New Topics/Category Organisation Update 20:45 - Post 100

Dades

Myrddin wrote: »

Does Topics not just expand for you without clicking?

Yes it does. That's 33% clicks saved right there.

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I wouldn't get too hung up on the term "Topics" if the proposed screen grabs are anything to go by. It's be replaced by a menu icon (which I happen to like).

It's what happens when you click on hover over that icon that matters.

Chip Whitley

I like it.

Lovely Bloke

Why is Regional all by itself?

it looks weird, and the regional folk are weird.

The Hill Billy

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Why is Regional all by itself?

it looks weird, and the regional folk are weird.

The Region stuff was covered in Post 3 of Dav's original thread in Feedback about the whole re-org.

osarusan

How long more will i be able to use the old VB skin for? Weeks, months, years?

Dav

Regional forums work in a different way to the rest of the site, hence being out on their own. The bulk of the site is communities based around a particular topic. On the regional forums, that's based around a geographic location. So you get a wider range of discussions all with a localised slant rather than a more general and wider discussion on a Topical forum.

Lyssa

I don't see a huge difference in it to be honest, I'm not really a user of adverts, so not sure why that tab is in there, but, overall it seems workable.
I'm sure in a week or 2, we'll all forget what it was like before the change

The_Morrigan

Dav, why does adverts.ie get it's own area that just links to their own website?

T-K-O

Not a fan of the new menu, if it's not broke!!!!

cherryghost

Boards.ie: Chris wrote: »

Guys, it's not changing back. As has already been said, the coming new layout included a new navigation structure from inception. The change yesterday was to get you used to the new structure before we rolled out the new overall layout so you would be used to the navigation and causing less friction. It is strongly needed to encourage new users to interact with the site more. I've lost count of how many times I've overheard demonstrations from our colleagues trying to explain where to find things. The old layout was a layover from 20 years ago, it's long overdue a big overhaul.

We've ran numerous threads on this asking for constructive feedback and even ran announcements giving people plenty of time to get their voice heard.

Who cares if it was a layout from 20 years ago, it worked perfectly fine. I was just under the assumption that some forum name changes and reshuffling was in order, not a complete navigational overhaul.

If it ain't broke don't fix it, ffs

Hollister11

Just noticed this.
When you click topics then click on a forum to glance at subforms, the subform stays open even if you click on regional and go back. The drop down menu doesn't go back up

KomradeBishop

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Is anyone a guardian user? They moved from a long standing design to something quite different and needless to say a large % of the user base expressed their horror at the new design generally and esp the blog software. The guardians own reaction as expressed by the BETA management team was one of utter condescension. They knew they weren't going to stop BETA and so basically told everyone to get on with it.

Of course they were right in that the BTL comments are as busy as ever, though the new design is massively wasteful and ugly.

The user really doesn't matter to the publication.

Ya the same happened with the site Slashdot - utter disaster of a Beta phase of site redevelopment, and there was such an uproar from the userbase and boycotts of the site, that they eventually ditched the new 'Beta' design altogether.
That was one of the worst site redesign efforts I've seen - they would constantly annoy the piss out of users, by randomly redirecting them to a beta version of pages.

The thing to learn from this: Always give users the option to choose between both old and new site designs, don't force it on them by running live experiments that piss off users. That way if you mess up a redesign, there's no real damage.
If users are complaining and you can't just tell them "here's a link to use the old version", then you're doing it wrong - the desires of the community should always comes first in cases like this, as that's what's valuable to the site.

Spear

Could we not have a beta.boards.ie version of the site for public testing of such large changes?

LizT

Baldy Conscience wrote: »

Why is Regional all by itself?

it looks weird, and the regional folk are weird.

Hey! We're people too you know

Kiith

I don't mind the change, but i hate that you have to scroll down under certain categories when viewing them on the bar above (i.e. Topics > Sports). Just feels wrong having to scroll down.

Maybe this isn't new though, and I just never noticed it before.

T-K-O

I have to admit, with each upgrade and improvement to the boards family I personally use the sites less and less.

