Well for one, jumping across to gaming and ectera is far easier now.
Have you ever liked a website redesign?
- Thread starter Bigkrev
- Start date
I like several website redesigns... but...
I really hate "web 2.0" style designs where everything expands out, and has drop shadows everywhere. It feels slow and clunky with too much flash and not enough function.
EDIT: Holy shit, I cannot tell if I've read a thread now, the difference between a read thread and an unread thread is basically nothing.
I really hate "web 2.0" style designs where everything expands out, and has drop shadows everywhere. It feels slow and clunky with too much flash and not enough function.
EDIT: Holy shit, I cannot tell if I've read a thread now, the difference between a read thread and an unread thread is basically nothing.
Once you remove the side bar and expand the rows to their full length, the site looks fine on desktop
For me, this update is bordering on site-ruining. I really despise it. It's ugly, less usable, clunkier and just less functional overall. I love this community but this update is a baffling, tragic mistake.
How do you expand the rows? I wasn't able to find it.
It looks awful on my computers, where I do 90% of my surfing. It looks fine on my iPad and phone but its so terrible in landscape.
So much wasted space and huge borders. Its clearly built for touchscreen with the huge buttons and lots of space around the links. Even inconsistently - the "Insert quotes" button below is much smaller than the "Post Reply" or "Preview" button which irks my nerves, and even though its smaller than those buttons its still way bigger than it should be on a 1400P monitor.
Yep, I remember when gametrailers.com had a massive redesign, and the population plummeted.
Stop fixing what ain't broken.
Both this site and NeoGAF had big awful redesigns.
And that fucking footer, good thing I can block elements.
Scroll down to the very bottom, there's an expand icon next to the theme name. Do it in the thread list view first, not in a thread. I didn't see it update right away when I tried that
Thanks! Still too much 'bubble' for my liking but this will do for now. Hopefully they include an option or skin for the huge jarring spaces in between each post.
Upgrading from Xenforo 1.5 to 2.0 for security reasons seems to be the complete opposite of that to me.
This new design has a few flaws.
1) The massive banner advertising an ad free experience at the bottom is not only tacky but takes up way too much space. Bad form.
2) The quick jump feature is neat in theory, yet the previous iteration had Gaming, Hangouts, Etcetera and Hangouts all visible on one screen without diving into another menu.
3) It feels like the site is operating and loading slower.
4) The dark theme and general colour scheme feels inferior to the previous legacy dark theme.
1) The massive banner advertising an ad free experience at the bottom is not only tacky but takes up way too much space. Bad form.
2) The quick jump feature is neat in theory, yet the previous iteration had Gaming, Hangouts, Etcetera and Hangouts all visible on one screen without diving into another menu.
3) It feels like the site is operating and loading slower.
4) The dark theme and general colour scheme feels inferior to the previous legacy dark theme.
I swear it was not there before...lol.
Still feels like it could have been implemented differently, I do not like it being placed over an avatar. Just a preference.
For me it's not just the fact that the redesigns often ruin the site like this one has. I think what kills the community is the feeling that the changes were thrust upon you. Whilst I browse era every day I'd say I'm a fairly casual user. Few people would recognise my name and I'd hardly say I'm in the main group of posters. Up until about a day before the changes I didn't realise this was even a thing. Next thing I know the site is down for a few days and when it comes back I'm greeted by this abomination.
I'm here for the community so I'm not leaving but it just makes the experience so much less pleasant.
I usually don't like upgrades, and this is no exception, but in the end I get used to the changes.
I've never understood why everytime a site gets updated, basic stuff gets more complicated. For example, for some design? reason I can't no longer go to EtcetEra from a thread I'm reading, now instead I have to use Quick Jump. Sure, it is only 1 more click, but it is 2x the action I needed before, and that eventually adds up, even more if I feel the new way is not intuitive at all.
And yes, for me the site is now several times slower than before, but I expect that to be improved in the next couple of days, hopefully.
I've never understood why everytime a site gets updated, basic stuff gets more complicated. For example, for some design? reason I can't no longer go to EtcetEra from a thread I'm reading, now instead I have to use Quick Jump. Sure, it is only 1 more click, but it is 2x the action I needed before, and that eventually adds up, even more if I feel the new way is not intuitive at all.
And yes, for me the site is now several times slower than before, but I expect that to be improved in the next couple of days, hopefully.
This is pretty much what I came to say. I actually like this.
All the time. The only time they suck is when the creators have absolutely no idea about design or user experience, like Era.
Hear hear. I am a sucker for anything that is easy. Old school GAF and Legacy ERA had just enough pizazz without getting in the way of navigation, reading, and posting.
This design reduces all three of those areas in favor of options that most of the users will never use or want as a distraction.
Destructoid had a pretty good one a while back. It was after they stopped with their silly "HUGE" subscription nonsense to remove ads, but before they were bought by Enthusiast Gaming. They dropped ads on the front page, added a better dark theme, created the excellent "Qtoid" section that's basically a weird Destructoid-style Twitter and revamped the community blog section.
Those were good times. The site was a bit rough for a while, but after a week or two it was great. It's still pretty much the same now. Wish they'd bring back the forums though.
Those were good times. The site was a bit rough for a while, but after a week or two it was great. It's still pretty much the same now. Wish they'd bring back the forums though.
I don't think so, no. I've just forced myself to grow used to them.
This one is bothering me a lot thanks to how much rougher the performance is on my desktop browser compared to the previous version. Here's hoping it gets better.
This one is bothering me a lot thanks to how much rougher the performance is on my desktop browser compared to the previous version. Here's hoping it gets better.
