it in action it'll make sense.

Myrddin

Dav wrote: »

Myrddin - I believe they looked at that and it's not really workable when we start the resizing and so on. This will be a responsive site so it has to be able to change sizes easily and yet remain looking the same, so this way suited that better.

Yeah, while I know nothing of coding/UI it doesn't appear to the eye how a horizontal solution could be neat & clear to use given the new names of the categories etc. Again, I really like the look of this test version...it looks clear, precise, & displays plenty of info for very little user input. Well done to the team there

Banta

Ah the joys of coding a responsive multi-level navigation. No doubt Jason is having lots of fun :P

First off, I like the the way the new menu is taking shape, so kudos to all involved. I'm sort of with 28064212 on the 'hover' over of the menu, however. I completely get what you're saying Dav, in that all that people will have to do is to hover over the very right edge of the menu to get the options to appear, however from a lot of the UX tests I've done with people, they tend to go straight for the menu word itself, believing that this is what will activate the hover. So in the case of Music and Arts, they'll have to move the mouse a lot further back across to get the option they want, which will lead to what 28064212 is saying. Depending on how the menu spacing is coded, the space to move the mouse along could get a little smaller for smaller resolutions.

I've found that the best way to avoid this behaviour, and also to let users know that they just need to hover over the space and not the word in the menu is a simple highlight. (Perhaps already in place, but not in any of your screenshots). Something like this:



I do really like the approach! Again, kudos to all involved. It's a mighty understaking.

Dav

You're spot on, I was thinking that a highlight was just the thing as that's what we do with the current menu too.

Banta

I had another thought re: the hover over and letting users know what 'section' of the menu they're in. I know there's the little red bar on the right of the menu to let users know what area they're in, but perhaps this could be expanded on?

The main 'parent' items (i.e. the ones on the left) can have a darker shade on the background, to that of the sub-menu items. So, you'd have 3 menu states: inactive, as already pictured, the hover over state in my previous shot, and also an 'active' state, being the menu currently being viewed. It sort of expands on the red marker next to it.

However, the 'active' colour will remain while you're viewing the sub menu items, and also the background colour of the sub-menu is the same as the active menu?



This let's the 'eye' know which menu section you're viewing a lot easier by association. It also has a secondary affect in not making the entire menu look as huge when first hovering over "Topics" in the main navigation.

(I almost feel like I'm spamming now or something, so please delete or edit as you see fit, or tell me where to go!)

hullaballoo

Glen Hansard is doing an AMA?

Dav

He was going to, but it fell through. It's something Declan had been working on when he was with us and most of these designs were his work

Banta - that too makes a lot of sense, I'll be pointing Jason at this thread so we can try a few options out and see what we feel is best. And again, as always, the member's feedback will help determine how it'll finally look and behaviour.

SummerRebel

There is a huge overlap in topics between Commuting & Transport and the Infrastructure forums yet they are in entirely different sections. Could you perhaps put a link between the 2 forums similar to the After Hours -> Political Cafe

Out of curiousity, is there any reason that Sys shouldn't be under Topics as opposed to Boards.ie?

Joya

suggestion: you could really implement that the number of notifications is showing in the tab of the browser - similar to gmail has for number of new mails or fb new messages/notifications :-)
i mean the same number that appears next to user name to the right top corner to be shown in the browser tab :-))

that would be great :d))

Ken.

Joya wrote: »

suggestion: you could really implement that the number of notifications is showing in the tab of the browser - similar to gmail has for number of new mails or fb new messages/notifications :-)
i mean the same number that appears next to user name to the right top corner to be shown in the browser tab :-))

that would be great :d))

You could add on user scripts that 28064212 has developed that does exactly this. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=79826599&postcount=12

Read entire thread to find out how to install them. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056553774