Dav

Here's the thing, we can't run A/B testing or offer an option to allow you to run 2 flavours of navigation, the software just can't support it without us finding another pile of developers to manage it (and our normally 5 man tech team has been running as a 3 man team for the last couple of months, a new dev just started on Monday, but he's going to be settling in for a while).

Why is Adverts there? There is, I believe, a contract between the 2 companies for that to be there, but I'll find out for certain.

The_Morrigan

Dav wrote: »

Why is Adverts there? There is, I believe, a contract between the 2 companies for that to be there, but I'll find out for certain.

Thanks, it's curiosity only. On the face of it, it looks unfair, if I was a talk to customer paying over cash I don't think I'd be happy not to have the same prominence. That is of course a completely different topic, but it's just very obvious now with the five menus only on the top of the page and it got me thinking.

nesf

The_Morrigan wrote: »

Thanks, it's curiosity only. On the face of it, it looks unfair, if I was a talk to customer paying over cash I don't think I'd be happy not to have the same prominence. That is of course a completely different topic, but it's just very obvious now with the five menus only on the top of the page and it got me thinking.

You do know that both Adverts and Boards are owned by Distilled Media don't you? They're giving special prominence to a sister company. Also Adverts grew from and was very much attached at the hip to boards for a good long while before being spun off into its own company so there's a history there.

The_Morrigan

nesf wrote: »

You do know that both Adverts and Boards are owned by Distilled Media don't you? They're giving special prominence to a sister company. Also Adverts grew from and was very much attached at the hip to boards for a good long while before being spun off into its own company so there's a history there.

I do know all that and I still think my point stands from the outside looking in, it looks unfair to other commerical clients/stakeholders.

nesf

The_Morrigan wrote: »

I do know all that and I still think my point stands from the outside looking in, it looks unfair to other commerical clients/stakeholders.

Unfair?

Buona Fortuna

Lyssa wrote: »

I don't see a huge difference in it to be honest, I'm not really a user of adverts, so not sure why that tab is in there, but, overall it seems workable.
I'm sure in a week or 2, we'll all forget what it was like before the change

Lyssa - I'm glad you don't because I haven't noticed a huge difference either.

Feeling kind of sad and left out really.

Lyssa

Buona Fortuna wrote: »

Lyssa - I'm glad you don't because I haven't noticed a huge difference either.

Feeling kind of sad and left out really.

Bit of an anti-climax really I suppose....

Skullface McGubbin

Yesterday, I wasn't sure what to make of the the new lay out when the notification feature was fecked up (I wasn't able to access the log out option and other stuff) But today with that being fixed, I quite like it. It's clean and the clarity of the categories will make the site more accessible to newcomers.

donfers

The reason why companies like Craigslist are such a success is that they don't play around with tried and tested UIs - it may look cluttered, unwieldy and old-fashioned but people like it that way. New sexy, streamlined and sleek-looking UIs look nicer but what graphic designers and consultants don't understand is change for the sake of change and justifying their own position is rarely beneficial to the actual users. Feel beats look and familiarity beats style every day.

January

The only difference is we have to go through another layer to get to forums we don't have in our 'My Forums' list... I really don't know why everyone is moaning.

T-K-O

donfers wrote: »

The reason why companies like Craigslist are such a success is that they don't play around with tried and tested UIs - it may look cluttered, unwieldy and old-fashioned but people like it that way. New sexy, streamlined and sleek-looking UIs look nicer but what graphic designers and consultants don't understand is change for the sake of change and justifying their own position is rarely beneficial to the actual users. Feel beats look and familiarity beats style every day.

What about the new users

MrWalsh

January wrote: »

The only difference is we have to go through another layer to get to forums we don't have in our 'My Forums' list... I really don't know why everyone is moaning.

Its more than just one layer if you cant remember which "topic" the forum you want is listed under. Its searching through many layers.

Having used it today I find it just more awkward overall, but then again I feel the changes made in the past couple of years have made the site less user friendly overall.

Mars Bar

The topics dropdown is much better than it was yesterday.

channelsurfer2

dont like the new topics thing at all. took me ages to try and find Abroad section as its not in the. why do you have to mess with whats working? oops just realised it there on its own under regional..... still dont like the new set up anyway....