Home Page Redesign

spix

username123 wrote: »

If you hover over All Topics (just to the left of announcements) you get a drop down list, but then you have to mouse over to the side scroll bar to scroll down, at which point the drop down list disappears and you cant get it back again because now All Topics is no longer in view. So you can only get a list of the first 8 or so.

Oh hang on, thats just to filter the latest posts threads - forget it.

Yeah I saw that. It's just a filter like you said.

I could click on one of those topics then at the top of the page click the main forum which then shows a list of all sub forums... but that's a really annoying way to have to do it in my opinion

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

This is the full list of all forums and sub forums on Boards

Just what I was looking for but how does a new visitor find that? I think there should be an easily accessible link to this on the main page.

Taltos

WIZE wrote: »

I would still like the forum to have its own Column

baby steps - like the suggestion though, my eye scans for this too and having to check under each thread is slowing me down.
Right now having the thread count increased (give me more) is great, I was finding the 7 thread count unworkable - like others here I tend to use the My Forums a hell of a lot to track where to jump to next.

WIZE

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Same.

Remove the redundant Thanks column and put the forum in it's own column to the left of the thread title. Leave the timestamp and posted by the way they are now.

Seriously, that minor-ish tweak and I'd be more or less fully on board with the new style.

I agree. I will not longer bitch and moan and promise to send Boards HQ Pizza of your choice

Boards.ie: Nicola

spix wrote: »

Just what I was looking for but how does a new visitor find that? I think there should be an easily accessible link to this on the main page.

In the Boards.ie category dropdown, the forum index is listed right after New Posts and before FAQ.

The concept of 'Forums' and 'Sub forums' is something that is alien to many modern internet users, while it may make perfect sense to you and I, presenting a list of Forums to a new user can prove far more confusing than helpful.

Boards has a vast structure of forums and if you visited for the first time and were just presented with a list of every imaginable forum then you might be either overwhelmed or miss the community element of the site.

rubberdiddies

boards is always a page I browse to instinctively when on a quick break (or not!) from work. I might navigate to the home page 20+ times per day.

after yesterdays changes were implemented I found myself today having only been on twice, and the second time was to see (in hope) whether or not the page had changed back!

I'm not one of these people that complains when facebook change their look, but I have to say I really dont like the new boards.ie layout and have found myself on it a lot less today than normal.

I dont like the trending threads taking precedence for example. currently there is a thread listed under 'trending threads' which was started on July 3rd and has 3 posts in the thread. I was wondering what decides that it is trending when its a 2 day old thread with 3 posts?

I don't like to think that I'm simply a grump that doesn't like change, but I really just don't like this.

But if it works for boards.ie then sure that's all that matters

username123

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

In the Boards.ie category dropdown, the forum index is listed right after New Posts and before FAQ.

Where is the Boards.ie category dropdown?

wnolan1992

username123 wrote: »

Where is the Boards.ie category dropdown?

Top menu between Talk To and Adverts.

Sofiztikated

Thread title had disappeared.

If the forum name, as others have said, was in a seperate column, I'd be reasonably happy.

username123

wnolan1992 wrote: »

Top menu between Talk To and Adverts.

I dont have a top menu on the home page? Only a yellow We're Now Hiring ad.

Boards.ie: Nicola

Click the red 'X' to remove that, it is just a strapline and is dismissable.

Tar.Aldarion

username123 wrote: »

I dont have a top menu on the home page? Only a yellow We're Now Hiring ad.

click the x.

spix

username123 wrote: »

I dont have a top menu on the home page? Only a yellow We're Now Hiring ad.

Haha, I was looking for it too then finally realised its being covered up by that well placed banner.

username123

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

Click the red 'X' to remove that, it is just a strapline and is dismissable.

lol, I just kept ending up in the hiring ads when I clicked it!!

Yeah, I see it now, its less easy to navigate to the forum listing than it used to be. I try to stay away from that top menu because a particular hate of mine on any website is stuff appearing just because you accidently hover over it. Nothing more off putting - one of the reasons Windows 8 is so unpopular.

Skid X

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

In the Boards.ie category dropdown, the forum index is listed right after New Posts and before FAQ.

The concept of 'Forums' and 'Sub forums' is something that is alien to many modern internet users, while it may make perfect sense to you and I, presenting a list of Forums to a new user can prove far more confusing than helpful.

Boards has a vast structure of forums and if you visited for the first time and were just presented with a list of every imaginable forum then you might be either overwhelmed or miss the community element of the site.

I still think it would give a new user a better idea of what Boards is all about to show a link to the full forum list on the Frontpage. If someone has an interest in cookery or chess, they don't necessarily care about whatever is trending.

The concept of 'Forums' and 'Sub forums' is something that is alien to many modern internet users

Perhaps, but a new user is not going to learn about how Boards works by hiding the list of forums from them.

Boards.ie: Nicola

Ok folks, another update for you all.

Here’s a quick summary of the main feedback on the new homepage (as of just after lunch) and what we’re doing with it.

