What is wrong with the site? (Please read updated post #1)

smash

Discodog wrote: »

Why does it have to be cool ? Why can't it be user friendly & work really well on mobiles - Oh it already does.

That's my point.

oscarBravo

Discodog wrote: »

Why can't it be user friendly & work really well on mobiles - Oh it already does.

The touch site works well on mobiles (albeit with missing features), sure. But it doesn't work well on desktops. And the desktop site doesn't work well on mobiles. Which is exactly the point Dav made earlier: it's impractical to maintain two different sites.

ElBarco

intheclouds wrote: »

There isnt a way to view "New Posts" - which is the only way I use the site.

This is one I'd be looking for also. It is a handy way to see what is generating posts across all forums. The trending threads topic isn't as effective and tends not to capture the smaller forums.

I'm not a big poster but I do like to browse. I was honestly expecting more of an announcement that the beta had been significantly improved. I've been surprised at the lack of updates on the beta forum but it does sound like that is being addressed.

Seve OB

OK so. I will try and give some constructive feedback. So I don't even like the most recent normal site. I have my settings as the old old way. Would I be right in saying I am using the white skin? When I am on my mobile, I use the full site, I never use mobile sites, I hate them. So do I fall into the 60% of mobile users then..... even though I am accessing by mobile, but using the full site?

So today on my Windows 10 pc in work, using internet explorer I was getting intermittent access to the site and when I was getting on, it wasn't right!!

Then it started working, but it still wasn't right..... and this was all I was getting



now I never clicked to turn Beta on and I am not abroad or using VPN. I'm in Dublin city centre

As you can see, I get no header, it looks awful. As someone says above, it looks like a cashed image of an old forum page you might find in a google search!

So no "return to legacy" on the top, no "turn beta on or off" on the bottom

click on any of the tabs, my threads, my forums etc.... they don't work

go into a thread, it looks awful, but more to the point, i can't even post a reply or comment as there is no option ... ANYWHERE!

the site is completely unusable, can't even browse through threads and forums unless they are in the latest posts

i tried logging out and back in again but it didn't work

I just checked via remote desktop connection, and I still get this disaster of a site in work. my home macbook is giving me the normal site... thankfully as is my mobile and iPad.

So I am one of the unhappy ones, I don't like change and I don't see the need or reason for mobile versions of any sites which is why I would be happy to see the site stay as it is. Plenty of other sites have gone mobile orientated and I don't visit them, cause I want proper websites.

Of course, I see the need for change, just not such drastic and unused friendly ones from a pc point of view

Seve OB

oscarBravo wrote: »

And the desktop site doesn't work well on mobiles.

I dispute that. I find the desktop site works absolutely fine on my mobile. I won't go near the touch site.... it's horrible

Hollister11

I love looking at trending threads so please don't remove that.

smash

I'd like some try and explain how the user experience has been improved in any of these comparisons.

TerrorFirmer

I can see instantly why it would work so much better on mobile this way. But trying to use the desktop beta version the past hour and it really is just a massive step backwards. I know it's grand to say that sixty percent of the traffic is mobile and you want one platform to suit both but while I do use the mobile site a bit to read, I'd rather never use the mobile site again to save the desktop site from this. It somewhat appears that you're just taking a dump on desktop users simply because the mobile avenue generates more traffic.

gandalf

Just looked at the new beta site and tbh it is a complete and utter mess for me. Looking at it on a Laptop running Win 10 on Firefox and most of the time I am faced with incomplete menus and then when I do click on a forum like After Hours I am faced with a nice blank white page. It appears the site is not ready for launch at all. I also use the default old skool white skin because it works. On my tablet and smartphone I am still using the m.boards.ie because it is fast and works with no unnecessary fluff.

This is a discussion forum and it's purpose is to facilitate discussion. From what I can see all this effort has been put into making it look pretty without much thought being put into its prime purpose. If I check back on the original discussions about this when there was talk about shutting down the m site I think said the same things.

If you are serious about rolling out that new site as it is currently constituted you will be signing the death knell for this site.

gandalf

oscarBravo wrote: »

The touch site works well on mobiles (albeit with missing features), sure. But it doesn't work well on desktops. And the desktop site doesn't work well on mobiles. Which is exactly the point Dav made earlier: it's impractical to maintain two different sites.

The touch site is a disaster on a mobile. The m.boards.ie is a much better and leaner interface on a mobile.

JCX BXC

The new mobile site is good, but as already stated it's simply not acceptable for desktop. It's quite unenjoyable to use, and considering people have very little other reason to use this site than for enjoyment, it's something that will need to be amended.

Appreciate that DAV and others appear to finally be listening to us.

smash

Carnacalla wrote: »

The new mobile site is good

I think you might be the first person I've heard who has that opinion.

oscarBravo

Seve OB wrote: »

I dispute that. I find the desktop site works absolutely fine on my mobile. I won't go near the touch site.... it's horrible

On my mobile, the desktop site looks like this:



Granted, it's a higher-resolution screen, but that's actual size.

gandalf wrote: »

The touch site is a disaster on a mobile. The m.boards.ie is a much better and leaner interface on a mobile.

...and now we've three versions of the site to maintain to keep everyone happy.

OldMrBrennan83

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Kurt_Godel

Constructive feedback-
The old Vbulletin skin has functioned perfectly for the past 10 years I've used Boards. If you need to accommodate more mobile users I don't see why you cant make a mobile version based on that look. I'm hardly the first to say that- no need to reinvent the wheel. Boards have already said they don't care about the old vbulletin skin- fine, but a lot of your users care about it because it works very well.

