Does It have the Look

[abvolt]

Sorry but looks are one of the first things people notice when visiting a website and this one needs a lot of work, The look and feel of a board can make it work this one needs skins, Themes how will this be addressed.

 

[Jethro]

Oh sooooo so true! And not all of them ask - some of them just give up and go away.

One of the adages of held by software houses is you don't have to worry about clients who ask questions, you have to worry about the ones who don't. I often wonder how many people sign up for a forum, get confused by all the options, and never bother posting. I believe Xen will see an increase in activity at quite a few sites by it's share ease of use.

 

[Lawrence]

One of the adages of held by software houses is you don't have to worry about clients who ask questions, you have to worry about the ones who don't. I often wonder how many people sign up for a forum, get confused by all the options, and never bother posting. I believe Xen will see an increase in activity at quite a few sites by it's share ease of use.

More than most realize. I was always under the impression that in today's day and age, a forum would not be difficult to learn, that everyone at one time or another was a member of one. But I ran in to people of varying ages (including a few 20 year old's), who never used (or been) to a forum before, and found my site difficult to learn. I was pretty shocked to say the least. XenForo will change that.

Look at the UI, for example: easy to navigate, and more in line with today's users expectations.

 

[anotheralias]

It's been years now and in spite of actual visual diagrams, I still have people who don't understand multiquote. One of them calls it multibitch.

(Really? We can't say *****? But it's allowed on prime time TV!) Well ok then, let me just clarify that I did not use a severely bad word there, in spite of what the asterisks imply.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

But I ran in to people of varying ages (including a few 20 year old's), who never used (or been) to a forum before

Yer... I still find them. Just had two recently over the last week who had never used an online forum before and had to point them to the instructional FAQ's specifically outlining what a forum is, parts of the site, etc... so they got the basics on layout, structure and use. Everyone learns somewhere, and I find more and more who have ignored the web are learning they have to just dive in at some point, because its slowly creeping into all our homes to the point of full control via the web.

 

[Grover]

Facebook actually has not a very good UI in several areas in my opinion.

When he says several, he actually means all.

Can you give some examples? I think that for most users, Facebook has an excellent UI.

Uhm... not now , but I will come back to this (provide examples) when I have more time on my hands. Obviously one can not compare FB to XF, but if I -as an experienced web-user with a clear eye on user interfaces- find myself asking questions how to do things or intuitively expecting something when it isn't there... something is not right. Okay, incomparable... but I haven't come across this situation in XenForo once, whereas with Facebook...

Maybe it sounds remarkable to a lot of people, but I really think that FB's UI is certainly not excellent. It is good, with lots of room for improvements.

Maybe this FB talk should be split into another topic into the 'Offtopic' section... but anyway:

Here is a first example of the user unfriendliness of Facebook's UI:

Example 1

- You want to post something to someone's wall. You write your text and press [Share]. But then...



Fine .

Wouldn't it be more userfriendly to present the enduser with a little counter so we can actually see beforehand how much characters are allowed and left for us to use when typing it in? This message only tells us that our already constructed message can not be longer then 1.000 characters. How is the enduser supposed to know which part of his/her message need to be cut now to be within that limit? You have no clue where the 1.000 st character is positioned, you have to find this out -afterwards- manually! (Making you lose a portion (and you don't even know what portion, because there is no indicator) of your text you typed in enthusiastically... is frustrating. If you would be aware of the counter during writing it, you can adopt/carefully construct your message the moment you are supposed to do it...)

This is one of the plenty examples of where I find the UI/UX really not excellent at all. On the contrary. More examples to come...

 

[dutchbb]

This is one of the plenty examples of where I find the UI/UX really not excellent at all. On the contrary. More examples to come...

I also prefer a counter below most editors.

Another problem: recently they changed the way you can edit your profile. It could be me, but it's no longer possible for me to remove books or movies that I once liked but feel differently about now. You can drag them to 'see more', but they stay visible forever. Makes no sense whatsoever.

 

[Kier]

Actually, I disagree with you there, Grover.

Stating that there is a 1,000 character limit on the main UI would needlessly clutter it up. Most people will never hit 1,000 characters with a wall post. Further, when they alert appears, your message remains in place so you have really lost nothing.

 

[Grover]

Actually, I disagree with you there, Grover.

Yes, how unbelievable as it might seem.... it is possible in this world, that people do disagree with my often deep wise insights in UI's. Without kidding, it is interesting for me to see you (with your background as the developer of the really excellent XenForo UI/UX - and the vBulletin 3.8 forum product not to forget) believe Facebook's UI is excellent for most people. For me it's so obvious that it isn't (in several areas). It may work, it may be good overall, but there is much room for improvement to reach the level of 'excellence'.

Stating that there is a 1,000 character limit on the main UI would needlessly clutter it up. Most people will never hit 1,000 characters with a wall post. Further, when they alert appears, your message remains in place so you have really lost nothing.

