Several things regarding the new forum...

[Phrozt]

There are quite a few things I noticed when I came to the new forums... and not all of them are good.

Negatives...

■ -Navigation is more difficult without page numbers under the post
■ -The "no new posts icon" with it's white x in red square looks more like a locked topic than something with no new posts... it definitely throws the reader off unless you look at the tooltip for it or scroll all the way to the bottom of the page...
■ -Link styles are difficult to read. Now that everything is cartoony and big, the link styles for navigation (specifically the breadcrumb navigation at the top of the page) is very unintuitive, because the links are the same style as the text... which makes it harder to pick out from the rest of the jumble that is going on.
■ -Furthermore, the link styles of the secondary forums basically HIDE the secondary forums because they are so hard to pick out from the page due to how busy the rest of the layout is. Unless you were looking for them, you would completely miss them. Keep this in mind when thinking about new users.
■ -Because of the space you reserve for the advertisement, the ENTIRE layout of the forum is lopsided... this is just poor design.
■ -There seems to be some spacing/padding issues. This is indicative of a brand new design that still has some bugs to work out. Hopefully you guys can polish these out
■ -It appears that the bulleted list does not work...


Neither good nor bad:
■ -I miss the post counts.. but it's not a linchpin by any means.


Now... for some positive notes...
■ -I like how the broad category of forums are split out. When going to the main /forum/ link, I no longer have to click on "Hardware" before I can pick my forum. This is a nice navigation plus.
■ -Increased functionality in other areas. It's obvious from the toolbars on the new thread/post page that there's a lot of new stuff you can do! That color bar is pretty cool (not that I'll use it.. but it's cool).
■ -New look. While the old look was MMMMMUUUUUUUUUUUUCCCHHH improved over the first THG boards, this one is nice as well. I think with a bit of polishing, it could look really sharp, and it definitely looks more a part of your flagship site, as opposed to the "Here's our site... here's our forums" look.
■ -The increased Ajax functionality is very nice.


If you'd like some more feedback, I'd be happy to help.

My references:
- I do this stuff to put food on the table and a roof over my head.


EDIT: I have no clue why this was posted in video feedback.. I clicked the "Please post feedback and comments in Website Opinions" link at the top to get here...

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Thank you for your feedback. Some issues you mentioned will be addressed as soon as we get to them.

 

[badge]

No New Posts section? Where is my Control Panel? Space exploration would have never happened if it was as non-coherent as navigating the new board. Summing up the format in a word...Lost. The guy who devised this format needs a little lesson it K.I.S.S. I find it incredible you guys managed to do this. IMHO? well...outrageously inefficient is an understatement. The improvements I see.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Each master category lists all new posts from each sub category, as well as a visual icon.

 

[joce]

No New Posts section? Where is my Control Panel? Space exploration would have never happened if it was as non-coherent as navigating the new board. Summing up the format in a word...Lost. The guy who devised this format needs a little lesson it K.I.S.P. I find it incredible you guys managed to do this. IMHO? well...outrageously inefficient is an understatement. The improvements I see.

Take a look at the tabs at the top left of the forum table, either at forum root, or inside a section
All the flags are quite usefull to find new posts (blue and red flags differenciates topics you've participated in), and in the tab with the hammer, you can get also the new topics.
(note the flags status has been reset with the migration so it will be updated while posting/reading topics)

 

[GSTe]

What was wrong with the word 'quote' instead of a tiny icon?

'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' applies here

 

[badge]

Flags? Sorry, I must be stupid, but I do not see any flags? I want to see a link for all New Posts. I normally hang there and try and anser questions, especially if I own or have experience with the product in question.

http://www.tomshardware.com /forum/forum-28.html

 

[joce]

Click on the red/blue flags to see the list of topics containing a new answer since your last read.

However in your case, I assume you want to see all the new topics.
So, in the hammer tab, click first on 'Mark all as "old"', and then each new topics since your last 'mark all as "old"' will be listed through the "New topics" link.

Note the 'mark all as "old"' could be automated in specifying a period inside your profile.

 

[badge]

The 'hammar' icon works for me. I can watch 'new topic' from there.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

"Note the 'mark all as "old"' could be automated in specifying a period inside your profile."

You can adjust the time-out length for topics to be reported as "old". This will do the same thing.