Items we’ve changed since launching:

-Add forum names to the left hand side of the content block - we’ve done this, but may revisit putting forums into a separate column

-Proper timestamp - done

-Customize number of posts under ‘Latest Posts’ – we’ve no plans at present to allow customisation, but we’ve upped the number of threads to 25 per page

-Align announcements widget correctly with tabs – done

Items we’re going to fire ahead with:

-Make thread titles unbold after reading – this was never a feature of the beta homepage (we think it was present on old skins though...anyone?), but it seems like a good idea so we’ll add it to the to-do list

-Add pagination to top of page - again good suggestion which we’ll try to incorporate into the design. We hope this will take care of the suggestion for keyboard extensions also.

-Customize default tab from ‘Latest Threads’ to ‘My Forums’ when logged in – we reckon we can control this with cookies for the moment and at a later stage we’ll have a control in the CP

Items we’ll work on with designers:

-Make jump to first unread post clearer

-Make distinctions between rows/threads clearer, alternating background shades

Thanks again for taking the time to give us your feedback.

coffee_cake

Thanks nicola
is there any chance of adding in the alternating line colours as well like the old homepage? It makes it a lot easier to read
And smaller text so it's less out of sync with other pages

Boards.ie: Nicola

bluewolf wrote: »

Thanks nicola
is there any chance of adding in the alternating line colours as well like the old homepage? It makes it a lot easier to read
And smaller text so it's less out of sync with other pages

Do you mean the alternating shades like the old homepage? That's something we're definitely going to look into. I can't give a timeframe on it as the design team are fairly busy right now but as a suggestion it certainly does have a lot of merit so will be considered

WIZE

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

Do you mean the alternating shades like the old homepage? That's something we're definitely going to look into. I can't give a timeframe on it as the design team are fairly busy right now but as a suggestion it certainly does have a lot of merit so will be considered

THIS -Add forum names to the left hand side of the content block - we’ve done this, but may revisit putting forums into a separate column = Boards HQ Pizza Delivery

coffee_cake

Yep the background shades
That's great

Boards.ie: Nicola

WIZE wrote: »

-Add forum names to the left hand side of the content block - we’ve done this, but may revisit putting forums into a separate column = Boards HQ Pizza Delivery

Duly noted

Xavi6

The changes you've made definitely make it a lot more bearable, thanks.

Who said whinging doesn't get you anywhere?! :pac:

kupus

Skid X wrote: »

Perhaps, but a new user is not going to learn about how Boards works by hiding the list of forums from them.

Cant argue with this


Also another user pointed out that they visit boards during slow times in their day so about 20 times, which is pretty much like me. But yesterday only visited 3 or 4 times due to the new layout.

The only reason Im back is cos I find by clicking on the boards icon on the top left it brings me into what was like the old homepage with a list of all the threads being discussed.

If this goes then there is nothing to really bring me back, as it takes time to trawl thru the home page now with the arrow at the bottom. Where I used to do a quick glance and open up all the pages that interested me.
Time that could be spent working unfortunately!!

I know its done for ads, 5 extra pages means 5 extra ad streams instead of one but sometimes giving people what they want is better in the long run....

But its your boards, your website and your rules which I can accept.


edit:
That was quick :pac 3 pages from 5

_Kaiser_

Slightly better than it was this morning, but still a massive amount wasted space, plus now I have to scroll down to get the full list (and this is on a 23" monitor @ 1920x1080)...

spix

My little redesign of the homepage which obviously links to the index.

Boards.ie: Nicola

kupus wrote: »

I know its done for ads, 5 extra pages means 5 extra ad streams instead of one but sometimes giving people what they want is better in the long run....

But its your boards, your website and your rules which I can accept.

We've addressed this a few times before, there are no extra ads being displayed by having pagination-none of the 5 pages have ad slots. The page itself remains the same, the content is loading inline and has no impact on ads.

padraig_f

Boards.ie: Nicola wrote: »

-We have increased the posts per page from 12 posts to 25 over 3 pages.

The issue is not stricly the number of posts, it's the waste of space caused by that line of text under the thread title. As I said earlier...

Old format:

- Thread title
- Thread title
- Thread title

New format:

- Thread title
**** noise ****
- Thread title
**** noise ****
- Thread title
**** noise ****

Much less efficient use of space. The forum and poster should be in a separate column as secondary information, the date/time is pretty useless info on a front page. You could put 50 threads on the front page with the new format, it won't have fixed the problem if you have to scroll down 4 or 5 pages to see them. Without scrolling now, I can still see only 12 thread titles.

Alun

Slightly better .. now just get rid of the pointless thanks field, the likewise pointless guff to the right of it (announcements and talk.to) and put the date, forum and last post information ON THE SAME LINE as the rest of the info and we'll be cooking with gas.

spix

I also think something like this would be a nice addition for convenience (update list option next to latest posts)

flynnlives

nice how ye are ploughing ahead and completly ignoring anyone who said they prefered the old way.

its fairly obvious that this move is to increase potential adspace and impressions.

Alanstrainor

The home page doesn't display the thread titles on Windows Phone 8 IE9. Bit of a pain. I know i should use the touch site, but i just don't like the feel of it.