Problems with the new design

I’m not aware of any way to change it. Clicking on a user’s name will give a larger view though.

Some ideas how to improve the user experience:

General

  • Change colors to a scheme based on Solarized, easier on the eyes
  • Use font-family:serif for posted content, this way users can select their preferred font in browser, and if they don’t, serif is more legible
  • Add margin-bottom:2em to body or main container div styles so that there is some whitespace on the bottom of each page, this way whatever text is on the bottom can be scrolled towards the center of the screen for easier reading
  • Reduce top bar height and/or make it disappear when scrolling down
  • Fix inconsistent capitalization, use Title Case for buttons and Uppercase first word everywhere else, do not use all lowercase at all
  • Switch to square avatars and use border:1px solid #aaa around them, or whatever the default shade of grey used on the icons is
  • Move the new forum to www.forumosa.com and use mod_rewrite to redirect old phpBB-style URLs to their new counterparts
  • Consider splurging on a HTTPS certficate

Topic list

  • Remove the clutter by merging Users, Replies, Views and Activity into a single column that, in slightly smaller font, across two lines, reads something like:

    987 views, 65 replies
    Last 4h 32 min ago by Someone
    (It’s not necessary to have, for each listed topic, the avatars of the previous bazillion of users who happened to post there before, last poster’s avatar is enough. The above text could be replaced with icons for a better effect. The main point is to free up space for topic titles, which should take most of the topic list page horizontally.

  • The links Latest, Top, Categories should be rearranged and renamed to something more clear. Latest should be the first link from the left. All categories and All tags pull-downs should be centered or moved to the right.

  • Also consider merging Topic and Category into a single column, where the latter is displayed inline after the former

Topic view

  • Get rid of the Suggested topics on the bottom. If this is for SEO, then switch it off for logged in users or only show it to Google’s IP ranges.
  • Also do away with the Want to read more? Blah blah blah clickbait on the bottom
  • Interface messages such as This topic will close 15 days after the last reply. do not need to be bolded and use such a large font. This distracts attention away from thread content. At the very least change it to color:#888 or some other shade of grey
  • The thread navigator scrollbar on the right takes too much screen real estate, its width can be reduced by half without impacting usability at all
  • Personally I’d prefer absolute instead of relative dates in ISO format, e.g. 2016-08-12 01:23 instead of something like 2d.

Reply pop-up

  • Add a bottom margin to the textarea or below the Reply / Cancel / Show/Hide preview buttons so that it doesn’t end on the absolute bottom of the screen.

It might seem like a lot of things but most of these are very quick changes to the scripts, HTML and/or CSS. The underlying software is good, it’s just that the user interface needs some polish and more consistency.

8 Likes

get firebug for Firefox.
Then change the layout in Firefox without making any changes to the site itself.
Once you like the result, change each setting step by step on the server.
http://getfirebug.com/

The new forums are not cancer just modern, “clean” design meant to work on mobile as is. Usually this means the interface is simplified to the differences between desktop and mobile are minimal. PHPBB was a piece of crap from the last decade and this is a huge step in the right direction. I just think that the color scheme needs to be updated to be a bit more like the old forum so as to look different from a vanilla discourse installation.

This design is anything but clean. Just saying.

I just can’t get into this new design, there’s all kinds of stuff on the page I don’t want i.e. links to posts from seven years go. I’m thinking about crossing to the dark side.

2 Likes

I’m with the bear. Those suggested topics from years gone by should go. There are 8 of them and the most recent is 3 years old.

If the Mods ever sober up, could we please do something about the OP’s thread title?
I mean, cancer is frigging cancer, you know?
This is just a frigging website

3 Likes

Looking at some changes at the moment. Will report back

Well, that’s an interesting color.

1 Like

We implemented some of the suggested changes for a trial. These were relatively easy to accomplish–some of the other ideas are interesting as well but would take a bit more research on our part (if anyone has any suggestions about CSS coding etc, we’re all ears.)

In case you didn’t notice :slight_smile: we changed most of the colors to the Solarized scheme which Doraemonster suggested, as well as his serif fonts.

We reduced the number of suggested topics to 5 and made them specific to the current forum.

This is still a work in progress, with a lot of possibilities, and we appreciate any and all feedback. Thanks!

Incidentally we noticed that zooming the page size on desktop (as with Ctrl +/- in chrome) gives a bit of a different look. I kind of like 110%.

2 Likes

Please change the background color back to white, and the text to black. You don’t need to respond to the odd angry post by anyone who comes along with an opinion. Black text on white background is a well established color scheme due to its readability. I think it was first discovered by the ancient Egyptians. It has certainly survived the test of time.

Is it just me or is the new layout put you off from reading long posts? IDK if it’s the font, size of the font, or something else. If I see a longer post, it seems harder to read it.

If the previous color scheme was cancer, it was benign. The current one is malignant.

1 Like

Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.

Both designs are fine by me, and both are better than the creaky old version.

What’s wrong with diarrhea-yellow?

Folks, @tempogain and I agreed to give these design tweaks a shot for a while and see how we feel, so your feedback and suggestions are invited and welcome.

Fortunately, what changes we made last night were pretty easy to do (and undo).

For some reason my mobile version if the site is not showing the serif font, which is well understood to be more comfortable and more legible for long reads. Let us know what you think for yourself over time.

Someone peed on the canvas… :slight_smile: But seriously, I would keep the white because that’s the best background for readability. The yellow scroll bar is also a bit swallowed by the yellowish background. Overall I like what you are doing with the site. Keep on tweaking I am sure the site will make most users happy.

I like the change to the softer color. The bright white just doesn’t do it for me. I disconnect every other fluorescent light above my desk at work, I use only yellow light bulbs at home, I adjust my computer screen so it’s not glaringly bright, I wear sunglasses whenever I head out, etc. Maybe even a softer shade for me, but compared to the previous white, this is definitely preferred. Good adjustment in the right direction my opinion.

I like how you guys went back to the old “style” with the hints of brown like the old phpBB format, but it’s not really working for me. The blue buttons really made the site feel new and different.

I am 100% against the new serif font, makes the sight feel even older!