 

[lourson]

Hi ! Thanks for all your feedbacks, we're going to take them very seriously and (try) to improve things as soon as possible

■ -The "no new posts icon" with it's white x in red square looks more like a locked topic than something with no new posts... it definitely throws the reader off unless you look at the tooltip for it or scroll all the way to the bottom of the page...

There are still some usability problems with icons, we're going to look at them to improve that.

■ -Link styles are difficult to read. Now that everything is cartoony and big, the link styles for navigation (specifically the breadcrumb navigation at the top of the page) is very unintuitive, because the links are the same style as the text... which makes it harder to pick out from the rest of the jumble that is going on.

This is a bug and should be resolved soon.

■ -Furthermore, the link styles of the secondary forums basically HIDE the secondary forums because they are so hard to pick out from the page due to how busy the rest of the layout is. Unless you were looking for them, you would completely miss them. Keep this in mind when thinking about new users.

I don't understand ?

■ -Because of the space you reserve for the advertisement, the ENTIRE layout of the forum is lopsided... this is just poor design.

Most of the ads are removed for logged in users from now.

■ -It appears that the bulleted list does not work...

Bug spotted !

Neither good nor bad:
■ -I miss the post counts.. but it's not a linchpin by any means.

Can you give me more clues about what you're missing please ?

If you'd like some more feedback, I'd be happy to help.

My references:
- I do this stuff to put food on the table and a roof over my head.

Thank you very much !

EDIT: I have no clue why this was posted in video feedback.. I clicked the "Please post feedback and comments in Website Opinions" link at the top to get here...

Bug spotted

 

[Phrozt]

Ok.. let me try to give you a better diagram of what I'm referring to as part of useability and user viewing (sorry for using MSpaint, I don't have photoshop on my work comp):

Now.. in colors, I've highlighted what my eyes see first.
1 - Black - Main topics. That's what I want.. that's what I look for.. and they are readily displayed
2 - Red - First/last posters. I often look for someone's reply to whom I previously posed a question. These are also very easily displayed
3 - Yellow - The callout. I don't generally look at the top of the page, but I noticed that there is something new there, so my eye catches it
4 - Orange - Graphical buttons catch my eye next as something interesting on the page that is not text
5 - blue - The page numbers catch my eye because they are between two differently colored objects (grey in the middle of 2 red bars).

Now.. notice how I did NOT highlight the breadcrumbs (The "FORUM Tom's Hardware » CPU..." you already addressed this), nor did I highlight the secondary boards ( CPUs | Power Supplies, PC Cases & Case Mods | Sound Cards | Network Interface Cards | Other Components).

From a user viewing standpoint, neither of these stick out readily. Like I said, you addressed the breadcrumbs issue, but you were confused on the secondary boards remark. Basically.. those important links to other FULL boards are hidden, because they get swept up as a simple part of the page style (centered text as part of a repeated red bar... nothing special). In the old system, there was a separate box, as well as post icons for new/old posts by each board name. This drew attention to those boards and made me realize that, hey... there are other forums w/in this forum!

For the other points:
- I've tried a few other formatting tags that do not work (bold).
- By post count I meant a count of all the posts that a user has posted. Like I said though, not really important.

EDIT: lol.. looks like me posting a pic highlighted another possible problem :/

 

[welshtrog]

Not too keen on this "NEW" forum, or the main Page the print is too small for us older guys. should have the ability to enlarge the print= see Annand tech, they do it fine. also it only fills part of the screen which does not help either, had trouble finding my way to this spot as well.
I know that setting up a New site gives problems but think of others that are not as gifted as you.

 

[speedbird]

I'll be honest I don't like this new forum design. What was wrong with the other forum format? The old type was far superior because it was easier on the eyes and navigation was simpler.

 

[Phrozt]

I'll be honest I don't like this new forum design. What was wrong with the other forum format? The old type was far superior because it was easier on the eyes and navigation was simpler.

I'm guessing that part of it was a speed/stability issue. Those old forums were having some severe reliability issues (course I guess that could be because they were implementing these new boards...)

Personally, I would have gone w/vBulletin, but there are a lot of nice things on this board that are similar to vBulletin. I'm just hoping THG didn't go w/this board because it's free or something (I haven't checked the licensing of this board package though, so I wouldn't know...).


EDIT: and, like I said in my first post, it's nice that they went from the, "Here's our main site... here's our forum" look to a streamline, "this is our site template" look. It's more professional.

