Forum Update

Mobeer

This is giving me flashbacks of the 1990's and my little 14" monitor. What on earth was the designer thinking?

soullllllllllllll

Would appear this change is an epic fail. But don't worry peeps. Newbie visitors will love it. :rotfl:

nilrem_2

Lol MSE'ers are a moaning lot!

I just quietly switched to stretchy in CP as it said in the First post and it looks fine to me!

The masthead looks better than before IMHO and I don't even mind seeing the Boss in the top LH corner.

What is all the fuss about?

Sue-UU

I must admit that at first I hated it with a passion, but now it's becoming acceptable - apart from the outer left and right (borders) being far too bright.

I'd be so grateful if it could be darkened, or if it was possible for me to somehow darken it. I have eye problems that are affected so much by too much light and would be so grateful for any help please. Aside from that, the top, header or whatever it's called is quite nice.

Well done team, just too bright on the borders!

Sue

bangersnmash

Apart from the top bit it looks the same to me. I'm using Firefox 9.01 in case that's of any relevance. I've still got the text across the first three quarters of the screen as previously. The right hand quarter is still wasted on adverts and white space as usual but I never look at that so that's ok. The top bit with the coloured rectangles now looks like start up and amateur sites did circa 1996-8, reminds me of early amazon unless maybe I'm imagining that. But I only briefly glance at it so it doesn't matter.

The folded arms are psychologically an unwelcoming gesture. Unfriendly. At the moment you're giving off a fairly severe attitude, bit like a bouncer watching for trouble. Coupled with the non committal not smiling face the impression is somewhat negative. But that probably wouldn't affect anyone so who cares. However, if you want to be welcoming then perhaps unfold your arms and either smile or grin slightly.

Owain_Moneysaver

custardy wrote: »

surely fixed width would work better with magnification etc?

No, because the letters take up twice the space on the screen. So if it's fixed width then only half the line is visible at a time, meaning a lot of horizontal scrolling and the website becomes unusable.

Websites should reflow to fit the available screen width and degrade gracefully regardless of screen size. 'Fixed width' websites are so 'made-with-MS-Publisher-circa-1995'

bangersnmash

Apart from the top bit it looks the same to me. I'm using Firefox 9.01 in case that's of any relevance. I've still got the text across the first three quarters of the screen as previously. The right hand quarter is still wasted on adverts and white space as usual but I never look at that so that's ok.

The top bit with the coloured rectangles now looks like start up and amateur sites did circa 1996-8, reminds me of early amazon unless maybe I'm imagining that. Plus the font on the main words is not really suitable, not when you compare it with other big successful sites, noone uses that font or anything like it. But I only briefly glance at the top bit so it doesn't matter.

The folded arms are psychologically an unwelcoming gesture. Unfriendly. At the moment you're giving off a fairly severe attitude, bit like a bouncer watching for trouble. Coupled with the non committal not smiling face the impression is somewhat negative. But that probably wouldn't affect anyone so who cares. However, if you want to be welcoming then perhaps unfold your arms and either smile or grin slightly.

Edit : I've just noticed that this is a duplicate of post 246 so sorry about that, don't know how it came to be a duplicate as I was only attempting to edit the previous one. Anyway, it doesn't particularly matter.

Sue-UU

bangersnmash wrote: »

The folded arms are psychologically an unwelcoming gesture. Unfriendly. At the moment you're giving off a fairly severe attitude, bit like a bouncer watching for trouble. Coupled with the non committal not smiling face the impression is somewhat negative. However, if you want to be welcoming then perhaps unfold your arms and either smile or grin slightly.

I agree with bangersnmash, a bit too austere, Martin..unless that's what's intended! The best one is the one of you on your blog, seated and looking friendly and...welcoming.

Sue

MaggieBaking

freyasmum wrote: »

The only other thing - and it's purely an aesthetic, so not at all important and I understand you've got much more work to do than cater to my whims is that I might consider changing the green slightly to match one of the darker greens above. It jars ever so slightly with the brighter green of the forum.

As you've asked for feedback not relating to the screen width - I just thought I would say I agree with the above poster. It's subtle and I didn't know what she meant at first but when I checked she's right...

The new pale green matches the Forum and Utilities Phones tabs at the top, but it doesn't match the green bars with the Main Site, User CP buttons on

It's the little details like having it all coordinating that in the end will help it looking smart and neat.

I love the new masthead - including the kitsch placards - having read in the blog I completely agree with the theory behind them!

Trinitrotoluene

Just thought I'd put my two pence in, as everyone else is doing.

Firstly, I think the masthead itself is a massive improvement. It looks a lot more "professional" but not corporate, rather than amateurish which is exactly the kind of effect the site was hoping to achieve as per Martin's blog. On a positive note about the fixed width, I do think that it binds the front page and forum more together and makes them look like less separate entities and more a unison of one.

The readability though from going from stretchy to fixed is quite poor for me, and I prefer stretchy. This however is due to me having two 24 inch monitors both in a massive resolution. What a lot of people here are failing to grasp is that for quite a lot of users the width of the forum is not going to be drastically different. See here: http://www.w3counter.com/globalstats.php At least 20% of online users are not going to see any kind of difference at all as the page will fill up 100% of their screen. If MSE need the site to be fixed width, they can't go over a maximum width of 1000px or they are going to make the site genuinely unreadable for 1/5 of all internet users.

For me the issue is not the width, I can accept the fact it has been fixed. As a web developer, I don't claim to do design for top UK sites or anything like that, saying that features can't be developed properly in an auto width is a cop out answer. I recognise that it makes designing for the site a hell of a lot easier for the developer, but it makes it a lot less readable for users who frequent the site.

I don't think the fixed width would be a problem if it wasn't for the right hand side column. Have MSE considered giving people the option to remove that right hand column while browsing the forums? This maintains predictable widths and assumingly makes designing easier? A lot of the content in the column, once again in my opinion, is mostly redundant; my personal opinion on the content:

1) I signed up for the money saving e-mail many moons ago, and I read it every week. I don't need the top bit and I have never clicked through on that section.
2) I like the latest MSE news and I click through a lot on that particular subsection
3) If I want deals and vouchers I'd always click on the header in the main menu. I don't use that subsection either
4) I do like Martin's blog and I do click through on that section often
5) Ones not to miss, I never click through on
6) Twitter feed is most redundant. If I wanted to read tweets I'd log into twitter
7) Same for free tools and currency rates, never used, nor do I click through on fun stuff & the site

Now that I look at in depth, I'd put forward the idea that MSE News completely replaces the real estate that is currently taken up by the Main site links that are auto generated at the top. I think you are wasting a lot of potential space with the "IMPORTANT! THIS IS A MONEYSAVINGEXPERT'S OPEN FORUM" box. Why on almost every page are there two boxes for signing up to the weekly e-mail in the first portion of the initial visible screen that every user see's on every page of the forum? In my opinion, it makes the site look cluttered and too busy.

I decided to mock up what it would look like if some of that was removed:

What the forum display would look like: http://i.imgur.com/HJXsN.png
What the top of any thread would look like: http://i.imgur.com/8eOJM.png
What a series of average sized posts would read like: http://i.imgur.com/TnrpO.png

In my opinion, this looks a lot cleaner. I'm sure it would satiate and benefit users who are logged in to be able to turn these columns off. By all means leave them on for people who are not logged in.

All that aside, this IS a free site, those people who are moaning about the functionality they are getting on a free site which has (at least in my case) saved me hundreds of pounds really have to look at how entitled they think they should be for them to moan at a completely free of charge, ad free website, and undoubtedly one of the best resources on the internet which exists purely for the reason of helping you.