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

rob316

This is terrible. What was the idea behind this?

Harry Palmr

rob316 wrote: »

This is terrible. What was the idea behind this?

To make it user fiendly of course.

Harry Palmr

Harry Palmr wrote: »

Can I suggest Topics becomes Discussion Topics.

When I see Topics I think of chocolate bars.

Weren't they the crappy Celebrations left in the box at Christmas time that no one wanted?

Snotaul Goodman wrote: »

Hello. Are these changes the reason why the A-Z on the touch site is all over the shop? The first category letter is E. Had to have a proper look for this forum :P

So..... the A-Z thing on the touch site. Any answers?

Dont be at yourself

Two problems that really shouldn't be happening with a site like Boards:

1. A poorly-designed UX, making it more difficult to find forums of interest. Discovery and quick access to forums needs to be the foundation of the site's interface, not a cluttered, disorganised drop down.

2. A botched implementation and rollout for such a large and fundamental change. Site functionality impaired for a large portion of the day, and even now reports of bugs. A phased rollout starting with a small slice of users to gain feedback and hard usability metrics from a live environment is standard practice, but instead this seems to have been railroaded through.

Wibbs

bluewolf wrote: »

I'm pretty sure the idea was new users didn't get the concept of having a place for their discussions and having it under topics makes it more user friendly

And yet B, Boards became the place for Irish discussion amid that confusion? Now a new user, something this site needs like a fish needs water, is seeing the weighting of topics as Adverts/Talk to/Boards/Topics. Whereas before, confusing or organic as it was, the site on first glance(the most important) was all about the topics.

Look to where folks naturally drift and highlight them. This is akin to council "planners"* regarding a park area, seeing the well trodden sandy line where people actually walk and spending a fortune building a concrete path somewhere else, because that's what they heard was the Right Way(™) in university. As this stands the well trodden sandy line is buried.





*I've actually had quite the few one to one professional dealings with city planners, until my inbuilt WTF and "I could't be arced dealing with twats" personality kicked in. It's only down to my better judgement and shots of brandy that I didn't end up in the red tops as the instigator of an office massacre. The stories I could tell. You really wouldn't credit the nonsense involved. And the endless fcuking meetings. Jeesus. As night follows day, the more meetings involved the dumber the outcome. Morons, I mean, shouldn't be let use scissors without an adult present morons. /rant

Witcher

What in the fuck?

Put it back as it was or I'm gonna bust some melons :pac:

Luke92

On touch site (Galaxy s4 if that matters). Can load up home page but when I try go into a thread I get an error.

500 internal error. So having to use full site option to post this.

I know its probably been mentioned and won't be fixed until tomorrow, but try please fix it for tomorrow!

Hollister11

Internal server error on the touch site!

darced

This post has been deleted.

Luke92

Back working now !

Still quite laggy while scrolling (mentioned this in some sort of bug report section).

But touch site back working anyway!

FloatingVoter

Glad to know this is not just me. I had assumed I had caught a nasty virus. Memo to the developers - when your users start mistaking the new design for a virus, roll back the "innovation". If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The site is barely navigable. At least include an option to revert to the classic menu system.

_Kaiser_

Dont be at yourself wrote: »

Two problems that really shouldn't be happening with a site like Boards:

1. A poorly-designed UX, making it more difficult to find forums of interest. Discovery and quick access to forums needs to be the foundation of the site's interface, not a cluttered, disorganised drop down.

2. A botched implementation and rollout for such a large and fundamental change. Site functionality impaired for a large portion of the day, and even now reports of bugs. A phased rollout starting with a small slice of users to gain feedback and hard usability metrics from a live environment is standard practice, but instead this seems to have been railroaded through.

** Slightly wider-ranging thoughts ahead **

To be honest I think half the problem is Boards doesn't know what it is or wants to be anymore.

It started off as a community, grew large enough to become noticed and now is a business. That's what's ultimately driving all this.. profit, and there's nothing wrong with that except that the usability and tone of the site has taken a dive as a result in the last year or two.

It's a bit like how Adverts tried to position itself as the new eBay with "success fees". Massively negative reaction from the users but railroaded through anyway and has made the site even worse.. now as well as the ever-present timewasters, you have ads left open indefinitely as people try to avoid the charges.

