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Looking good TB.

#221
Some of the new features are nice - jump to first unread post for example.

Navigation is worse:

Pages/navigation tabs are not clear and well-structured. The size of navigation "links" is significantly smaller in relation to both useless white space and useless flashy graphics. I've repeatedly been sent to clickthrough ads clicking on what appear to be forum headings in the "Forum" drop down menu.

As far as I can tell no navigation processes have been improved in efficiency and several have gotten worse. Everything is as many, or more, mouse clicks away as always.


Content presentation:

Content is KING. The main point of a forum/website like this is to convey relevant content. That relevant content is the words/wisdom/idiocy of the TB community. This upgrade seems to attempt to push the CONTENT (you know that plain old boring TEXT typed by the user) into a corner obscured by Facebook'esque "likes", even sillier animated smilies, giant graphics, and gobs of useless whitespace.

People are looking for information and want to find it quickly and easily. The changes in the site seem to mostly be antithetical to that goal. The "readability" of the site has fallen significantly.
 
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#222
aborgman said:
Navigation is worse:

Pages/navigation tabs are not clear and well-structured. The size of navigation "links" is significantly smaller in relation to both useless white space and useless flashy graphics. I've repeatedly been sent to clickthrough ads clicking on what appear to be forum headings in the "Forum" drop down menu.

As far as I can tell no navigation processes have been improved in efficiency and several have gotten worse. Everything is as many, or more, mouse clicks away as always.
Click to expand...

When I read posts like this, I am honestly starting to wonder whether people are seeing the same forum I am seeing. Is the attached screen shot the "Forum" drop down menu that you're talking about? I'm finding it very quick and easy to use that drop down menu to go to an individual forum. What used to take several clicks in the old system to drill down to a specific forum is now available in a single drop-down menu. I haven't had any issues with ads.
 

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#223
Febs said:
When I read posts like this, I am honestly starting to wonder whether people are seeing the same forum I am seeing. Is the attached screen shot the "Forum" drop down menu that you're talking about? I'm finding it very quick and easy to use that drop down menu to go to an individual forum. What used to take several clicks in the old system to drill down to a specific forum is now available in a single drop-down menu. I haven't had any issues with ads.
Click to expand...

I don't mind the function of the "Forum" drop down menu. I do mind the repeated times one of the sub forum headings (Bass Guitar, Double Bass, Customer Service, Talkbass Lounge.) has been a click through ad.

My biggest issue is the apparent back-burnering of the text content to silly graphics and facebook style social media garbage.
 
#226
aborgman said:
Some of the new features are nice - jump to first unread post for example.

Navigation is worse:

Pages/navigation tabs are not clear and well-structured. The size of navigation "links" is significantly smaller in relation to both useless white space and useless flashy graphics. I've repeatedly been sent to clickthrough ads clicking on what appear to be forum headings in the "Forum" drop down menu.

As far as I can tell no navigation processes have been improved in efficiency and several have gotten worse. Everything is as many, or more, mouse clicks away as always.


Content presentation:

Content is KING. The main point of a forum/website like this is to convey relevant content. That relevant content is the words/wisdom/idiocy of the TB community. This upgrade seems to attempt to push the CONTENT (you know that plain old boring TEXT typed by the user) into a corner obscured by Facebook'esque "likes", even sillier animated smilies, giant graphics, and gobs of useless whitespace.

People are looking for information and want to find it quickly and easily. The changes in the site seem to mostly be antithetical to that goal. The "readability" of the site has fallen significantly.
Click to expand...

+1 to all of this.

The titles you click on in the Forum dropdown menu are tiny.

If I want to go to page 4 or whatever of some thread, those numbers are even tinier. To much empty white space and "facebooky" type stuff and the important stuff is all tiny.

After spending a day with it, getting the Retro screen on and disabling all the dumb notifications and alerts, I can get around, but everything is more difficult, more steps than it needs to be. The Retro screen helps, but still could use better defined borders between posts in a thread, etc. It's still kind of washed out, but not near as bad as the 2014 screen. To me, that one is unusable.

If they're going to have the Forum dropdown menu instead of the old "forum jump", fine, but the titles need to be bigger and they need one at the bottom of the page as well, not just at the top.

