Home Page Redesign

FutureGuy

Boards.ie staff.

Might I ask what is the purpose of the Trending feed. Is it simply to attract new people to the site?

If so, then that's fine. I don't like it and I don't agree with it, but that's your own choice to make. It has to be said, the feedback thus far has been overwhelmingly negative. If I could make a suggestion?

If you want unlogged-in (potentially new) people to find something they like, then that's perfectly fine.

But for me, the daily-user and existing member of boards, this new lay out is cumbersome and poorly laid out.

Perhaps we could have some customization option in the Control panel to allow us to see latest posts and the number we want to see. That number is certainly not 10-12 as per the current layout.

This would appease your need to target new users and also keep your thousands of happy (ad-clicking) members also happy.

Unregistered.

****.

Just dislike it totally. I will never use trending, thanks or my threads. I liked seeing interesting topics in Farming and Forestry and other threads I never visit normally.
Going to be a huge increase in kids and muppets seeing the trending tab filled with After Hours threads.

return guide

Best thing for me was having a scroll through the latest posts, most of which I had no interst in but could get drawn in to.

Not liking the new site.

Odelay

Serious browser here, have tried "living" with it for the last few hours, hate it!

Boards was entertaining and addictive, nice way to spend the evening with plenty to learn, now it is boring and hard work.

Change it back please, what new fancy features could be worth this hassle?

Hogzy

Before there was a button next to the thread that if pressed took me to the post that I last viewed in the thread. This button has now disappeared so if im looking at threads I am subscribed to i have to find the last post myself. So bloody annoying and it takes the fluidity and ease of use completely away.

Toto Wolfcastle

Hogzy wrote: »

Before there was a button next to the thread that if pressed took me to the post that I last viewed in the thread. This button has now disappeared so if im looking at threads I am subscribed to i have to find the last post myself. So bloody annoying and it takes the fluidity and ease of use completely away.

Click on the number of posts and that will bring you to the latest post you read.

A good few people have mentioned it as an issue. Might be worth looking at bringing the arrow back to make it more obvious.

Kristopherus

That new layout is downright awful:eek:. Have to agree wit Zaph, In the "old" Home Page you got a 50-line page that gave you a good indication of what was buzzing. Now you have to trawl through 5 pages of stuff. Definitely no kudos from me to whoever though up this daft idea:(.

KamiKazeKitten

Lord, I thought Reddit was a clusterfcuk to look at but Boards is slowly catching up it seems.

Really really don't like it - I used to love clicking in on the homepage and having a look for interesting threads in fora I never visit. I can't see myself wanting to do that now with the new look, I think I just won't bother with the homepage and stick to my user CP.

Doesn't show anywhere near enough recent threads...boards moves incredibly fast and you may as well just leave "posted a moment ago" or "posted less than a minute ago" as default for all threads on the homepage. I'd love there to be a timestamp on them. As for the trending tab...I'm not a Twitter user, it's not something I think I'd bother clicking on, but if it works for some, meh leave it. I have no interest in trawling through 5 tabs (that may change so quickly!) and I can't see myself ever bothering to go have a look through them. Put simply, it turns the site into too much work.

The Last Post button needs to come back - I know you can get to it by clicking the number of posts but afaik, you guys are trying to appeal to potential users, yeah? So why not spell it out nice and clear for them, as well as those of us who just don't like the current method. As for the fora threads are posted in - it doesn't even really register at first glance, all I see is noise tbh.

When I click the homepage, the first thing now that draws my eye is that blinding chunk of white space in the middle - I just switched over to the Dark skin to lessen it a bit. Sorry guys, but if I was a new user this just wouldn't look attractive at all.

I don't see the rationale behind that aggregate thanks button at all, what exactly is that meant to tell us?

So yeah, tl;dr moar topics please.

bizmark

worse design iv seen since joining boards almost bad enough to drive me away from checking the site

Cienciano

Doylers wrote: »

Lots of wasted space, I miss when I could read all the most recent threads in one go on a single page. BOOOOOOOO boards

return guide wrote: »

Best thing for me was having a scroll through the latest posts, most of which I had no interst in but could get drawn in to.

Not liking the new site.