The same will happen here IMO. Regardless of what the community feels, ultimately whatever changes the Business wants will go through regardless with some minor adjustments perhaps to mollify the worst of the objections (think of it as the Irish Water of the forum world)

Boards/Adverts either goes fully commercial or it doesn't but trying to straddle the line as they are isn't working for anyone in my opinion and pushing changes like this for no real benefit and which will be changed again in a few weeks anyway just makes no sense IMO.

coffee_cake

Calling the staff morons aside, I do think the topics button could be wider
Not a massive thing, just take up more space since it is a bigger deal

_Kaiser_

bluewolf wrote: »

Calling the staff morons aside

I don't see anyone doing that? I know this particular forum tends to be a mutual admiration society most of the time (from what I've seen), but I think most people are putting fair, well thought out cases as to why these changes should be undone.

awec

I am not convinced that top centre is the best place for the one you wish to be most prominent. It should be left or right. Also Topics makes no sense as a header to me as the list doesn't contain topics (because a topic is a thread), Forums makes more sense. Nor does Boards.ie to be honest. I would actually expect Boards.ie to be the menu for all the forums.

Also why does Regional get to be a top level menu still? That just seems random.

Zaph

Boards.ie: Chris wrote: »

Right, I've spent 4 hours trying to get this working. This is why I build servers, and not websites. Anyway, the definitive is

Talk To.. || Boards.ie || Topics || Regional || Adverts.ie

Topics has been split into 2 columns. Regional and Adverts are now aligned to fit the page. Opening one submenu within a column and then opening another within the same column will now close the previous column. These were all supposed to be in the initial push but overly complex compilation process meant they weren't.

Appreciate your efforts Chris, you'll have earned your pint when this is all over. Just with regard to the two column split in Topics, if I open a topic in the left hand column and then open a second the first one closes. However if the second topic I open is in the right hand column the one of the left remains open. Also if you change your mind and click somewhere else off the Topic list, when you go back to it whatever topic you previously had open is still open.

challengemaster

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

To be honest I think half the problem is Boards doesn't know what it is or wants to be anymore.

It started off as a community, grew large enough to become noticed and now is a business. That's what's ultimately driving all this.. profit, and there's nothing wrong with that except that the usability and tone of the site has taken a dive as a result in the last year or two.

The continuous changes for the sake of change can only be explained by the fact that web devs are employed and have no actual work to do, but boards can't pay them for doing nothing - so they keep re-designing the site.

Ludo

Boards.ie given higher "billing" than the Topics?
Madness. I can understand the "Talk to..." coming first as this site is a for profit operation. But surely without attracting users to post and read will help the money making and as such Topics should be prioritised. It wasn't as noticeable with the previous menu but now really stands out.

Wibbs

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

I don't see anyone doing that?

I think I'm the only one who used the word and it seems I have to break out the crayons for the hard of reading. I was referring to city planners, NOT the guys crunching the code in Boards HQ and way beyond their bedtime too. Please read again if feeling confused.

Harry Palmr

Whats this trending nonsense on the front page? One of the topics has 3 replies, another has 7 and hasn't been posted today.

The use of space on the front page is shocking. Half the real estate is white space.

Boards.ie: Chris

Touch is now working again.

Brian?

I wholeheartedly endorse the changes

Boards.ie: Chris

Zaph wrote: »

Appreciate your efforts Chris, you'll have earned your pint when this is all over. Just with regard to the two column split in Topics, if I open a topic in the left hand column and then open a second the first one closes. However if the second topic I open is in the right hand column the one of the left remains open. Also if you change your mind and click somewhere else off the Topic list, when you go back to it whatever topic you previously had open is still open.

Yeah, I noticed that. I'll stick it on the list, thanks,

zeffabelli

The categories make a logical sense but they are counter intuitive. It's like when you clean your house and you can't find anything and then end up making a bigger mess in the search of the thing you had put away neatly.

Before my eyes could just absord the whole sections of categories at the same time.

I feel like I just figured out where everything is in Tesco and then they moved it all around again and I don't feel like going through that all over again so I just walk out.