 

[lourson]

Thanks Phrozt for your detailed feedback.
Actually this page lacks at least :
- Good breadcrumbs
- Big page title

The subcategories are indeed not very well displayed, we don't have a fix in progress though on that point.

 

[CompTIA_Rep]

Phrozt: This board is designed just for us which is why there are a few things to iron out.

 

[Phrozt]

Also.. something to people who are just ripping on the site...

Like I said in my first post... because of padding/spacing/display, it's obvious that this is a very new rollout of a CSS style. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised if you see more styles available after this one is finalized. Because it's new, I think you should all reserve judgment until it IS finalized. The fortunate thing is that the designers are obviously very closely monitoring the new forum and are responding to people's suggestions.

Personally, I would have tested the view on a specific group of people (i.e. "Try our Beta Boards") rather than dropping it on a very highly trafficked quasi-professional community (this isn't a gaming forum, it's a hardware/news forum), but the fact remains that it is here now, and if you want improvements, now is your chance to voice your preferences.

 

[Phrozt]

Hmm... possible bug.. it seems that every one of my posts are rated 5/5 stars as soon as they are posted...

You might look in the DB and check the post ID.. if it's my ID that is voting for my posts, then perhaps there's some issue with that...

EDIT: I posted another post to verify this.. and it *does* appear to happen to all of my posts. I know I'm great, but I don't think I should be great by default :/.

Double edit: the fact that you actually have a smiley for :/ makes this the best board in existence, because I haven't found that on any other board.

 

[joce]

Hmm... possible bug.. it seems that every one of my posts are rated 5/5 stars as soon as they are posted...

You might look in the DB and check the post ID.. if it's my ID that is voting for my posts, then perhaps there's some issue with that...

EDIT: I posted another post to verify this.. and it *does* appear to happen to all of my posts. I know I'm great, but I don't think I should be great by default :/.

Double edit: the fact that you actually have a smiley for :/ makes this the best board in existence, because I haven't found that on any other board.

Actually it's not the post which is rated but your participations globally

 

[Phrozt]

Oh... hmm... that's interesting.

While that's nice (kind of a reputation system I guess), perhaps it would be beneficial to include a per post rating system as well? Sometimes when I skim through long threads, I'll pay special attention to posts that actually have a good rating from several people.

 

[Landi]

I'm guessing that part of it was a speed/stability issue. Those old forums were having some severe reliability issues (course I guess that could be because they were implementing these new boards...)

Personally, I would have gone w/vBulletin, but there are a lot of nice things on this board that are similar to vBulletin. I'm just hoping THG didn't go w/this board because it's free or something (I haven't checked the licensing of this board package though, so I wouldn't know...).


EDIT: and, like I said in my first post, it's nice that they went from the, "Here's our main site... here's our forum" look to a streamline, "this is our site template" look. It's more professional.

Hi
THG has chosen MyDiscussions.net, a french board which is now 100% translated in english : http://www.mydiscussions.net
MyDiscussi ons is used by big french boards and is well known in the french community : the 3 biggest french boards use it.
Hope you'll learn how to use it, it's true that it has features which work differently from vBulletin/phpbb.

 

[Phrozt]

Hi
THG has chosen MyDiscussions.net, a french board which is now 100% translated in english : http://www.mydiscussions.net
MyDiscussi ons is used by big french boards and is well known in the french community : the 3 biggest french boards use it.
Hope you'll learn how to use it, it's true that it has features which work differently from vBulletin/phpbb.

Heh.. I noticed that it was a different language... there were a few tags that were still french (Profile was spelled "Profil")

That's interesting. I haven't heard of them before. I'm glad it moved from phpBB though, because even though the board system is evolving, there are soooo many better options out there (like vBull). I have noticed quite a few similarities between this system and vBull though.

I'm sure people will learn to use it.. but making things a bit more like the old boards will help all of these old people who don't like change. Depending on how involved these moderators/suggestion takers can get involved w/the code, it can be very easy to add some of the changes that people are used to seeing....

 

[joce]

Oh... hmm... that's interesting.

While that's nice (kind of a reputation system I guess), perhaps it would be beneficial to include a per post rating system as well? Sometimes when I skim through long threads, I'll pay special attention to posts that actually have a good rating from several people.

I agree, that's something I'm planning to add in a next release of the software

 

[GSTe]

Actually it's not the post which is rated but your participations globally

What, you mean how many posts you have made in total?