Spot on! The recent threads home page was great, always find a few good ones there.

What the hell is the point of this change? Why can't there just be an option in the profile to view the old layout?

Celly Smunt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=umDr0mPuyQc

tbh

I like it but i don't see the point in the thanks statistics - fair enough if it showed the amount of thanks I got in a thread (cause I'm a whore like that) but idc about the total amount of thanks for all posts, plus it could be 1 post getting 99% of thanks, so it's meaningless as a arbiter of the quality of a thread.

Also, suggestion, a "random forum" button and a "random my forum" button.

Frosty McSnowballs

Me no likey!

TBH, Im not a fan of the new design but I could get over it and accept it quicker if "Trending" would just fcuk right off.

I have been here in one form or another since 2007 and really enjoy the site. I even subscribed on my old account.... but if "Trending" is staying, I may be going

It actually bothers me that much.

jack presley

The 'thanks' tab is a complete waste of space. Does anyone seriously look at a thread because of the number of thanks? At the moment the top ones are nearly all from the same thread.

And are hashtags coming soon too?

whiteandlight

Ok I've been good and patient and attempted to use it for my usual site wide browse at this time of the night. I used latest posts and my threads all the time. Without the "bold" function and no time stamp I can't tell whether I've read the last post in a thread or not. Its way too annoying so after five threads clicked into that I'd already read with no new posts I'm off to reddit instead tonight

LizT

I really don't like the
Latest post a moment ago by User X in Forum X

Surely on the front page, nearly every post will be less than a minute ago? It's unnecessary. I liked it better when all the info was on one line.

Cookie_Monster

the latest thread and my forums are basically unusable compared to before, tiny list (only 12), no differentiating between read and unread, acres of blank wasted space and the last post icon gone and replaced by clicking on the post number??. I hate it

At the very least make the lists longer so we don't have to constantly click through pages. 12 threads per page is just not enough.

Not good enough Boards, should never have gone live in such a poor state.
Like so many other websites recently it seems that design is being dumbed down and aimed at idiots rather than being made useful and usable.

B0X

Only 12 threads on the main page... Are you joking? At what point in the design process did you forget the function of a forum's homepage?

pm1977x

All the white led me to the 'appearance' settings for the first time, where I found the 'dark' skin, which I really like!

Dislike the prominence of 'thanks' irrelevant to me, but biggest gripe is how few threads are on the homepage - is this purely to gain extra page click stats for Boards? Really dislike it, very laborious and pointless.

Apart from that like the clean cut look but really there's far too few threads on one page, I click through but then get bored and give up - used to stumble upon stuff on the one page, now have to go hunting but couldn't be bothered.

Silverfish

This is woeful, sorry guys.

Where's the Sys dropdown menu? Not showing for me. I don't want to have to type to find a forum.

On iphone, the 'My Forums' tab just shows 'Latest post less than a moment ago by X in Y'.
I don't care who posted in it, and how many minutes ago it was, I want to see what thread it was in, and be able to click on that thread. Any links just bring you to either the user's profile or the forum. That's of zero use.

nesf

Silverfish wrote: »

This is woeful, sorry guys.

Where's the Sys dropdown menu? Not showing for me. I don't want to have to type to find a forum.

It's been put under "Boards.ie" for reasons beyond me.

Yakuza

I've used it on iphone (the full site, not the touch) as well as the iPad and two PCs (a laptop that's 1920 wide and a desktop dual 1680*1050 monitors). It looks ok on the Apple devices, but on the PCs (with the wider screens) it looks awful, with a large white band down the middle of the screen (more so at the 1920-wide resolution). I really think this needs more thought.

The first I'd heard of this was the site-wide banner earlier today, a few more days' notice might have been more helpful to the community at large.

pistolpetes11

Thinks its brutal ,

missing out on an awful lot with only having 12 threads on the front page ,

I like a lot of others like to click in and see if there was anything that caught my eye , one of the main reasons I wont use the touch site on my iPhone , hated only having the option of 12 threads .

I would go as far to say that I hate it and would more than likely not use the site as much as I used to for general browsing .

P_1

nesf wrote: »

It's been put under "Boards.ie" for reasons beyond me.