Too many steps...too many decisions....

The Hill Billy

Wibbs wrote: »

And yet B, Boards became the place for Irish discussion amid that confusion? Now a new user, something this site needs like a fish needs water, is seeing the weighting of topics as Adverts/Talk to/Boards/Topics. Whereas before, confusing or organic as it was, the site on first glance(the most important) was all about the topics.

Look to where folks naturally drift and highlight them. This is akin to council "planners"* regarding a park area, seeing the well trodden sandy line where people actually walk and spending a fortune building a concrete path somewhere else, because that's what they heard was the Right Way(™) in university. As this stands the well trodden sandy line is buried.

*I've actually had quite the few one to one professional dealings with city planners, until my inbuilt WTF and "I could't be arced dealing with twats" personality kicked in. It's only down to my better judgement and shots of brandy that I didn't end up in the red tops as the instigator of an office massacre. The stories I could tell. You really wouldn't credit the nonsense involved. And the endless fcuking meetings. Jeesus. As night follows day, the more meetings involved the dumber the outcome. Morons, I mean, shouldn't be let use scissors without an adult present morons. /rant

I disagree.

To start - I think that the 5 drop downs in the new layout will make it much easier for new members to get where they want to go. There's an extra click through Topics, but it's worth it as the new category names are a lot more informative & in line with what new members may have seen on other similar sites than the old, Biz, Rec, Soc, etc.

As for the site needing new members like a fish needs water... If those new members are re-reg trolls or plain ol' assholes - I agree. But, like any worthwhile concern - new members are always needed in order to keep the place fresh. If it were just me & a few other oul' fellas posting in Dublin County North the place would be dead now. Newbs keep the site alive.

Maybe I read your post wrong, Wibbs, & pardon me if I did. But I'm seeing a veiled comparison between the boards staff & council planners whom you consider to be morons. That is out of order.

In general...
I honestly can't understand the outpouring of gripe over this. I would have thought that established users would be using the Follow Forum/My Forum functionality. If you aren't & you are clicking through the dropdowns like a n00b - you don't know what you are missing. Is it really such an issue? Will you keep your promises to leave boards?

Seriously - as Dav mentioned, this is an interim step. Give it a chance. It is a fuçking website - not a life or death matter like Chess. :pac:

whatismyname

The Hill Billy wrote: »

I disagree.

As for the site needing new members like a fish needs water... If those new members are re-reg trolls or plain ol' assholes - I agree. But, like any worthwhile concern - new members are always needed in order to keep the place fresh. If it were just me & a few other oul' fellas posting in Dublin County North the place would be dead now. Newbs keep the site alive.

I think the whole point behind the site needing new members like a fish needs water... is that fish do need water.. therefore think he was saying like you, that new members are crucial to the site.

Wibbs

The Hill Billy wrote: »

Maybe I read your post wrong, Wibbs, & pardon me if I did. But I'm seeing a veiled comparison between the boards staff & council planners whom you consider to be morons. That is out of order.

Yes you are reading it wrong. Very bloody wrong. Must be some literalist mindset stuff or looking for "veiled comparisons". Read again. And please read again where I further clarified my position "I was referring to city planners, NOT the guys crunching the code in Boards HQ and way beyond their bedtime too. Please read again if feeling confused."

You know me long enough to know that if I wanted to call the guys morons I would and I never and I mean never have. I've been more than supportive of their heavy duty efforts and am again this time. Their efforts are not the issue, if any issue exists.

The Hill Billy

I apologise, Wibbs. I took you up wrong & am glad that I read it wrong rather than actually having read it right.

It is past my bedtime. Time to go AFK for the night. Again, apologies & thanks for clearing that up.

trellheim

Interested in seeing the functional design specs for the changes, what the drivers were for making the change. Interested in seeing why doing it now in front of a declared major change ( was it for ****z and giggles .... ? )

Cold War Kid

People will get used to it in no time. Any time people object to something like this, it's essentially just not liking change. The old way is forgotten very quickly.

I'm not technically adept and it just looks like a slight change to me. Makes sense to reorganise the categories after all these years and new forums, for sure.