Customizable User Profiles

[Grover]

Well, well... 'coincidentally' (yes, it's speculation from my part), Internet Brands announced today (right after xenForo presented itself to the world) that Customizable User Profiles have returned to vBulletin. Yes... returned, because Internet Brands decided to completely delete this function from their first alpha release, which they appalingly labbeled 'Gold' at the end of 2009 and let customers pay a premium price for. Making vBulletin unusable for 8 months for people who were actively providing/using Customized Profiles on their vB platforms.

I was wondering: will xenForo provide something like this? I know from experience with the largest Dutch social network (Ning a-like) that a function like that will certainly attract visitors (mostly the younger ones). Personalization is in my view a high priority for any social platform out there.

See also additional notes here: http://xenforo.com/community/threads/suggestion-customizable-user-profiles.306/page-4#post-488173

Please do [like] this first posting if you think it is a good feature suggestion for XenForo

 

[Ingenious]

i guess the root of my annoyance is down to the fact that i feel like people are taking their role in the dynamics of my communities as granted, when its actually pretty unwelcome. i wish people, both k&m and the users here, would not use things like 'it may hurt feelings' or the like when discussing features. ive been doing this a long time, i am capable of admining my own users. i am here shopping for software, not advisement on how my communities should behave.

This is a good point. There is an awful lot of people dismissing features or suggestions because in their opinion it would not be useful. But it's up to community and site owners to decide this. For example, a dislike function might be negative to some, but in other contexts could be a useful feature (reviews, or publishing things for critique).

 

[Kier]

I personally think that profile customization is a good thing. I just can't promise that it will be available in XenForo 1.0.

 

[Peggy]

I personally think that profile customization is a good thing. I just can't promise that it will be available in XenForo 1.0.

I would hope that no one expects it in 1.0..

 

[Peggy]

This is a good point. There is an awful lot of people dismissing features or suggestions because in their opinion it would not be useful. But it's up to community and site owners to decide this. For example, a dislike function might be negative to some, but in other contexts could be a useful feature (reviews, or publishing things for critique).

It's not so much that people are "dismissing" the dislike feature, or any feature, for that matter. They're really just giving their opinion on a suggestion.
This is how stuff is built.

 

[Onimua]

I would hope that no one expects it in 1.0..

Well now that you said it, I want it in XenForo Beta 1.

 

[Brandon_R]

Recent studies have shown that users like a clean clear profile design than the ability to design the profile themselves.

 

[Shanj]

I absolutely love profile styling - colours - moving blocks about - disabling or enabling stuff.
One of my forums is younger user4s and I know they love it. It's a big reason I stayed with vb3.8.
I especially like draggable blocks and a demo graphic I can clicfk to change colours and see how it looks rather than BLOODY css.

 

[Markos]

I like draggable box, twitter background in profile etc. I don't like customization of colors, font, size etc. (it's a forum, not myspace!)

 

[Peggy]

I love customizable profiles, but having a profile search? How many people would actually use that?

 

[CBI Web]

I'm for customizable profiles, simply because there are users out there who want to customize their profiles. No one is forced to use it, so it's a "friendly" feature for both camps. Personally, I never customize, but if I ran my sites for myself, I wouldn't be running any sites.

 

[Forsaken]

Recent studies have shown that users like a clean clear profile design than the ability to design the profile themselves.

Links to these studies .

 

[David Thomas]

I like draggable box, twitter background in profile etc. I don't like customization of colors, font, size etc. (it's a forum, not myspace!)

Precisely. I wouldn't mind it if it were to be simple customizations, but some sites may have went out and spent hundreds of dollars on a custom skin, and don't want people ruining the experience with myspace-type customizations.

Here's two suggestions:

Three options in the admincp: Full customization, partial customization, disabled.

Another way is to have checkboxes in the admincp for admins to enable or disable certain customization settings. For example, I could allow my members to change the font and boxes colors, but not the background. Other site admins would enable backgrounds and box colors, but not font.

Hope you get the point.

 

[Shanj]

It's about OPTIONS - if any admins don't like this then they don't enable it.
For those of us who service younger or high creativity users it's vital.
I very much support David Thomas on this.

 

[anotheralias]

i guess the root of my annoyance is down to the fact that i feel like people are taking their role in the dynamics of my communities as granted, when its actually pretty unwelcome. i wish people, both k&m and the users here, would not use things like 'it may hurt feelings' or the like when discussing features. ive been doing this a long time, i am capable of admining my own users. i am here shopping for software, not advisement on how my communities should behave.

I take your point, and I would like to clarify that most of the time on here I'm just yammering on because it's fun. I don't actually expect anybody to base their board software decisions on my various halfassed theories of community dynamics.

Profile customization would be great, if the system is easier than vB's was. That one sounded great on paper, but there were just too many variables for someone who isn't a professional skin designer. People just wanted to choose a few colors, not design their profiles from the ground up.

 

[TrixieTang]

Profiles should be consistent, not customizable.

It's about OPTIONS - if any admins don't like this then they don't enable it.

This argument could be used for adding any feature. Too many options is a bad thing, not a good thing. And there are a lot of admins who don't want their members editing their profiles to look like the internet of the late '90s.

 

[Booth]

I'm all for profile customisation it was used a lot on my sites.

 

[Grover]

Profiles should be consistent, not customizable.

But this is making it a bit too black&white in my view. Yes, profiles should be consistent, I agree. And customizable. This is exactly the reason why I like Invision's implementation so much, as I've said:

Yes, I completely get your point. There has to be a good balance really, because I also wouldn't want to ruin the great XenForo look&feel, but at the same time I would like to give my members some options to personalize their profile.

I think the above example just look beautiful. Not only that, but they've found the perfect balance in my opinion between letting the user giving a personal touch to their profile and at the same time remain the usability of the profile. You see, all the input fields and other sections on the rest of the user profile UI are untouched, making the interface itself recognizable/looking and working the same on every single user profile. They allow what Facebook doesn't allow: a custom background (with a really nice transparent bar at the top apparently) and they disallow what makes sites such as Myspace horrendous to watch and use. Simply, a perfect balance that works really well. I hope XenForo can give us this.

I think I make very sound points.

 

[Sejper]

I think this could be an great feature and it if/when it comes it should be able to have an gallery of completed styles to choose from wich the admin can create.

 

[Caliburn]

My original position stands. If 'profile customization' makes it into XenForo at some point, then so be it. I just don't like the idea overall but it's not a deal breaker. Just remember to include an off switch somewhere in the AdminCP.

 

[Forsaken]

My original position stands. If 'profile customization' makes it into XenForo at some point, then so be it. I just don't like the idea overall but it's not a deal breaker. Just remember to include an off switch somewhere in the AdminCP.

People calling everything a deal breaker sounds like they're having a tantrum over features being added/not added.

If a single thing will stop you from using XenForo as a software... Then you really never had much interest in the software, and you're just complaining about not having your way.

I'm not singling you out, but its getting annoying to see posts like these consistently, so I picked one that wasn't actually whining ;p.