Constructive feedback that will probably be dismissed-
Over the past few years the attempts to monetise Boards have been a disaster. The little corner I visit is sports related. We can't discuss common sports injuries because of the Boards-wide "no medical advice" rule. Fine, until Boards deals start selling magic copper bands that will cure all.
We don't shill events and allow the good and bad of an event be discussed- fine until Boards plant a paid advertisment "Charity Race" as the first sticky in the forum (0% of entry fees going to charity) and then delete comments unfavourable to their paid sponsor.
You care about making money (nothing wrong with that), but the way you are going about it is alienating a large part of your users. This latest rollout of a new look was horrible, and horribly managed, and unnecessary. As a long term user it appears you are seeking change for the sake of change, but thats been said by many before, and seems to fall on deaf ears. (If the paymasters are reading- I'd also pay €Whatever subs to keep the old skin sans ads).

OldMrBrennan83

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Patww79

Patww79 wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

There's a "Legacy site" on the top right, or at the very end of the page on mobile.

OldMrBrennan83

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Seve OB

Karsini wrote: »

There's a "Legacy site" on the top right, or at the very end of the page on mobile.

but there isn't on mine.... see above..... why has mine gone so askew to everyone else?

_Kaiser_

Seve OB wrote: »

but there isn't on mine.... see above..... why has mine gone so askew to everyone else?

Try clearing the cache, Log in/out, Disable any ad blockers

Seve OB

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Try clearing the cache, Log in/out, Disable any ad blockers

tried that

have no ad blockers

Hank Scorpio

The homepage loads fine for me on Chrome but very often when I try to go to the soccer forum for example it hangs and I get a DNS error.

This doesn't happen at all on Internet explorer. I've tried disabling adblock but the problem persists.

DANNY2014

Love the touch site on mobile tried out the new way and not liking it but say it could be improved with time. it doesnt feel user friendly tbh where as the normal touch is top notch IMO.

Posy

Zymurgist wrote: »

Please do not promote the beta to live until a dark theme is available. The brightness of the existing one is awful

Is there not going to be a dark theme on the new site?

Like most posters, I think the new layout is just terrible, but at least a dark theme will mean I can try and learn to live with it.

RDM_83 again

TerrorFirmer wrote: »

I can see instantly why it would work so much better on mobile this way. But trying to use the desktop beta version the past hour and it really is just a massive step backwards. I know it's grand to say that sixty percent of the traffic is mobile and you want one platform to suit both but while I do use the mobile site a bit to read, I'd rather never use the mobile site again to save the desktop site from this. It somewhat appears that you're just taking a dump on desktop users simply because the mobile avenue generates more traffic.

What I would be curious about is how much of the high quality content generation occurs via users that are posting from mobile.

By high quality I mean the posts and threads that are useful in a practical sense which I presume drive a lot of the lurker and non account holding traffic, will this redesign drive away some of the content creators (as most established posters don't like the changes) and so make the site less appealing to the fly by browser who the redesign is meant to accommodate.

eagle eye

This forum works fine for me on my laptop but other forums look terrible and are extremely hard to navigate.

The phone seems to work fine but it's just not that good for me. I love sitting down in front of the laptop browsing boards. The screen on the phone is too small and I'll be less likely to spend much time on boards with it.

RobertKK

Yesterday, I went on boards and thought the site was broken, refreshed hoping for a return to the way it should be as what appeared on my screen was unusable.
I went on twitter to see if there was any update posted by Boards as to what the problem was.

I use both mobile and desktop, but before the change, both worked fine and I simply hope that all areas of Boards are made usable again.

Esel

The length of this thread speaks for itself.

It's a pity that the suits are not clued in...

Amadeus 2014

OSI wrote: »

This bollocks was spouted the last time a re-design was done. Funnily enough the site is busier now than ever.

I'm not sure that's true. There is an element of "the good old days" about conversations like these but it does feel like this site is withering on the vine these days. Some of the niche forums feel like virtual ghost towns compared to a couple of years ago. You could argue that's just old timer fatigue and "things ain't what they used to be" but the stats on the Distilled Media website that talk about 35% of irish internet users visiting boards dates back to 2010, which is a lifetime in Internet terms. The Wiki on Boards says that in April 2014 the Alexa rank was 5,129 now it's 8,890 and falling. In 2012 Boards was (just!) in the top 20 Irish websites, now it's 32nd. You get the drift...

So the guys in the office have a pretty impossible job - change the design and way things work and you get howls of anguish from the asset that they are selling (the committed user base). But don't change the design and the way things work and the evolution of the Internet will wipe you out.

Not sure I have anything constructive to add - what alienated me from being a very active user and Mod back in the day was the monitisation of the site at what I saw as the expense of the users and the volunteers mods. If anything that's accelerated, in the chase to make the site ever more accessible the elements and the features that made it unique have been lost and its just another BB site when BB sites are not very popular.

Put another way, it used to feel like a really good Irish pub - lots of banter, lots of craic and plenty of people who knew what they are talking about. Now it feels like the water cooler in a multi national corporations break room.

A loosening of control and a focus on doing what the community wants rather than what will drive revenue would help. Controversially I think most people would be happy with a slightly slower load time and a clunkier interface if it meant fewer ads and a maintenance of what's left of the cheek and fun that used to be a feature of the site. Not much help with the new design here I'm afraid but that feels like shuffling the deckchairs on the Titanic so you might as well carry on.

OldMrBrennan83

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