m.boards.ie

Boards.ie: Niamh

Calina wrote: »

My iPad points at the desktop site. My phone defaults to touch and my issues with it is that it is unable to go to first unread post for me.

As a result, I spend little to no time on boards on my phone.

Touch should bring you to the next unread post provided you are logged in so if you could log that as a bug in Site Dev, that would be very helpful. Thanks!

efb

m.boards ftw touch is to chunky and graphic heavy

Darkglasses

The Hill Billy wrote: »

Losing m. will really reduce my time on boards - touch is far less user-friendly & takes much longer to navigate. m. is such an easy to use interface, lots displayed on screen (Galaxy user) & for all the other reasons that bluewolf mentioned.

Also, m. is great if I am stuck in a meeting bored silly & fancy a little browse on the laptop, but want to look like I am working. With such a plain interface it looks like I am just on an ancient work wiki.

Same here, touch is just far too slow on my phone. Way too much whitespace, and I much prefer the way images are displayed (or not displayed) on m.boards.ie.

Have tried to get used to using it about 3 or 4 times in the past couple of years, and of course we were all forced to use it while m.boards.ie was down.

I asked this over in Site Dev, but could a link to this thread (or the Site Dev one) be put into the sitewide notice?

ChewChew

Dav wrote: »

Touch. has been live since June 2011 - when was the last time some of you tried it out?

I tried about 2 weeks ago because I accidentally tapped into full version! I gave it a shot but it's just not for me. I don't have a laptop so I use m.b on my phone and tablet so it certainly will reduce my time spent on boards now if it goes!!

I understand (and appreciate) that m.d is breaking things *right now* but why not invest the time in fixing it? Boards.ie seem to want users to veer completely towards touch for some reason? Like yesterday you said you hate the interface of m.b, but obviously the users of m.b hate the interface of touch? If touch was breaking things *right now* would you leave that or just say ah tuff!!... You can all use m.b? If there's a demand for both, why not ensure your users have the option?

suicide_circus

People on phones do not want graphic and feature heavy browsing - we want bare bones, minimal loading, clear, simple interface. More is not always better, youre running a message board site here, not angry ****ing birds.

Everything bluewolf and gandalf have said is spot on.

touch is simply an unpleasant browsing experience.

helimachoptor

My boards browsing is going to drop off quite a bit tbh.

I dont have any touch bugs to report, I have tried it a few times and while it seems to work fine, frankly i dont like the interface, I am a member of a couple of other forums that have enforced similar sites to touch and i rarely post on them on my phone.

I spend a lot of time n planes, trains and in areas with no great coverage and no wifi. m.b is cheaper and for me a far superior user experience.

While it may go against the grain of current best practice interface design, that doesnt mean its wrong.

I use the full version on my ipad.

cant touchthis

Touch is grand but slow.

Slow is bad.

P_1

Touch works fine when you actually have a decent connection IMO but when you're out and about sometimes the infrastructure isn't there (not a fault on Boards' part at all) which tends to cause the dissasitfaction we're seeing. IMO having a 'Touch Lite' option for folk on poorer connections (less bells and whistles but quicker to load) might be something to have a think over.

surpy

P_1 wrote: »

Touch works fine when you actually have a decent connection IMO but when you're out and about sometimes the infrastructure isn't there (not a fault on Boards' part at all) which tends to cause the dissasitfaction we're seeing. IMO having a 'Touch Lite' option for folk on poorer connections (less bells and whistles but quicker to load) might be something to have a think over.

I would disagree. The issues I listed happen on wifi also.

lorweld

my internet connection isn't great. The touch site takes ages to load but the m site loads instantly. Please don't switch it off.

gandalf

Dónal wrote: »

I asked this over in Site Dev, but could a link to this thread (or the Site Dev one) be put into the sitewide notice?

Any word on this request Dav, it might be useful especially as it appears you underestimated the usage of the m.b version of boards?

cant touchthis

gandalf wrote: »

Any word on this request Dav, it might be useful especially as it appears you underestimated the usage of the m.b version of boards?

Id say he knew exactly. Id say its a small number.

gandalf

cant touchthis wrote: »

Id say he knew exactly. Id say its a small number.

This extract from Dav's post in Site Development suggest otherwise

Dav wrote: »

... For a very long time, Google Analytics has been incorrectly reporting usage numbers on m. for us, so we were proceeding on incorrect data and that data said there was only a handful of you using it. Obviously that's not the case and posts such as this one help us understand why you're still using it and what's missing from touch....

Taken from this thread.

cant touchthis

What are the usage stats Dav?

sunbeam

As I mentioned over in Site Dev I use m.boards.ie almost all time time on my laptop. It's brilliant when Three 'broadband' grinds to a halt in the evenings.

I'll be really sorry to see it go.