The smilies still suck. They don't convey any meaning, they all just look like stupid cartoon characters. Still need ninja and hiding, but don't bother if they're going to look like that.

We now get "trophies" just for participating, that's keeping up with the times. I've "earned" 36 of them. That's a complete waste of space, time, bandwidth, etc.

Disclosures:

Some of it might be my phone browser. I surf a lot from some smartphone we use for work through AT&T that has a fairly crappy browser. My personal phone is an old EVO through Sprint. That one works much better. I think they made these phones a little "too good", then started dumbing them down. I have yet to see TB on a normal computer. I expect it to have all the same issues, just on a bigger screen. Bigger white space, bigger ads, and important stuff still tiny and out of the way by comparison.
 
#228
Also, having an Avatar is kinda neat and all, but not necessary. I wouldn't mind if they left that for supporting members if they just left that area blank for those who don't have one instead of having the big Joker looking question mark there. That thing looks like it's making fun of the poster. Looks goofy or something, like it's taking away from or putting a spin on whatever they're saying.
 
#230
Febs said:
When I read posts like this, I am honestly starting to wonder whether people are seeing the same forum I am seeing. Is the attached screen shot the "Forum" drop down menu that you're talking about? I'm finding it very quick and easy to use that drop down menu to go to an individual forum. What used to take several clicks in the old system to drill down to a specific forum is now available in a single drop-down menu. I haven't had any issues with ads.
Click to expand...

I don't get the complaint either. I haven't seen nearly as many adds on this format as I did with the old one. Moreover, if you click the "Forums" tab, instead of the drop down menu it takes you here: http://www.talkbass.com/forums/ Isn't that pretty much like the old format?
 
#231
will33 said:
If they're going to have the Forum dropdown menu instead of the old "forum jump", fine, but the titles need to be bigger and they need one at the bottom of the page as well, not just at the top.
Click to expand...

If you mouseover the "Forum" button, you get the list posted in my screenshot above. If you click the button, it takes you to a page listing each forum that is very much like the forum page on the old system.

Stealth Fighter said:
I don't get the complaint either. I haven't seen nearly as many adds on this format as I did with the old one. Moreover, if you click the "Forums" tab, instead of the drop down menu it takes you here: http://www.talkbass.com/forums/ Isn't that pretty much like the old format?
Click to expand...

Exactly. That page is pretty much identical to the old site. As far as I can see, this is a good example of the new forum adding functionality and ease of navigation while losing nothing.

(I really like the fact that I was able to see your message while typing my reply to will33 and add it to my reply. That is definitely something that wasn't possible with the old site.)
 
#232
Stealth Fighter said:
I don't get the complaint either. I haven't seen nearly as many adds on this format as I did with the old one.
Click to expand...

I've seen less ads - but I've had what appeared to be links in the Forum drop down be click through ads.


Stealth Fighter said:
Moreover, if you click the "Forums" tab, instead of the drop down menu it takes you here: http://www.talkbass.com/forums/ Isn't that pretty much like the old format?
Click to expand...

I can currently click on "Forum" and get to that spot.

I can click on sub forums at the level of "General Forum [BG]" etc.

I can click on actual forums (Off Topic, etc.)

I cannot click on "Bass Guitar", "Double Bass", Customer Service" level stuff from the drop down. I can navigate there through the heirarchy.
 
#235
It's something new that we all have to get used to, and we all dislike change. I get that. Still, I think if we just give it a little time it will become second nature and we'll find that most of it is neither worse nor better, just different. I will stay with the TB Retro skin, though.

Edit: You know, I was just thinking how much we do all hate change and how insignificant it actually is, most of the time. In my day job, I am a CAD guy working with Autodesk Inventor. My coworkers and I thought the world had ended when Autodesk changed the Inventor user interface to the Microsoft style "Ribbon". Honestly, I can barely remember how the original interface looked. Now, I work around in the ribbon interface without giving it a thought. I have to laugh when the rest of you talk about little features in the old Talk Bass interface that you liked better than this current version, yet I already can't remember exactly what the old interface looked like. We all need to take a page from the youth playbook and just go with the changes. We'll all be playing in the Talk Bass pocket before you know it.
 
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