I'm guessing it was to make the 'Talk To' forums more visible and more lucrative

Boards.ie: Danny

There are some topics being raised I'd like to maybe give you some insights on

Why change?

Since before I joined Boards in October 2011 the goal has been to move away from vBulletin. I'm not going to bore you to death with details here; last July I spoke about it at the launch of the new skin, I've spoken about it in an AMA a few weeks ago and at various other times. I've no problem with somebody PMing me or starting a discourse in Site Development about it and we can talk to our hearts content

In short vBulletin is broken. It is an unsustainable platform for the future of Boards.ie despite having served us well. You guys don't think it's broken but that's because we're good with superglue and sticky tape. The time for those has ended, the sun sets of the age of Boards.ie powered by vBulletin.

With the end of vBulletin comes the end of vBulletin's care free attitude to user interface design. So our design team gets an opportunity to freshen up the site, to have the design match up with the functionality and features used on the site, to abandon the unused features (e.g. social groups, the calendar, the photo albums). The push towards the new style started with the touch site and before that there was the new Boards.ie search. It accelerated with the new style last July, the Talk-to forums in October/November and continues with the home page.

Why can't we just have the old one?

The infrastructure required to deliver the homepage has been changed significantly. We've gone away from vBulletin for the homepage. It's not possible to serve you the old one any more. For the same reason having an option isn't possible. We cannot change the infrastructure based on a user-specific option, the infrastructure sits on another level compare to user options, blissfully unaware about such things.

All of that whitespace in the middle of the thread lists

A few of you are noting the whitespace between the thread and posts/thanks. AlmightyCushion things we want you to play eye tennis.

In site development there are fixed widths and there are fluid widths. Visit RTÉ.ie - fixed width, 960px wide. Visit the site with a large screen and the gaps on the left and right of the content get bigger. Fluid widths stretch as the page gets wider, usually from a set minimum (960) to either another set width or the full width. Boards.ie is fluid width from 960px wide to 1400px max. We made the homepage fixed width before and rolled it back quickly, the feedback was overwhelmingly negative.

So since we're fluid width people on large screens will get that gap because the content is dependent on your browser size/screen resolution. Does the home page look better when that gap is reduced? Resize your browser width until just before the horizontal scroll bar appears at the bottom and let us know. If you prefer it at ~960px making it fixed width may be an option.

Busy forums will take over trending

People write PhDs in popularity/rating algorithms and statistics. We've no such graduate on our team. However we did have the sense to handicap busy forums and make it significantly harder for them to become trending topics. If you see an AH/Motors/Soccer/CVPL thread in there you can be sure it's pretty popular at that time. The current trending algorithm will be tweaked over time but even in its current state offers a colourful array of threads from a wide range of forums on Boards and is much less a victim of popular forums than Latest Posts.

Hopefully this helps settle a few things, we are reading every post (even the short "I hate it" ones) and are taking your feedback on board.

Boards.ie: Danny

Silverfish wrote: »

This is woeful, sorry guys.

Where's the Sys dropdown menu? Not showing for me. I don't want to have to type to find a forum.

nesf wrote: »

It's been put under "Boards.ie" for reasons beyond me.

P_1 wrote: »

I'm guessing it was to make the 'Talk To' forums more visible and more lucrative

Feedback on the menu can be done here, the change is unrelated to the Home Page redesign and was pushed last week

Silverfish wrote: »

On iphone, the 'My Forums' tab just shows 'Latest post less than a moment ago by X in Y'.
I don't care who posted in it, and how many minutes ago it was, I want to see what thread it was in, and be able to click on that thread. Any links just bring you to either the user's profile or the forum. That's of zero use.

That is a bug, please report it in Site Development and we'll resolve it as quick as we can, thanks.

Danny

testicle

The people have voted, the new homepage is ****e. Bring back the old one. There's too much whitespace on the new one for starters.

yellowlabrador

I'm quite disappointed. 12 is too little. It's going to stop me from using the site so much. I also find it hard to see in which subforum the thread is located .and the thanks is wasted

Stella Virgo

brutal ,painfully bad,my eyes and brain hurt just looking at this total mish mash of threads,comments,etc