Dav

Real quick update, I'm putting together the basic project plan for what changes we are going to consider introducing into touch. to find a better middle ground between where it is now and what m. provides.

The main issues raised are that m. is much lighter which of course is a no brainer. There are then some issues around how stuff is displayed. We're not going to be going back to the basic and excel sheet style wall of text (and we had these same issues when we redeveloped the front page), but I agree there's probably a handier means to present a thread list and posts within a thread for those of you with slow devices or internet connections.

If I can get it wrapped up within the next hour, we'll be able to have a chat about it with the rest of the team and I'll have a go/no-go on it either this evening or tomorrow.

The reason the thread isn't linked to in the announcement is because m. being switched off isn't really up for discussion - it has to happen. It's not that I don't want to head feedback about why it was in use, but it won't affect the decision. Again, I'm well aware that's going to make people unhappy, but running parallel systems always results in this sort of issue and the longer you delay it, the harder it gets to do.

gandalf

So basically to summarise Dav you want feedback but you don't want feedback is what you are saying? Surely it makes sense to get as much feedback as possible to ensure whatever fix is thought up ticks the boxes for the majority of people who use m.boards.ie.

Can you maybe let us know what the technical issue is that is making it a priority to shut down m.b at this stage?

efb

I think Dav is saying M is dead but will look at our suggestions to improve touch for the mobile user

gandalf

efb wrote: »

I think Dav is saying M is dead but will look at our suggestions to improve touch for the mobile user

I realise what Dav is saying, I am just suggesting that engaging with as many m.b users as possible would make sense from my perspective to ensuring "diet touch", "touch lite" or "I can't believe its touch" will meet the widest range of requirements?

The Hill Billy

I'm only using touch.b today to see how I get on. Load times are chronic unless I have 3G. That aside my major issue is the amount of white space & padding everywhere. Tighten that up & it would be a lot better. There is too much scrolling involved in navigating a page when a lot more could be easily displayed on a single screen.

MugMugs

The Hill Billy wrote: »

I'm only using touch.b today to see how I get on.

The Hill Billy wrote: »

I'm only using touch.b today to see how I get on.

And the dupe posting by the looks of it :pac:

The Hill Billy

Sorted. My bad.

Sacksian

Being able to navigate lots and lots of text efficiently (i.e. minimising load times and whitespace, maximising text displayed) is surprisingly useful when browsing a discussion site!! The m.boards.ie design works brilliantly well when you're out and about, travelling, etc.

Is there the possibility of an 'm-style' skin for touch?

Darkglasses

Sorry if this is a dumb question, but on our mobiles can we go to the main site and change skin to m.boards.ie after it has been shut down?

If so, can it be made so that if we change skin on our mobiles, it doesn't carry over to when we're at our pc?

Ghost Train

Not sure how I'll manage without m.boards.ie, probably half the time I spend on the site is using it, like it because it's fast and easy to read

Also anytime I try the touch site lately I get forwarded back to the desktop site, doesn't seem to matter what device I'm using, can't get up my subscribed forums list without being kicked back to main site

Jet Black

Ghost Train wrote: »

Also anytime I try the touch site lately I get forwarded back to the desktop site, doesn't seem to matter what device I'm using, can't get up my subscribed forums list without being kicked back to main site

Had the same problem. Clear cookies and you should be good.

The reason the thread isn't linked to in the announcement is because m. being switched off isn't really up for discussion - it has to happen. It's not that I don't want to head feedback about why it was in use, but it won't affect the decision. Again, I'm well aware that's going to make people unhappy, but running parallel systems always results in this sort of issue and the longer you delay it, the harder it gets to do.

I'm not suggesting asking for feedback on the decision, but on aspects of m.boards.ie that they liked or preferred to touch. If you are looking to do a review of touch it would make sense to me to engage with and know what users want before you start.

I would suggest it could lessen the impact of m being turned off for these users as well. But agree to disagree here.

Blowfish

I'm probably a bit contrary to most on this thread in that I do prefer touch to m. The text links on m are way too small for a phone with a decent res. I do get though why people prefer the speed aspect of m.

The one suggestion I would have for touch would be having an easy way to get back to the menu at the top of the screen. After reading an entire page of long detailed posts, the only navigational link at the bottom of the touch site is back to the forum, if you want to go anywhere else, you've to scroll all the way back up through the entire page to do so.

Penn

Dónal wrote: »

I'm not suggesting asking for feedback on the decision, but on aspects of m.boards.ie that they liked or preferred to touch. If you are looking to do a review of touch it would make sense to me to engage with and know what users want before you start.

I would suggest it could lessen the impact of m being turned off for these users as well. But agree to disagree here.

But surely that's what this thread is?

The shutting down of m.boards isn't up for discussion, but feedback on how to find the middle ground between touch and m can be discussed here as it has been.

That's just my reading of it anyway.