I can't think of any I have liked. I've noticed more and more sites seem to be allowing an option to keep the legacy format though; it's not common at all but I'm noticing and enjoying it more and more. So that's nice. I mean, I couldn't even tell you what the recent Reddit redesign looks like. I saw it for as long as it took at work to log in and change it over to the old layout.
The ones I hate the most are big drastic changes where almost everything is different. This redesign, though I do hate it, at least reminds me of Era. It makes me think of maybe like a bootleg or offbrand Era, but the dark theme does still have purples and blacks, things weren't moved to different spots for the sake of moving them TOO much, stuff is mostly still called the same name as before, etc.
The ones I hate the most are big drastic changes where almost everything is different. This redesign, though I do hate it, at least reminds me of Era. It makes me think of maybe like a bootleg or offbrand Era, but the dark theme does still have purples and blacks, things weren't moved to different spots for the sake of moving them TOO much, stuff is mostly still called the same name as before, etc.
I hope they're working out the quirks, because as it is I'm finding it a pain to navigate the forum on mobile.
I'm definitely not a fan of this redesign, and yeah, modern redesigns have felt pretty bad for what feels like several years now. Kind of hard to articulate without really studying the landscape of web design for awhile I think, which I definitely haven't.
The simplicity and clean designs of classic years GAF & this board's "Legacy" design layout were pretty great and was a huge reason I loved those first 10 years of GAF so much. The more it added, the worse it got and I kind of feel that way about most design across the board in general.
Oh well.
The simplicity and clean designs of classic years GAF & this board's "Legacy" design layout were pretty great and was a huge reason I loved those first 10 years of GAF so much. The more it added, the worse it got and I kind of feel that way about most design across the board in general.
Oh well.
This year has been a succession of putrid redesigns of whichever gaming outlet's site I've visited.
First IGN --> Eurogamer --> Game Informer --> Dualshockers, only a couple days ago
For a while I was visiting IGN for news articles related to gaming, then their redesign occurred and it was dreadful and prioritized the mobile version, leaving baffling amounts of blank space. That led me to quit the site altogether and search for a decent alternative, unable to find one gaming site that covered the breadth of the industry that IGN could for me. I tested out Game Informer, Eurogamer, and Gematsu. Literally days of each other, Game Informer and Eurogamer redesign for the worse, the latter being most upsetting since Eurogamer's previous design was one of the very best among major gaming sites. I've continued visiting Gematsu which thankfully is intact, and started visiting Dualshockers for more of my non-Japanese news. But THEY TOO overhauled their mainpage to a clunky, obnoxious mess of large squares.
That's only from this year. It's a trouble I've had to tolerate too often over the years.
FWIW, despite everything I wrote, I don't mind ERA's redesign at all. Overall, I think it adds more useful things than it loses, and beyond the initial performance out of the gate, I think people will begin to recognize that.
First IGN --> Eurogamer --> Game Informer --> Dualshockers, only a couple days ago
For a while I was visiting IGN for news articles related to gaming, then their redesign occurred and it was dreadful and prioritized the mobile version, leaving baffling amounts of blank space. That led me to quit the site altogether and search for a decent alternative, unable to find one gaming site that covered the breadth of the industry that IGN could for me. I tested out Game Informer, Eurogamer, and Gematsu. Literally days of each other, Game Informer and Eurogamer redesign for the worse, the latter being most upsetting since Eurogamer's previous design was one of the very best among major gaming sites. I've continued visiting Gematsu which thankfully is intact, and started visiting Dualshockers for more of my non-Japanese news. But THEY TOO overhauled their mainpage to a clunky, obnoxious mess of large squares.
That's only from this year. It's a trouble I've had to tolerate too often over the years.
FWIW, despite everything I wrote, I don't mind ERA's redesign at all. Overall, I think it adds more useful things than it loses, and beyond the initial performance out of the gate, I think people will begin to recognize that.
Agreed. It also ran like a champ and would load with one bar of signal. Trying to be open minded but having a hard time with this.
Is it possible click to the last page of a thread without going to the last post? Unless I am blind there is no quickjump button to go to the top of the page, so I am scrolling like a mofo just to browse.
I was actually super excited for the redesign, and couldn't wait to see it. I think some of the colors are aesthetically pleasing, and there are some aspects of the new design that I like, but I pretty much hate it on mobile gaf. I miss the ability to jump between forums on the bottom of the screen, as as far as I can see, there's no quick jump to bottom, on either mobile or desktop.
I checked the old-site for the first time in a while, and it actually looked quite nice on mobile, and on desktop. I think once we implement a few quality improvements here, especially for mobile, and maybe a splash of color other than grey on the sidebar (personal preference) I'd be quite happy.
Again though, thanks for all the hard work on the update to the staff. I actually welcome the changes, but there are just a few aesthetic, and mobile QoL things that I'd like to see implemented.
I checked the old-site for the first time in a while, and it actually looked quite nice on mobile, and on desktop. I think once we implement a few quality improvements here, especially for mobile, and maybe a splash of color other than grey on the sidebar (personal preference) I'd be quite happy.
Again though, thanks for all the hard work on the update to the staff. I actually welcome the changes, but there are just a few aesthetic, and mobile QoL things that I'd like to see implemented.
My main issue as well. I will give this a week but my hunch is that seven days from now, I will be writing my own css+scripts to get things back to the way I like them.
Edit: Quote didn't work.
Edit2: Added quote for context.
It definitely makes me want to browse the site less. Why are thread lists PURPLE? WHAT OBJECTIVE DOES THIS SERVE?