I fail to see myself why a tiny little counter is cluttering things up? Little touches like these make a software product so much more user friendly: I explained the frustration that it can give above. Maybe the majority of people will not hit the 1.000 char limit, but it happened to me quite often. Still if the majority of a multi-million platform doesn't hit it... there could still be a huge amount (hence the millions of users) of people who are actually confronted with it.

Also, the point I made had not much to do with 'loosing' (in the form of being it deleted by the software) anything. What I meant by...

(Making you lose a portion (and you don't even know what portion, because there is no indicator) of your text you typed in enthusiastically... is frustrating. If you would be aware of the counter during writing it, you can adopt/carefully construct your message the moment you are supposed to do it...)

... is just that. If you -unknowingly!- hit this 1.000 limit after you have constructed your message, you have to get rid of (loose) a portion (and you don't even know what portion... because... there-is-no-indicator!) of the message that is too long. How this is user-friendly is beyond me...

More examples to come in due time . It always surprised me that Facebook (being a multi-million user platform) has the UI it has. It could be so much better, really. Should I give Scott a call?

 

[Kier]

It's all about optimising for the common case. Facebook serves terrabytes of data to millions of users every day, so including something even as minor as javascript code to count characters in a message would involve vast increases in the amount of data they move. As the majority of users' posts will come nowhere near the 1,000 character limit, it's a needless thing to add.

Obviously you personally are affected frequently, because you have a demonstrable habit of posting vast messages

 

[Grover]

It's all about optimising for the common case. Facebook serves terrabytes of data to millions of users every day, so including something even as minor as javascript code to count characters in a message would involve vast increases in the amount of data they move. As the majority of users' posts will come nowhere near the 1,000 character limit, it's a needless thing to add.

Yes, that is a good argument and I can follow that. Obviously I very much tend to look at the UI/UX from an enduser perspective and I have no knowledge whatsoever about the technical backend reasons. When you count (what's in a word) out the technical reasons, a simple counter would still be a welcome user friendly touch to the software IMHO.

Obviously you personally are affected frequently, because you have a demonstrable habit of posting vast messages

Somehow, I expected a remark like that, haha! . I was about to say something about it myself, but you've beaten me now.

Still, my track-record also tells you I won't give up easily , so... expect (oh dear God) more examples to follow...

 

[Floris]

Grover, you're free not to give up, Just remember that potential customer feedback is just that, it's feedback, suggestions, and recommendations. And instead of pleasing every customer a company reads it all, takes it under consideration and makes a decision what they believe is in the best interest of the company, as well as the customer. Within the limits of the current version, architecture, internal policies, common sense, and all those variables.

There might even be instances where you and kier agree on something, but kier might still have to decide against it - maybe because it's on a todo list for 3.5 or 6.0 - or maybe because there are other factors playing against it.

Convincing someone to do what you want, is no longer feedback - and is probably ignored, as it doesn't help progress.

So please remember to not try and convince them that they HAVE to do it, but just give the feedback the best you can. Together with yours, and that of others, it is their decision. People can't always explain why it won't make it in. Various factors come to play.

 

[Dean]

... is just that. If you -unknowingly!- hit this 1.000 limit after you have constructed your message

How often are you going to it that limit? In theory hitting it once should teach people there is a limit and people should adjust their habits accordingly. I sort of understand a counter for small messages (140?), but they really are quite annoying.

You could do case studies, but what % do you think hit that limit multiple times? A counter makes no sense to me and really would not want that.

 

[HydraulicJack]

IB's role is depositing ad cheques.

imho ad checks are chump change... They made their real money in 2009 when after acquiring a healthy vB IB's share price went from around $4 per share to over $7 per share (not saying that acquiring vB was the only reason - but it didn't hurt). Pretty sweet money for the suits on the top floor.
Throw in a surge in cash in the Q4/2009 by claiming they had a Gold vb4, made their year-end balance sheet look pretty good. Is there still any functional definition of fraud in high finance?

At that point I'd told my wife it was looking like another pump and dump scenario by a big corp.

Then just 3 quarters later they announced they'd been bought by a private company (more kaCHING)...
Now all of their financial data becomes private... virtually no disclosure necessary.
Textbook pump-and-dump all the way, imho.
I'll be very surprised if vB as a product ever really gets its act together again.
[/rant]

 

[Grover]

Grover, you're free not to give up, Just remember that potential customer feedback is just that, it's feedback, suggestions, and recommendations. And instead of pleasing every customer a company reads it all, takes it under consideration and makes a decision what they believe is in the best interest of the company, as well as the customer. Within the limits of the current version, architecture, internal policies, common sense, and all those variables.

There might even be instances where you and kier agree on something, but kier might still have to decide against it - maybe because it's on a todo list for 3.5 or 6.0 - or maybe because there are other factors playing against it.

Convincing someone to do what you want, is no longer feedback - and is probably ignored, as it doesn't help progress.

So please remember to not try and convince them that they HAVE to do it, but just give the feedback the best you can. Together with yours, and that of others, it is their decision. People can't always explain why it won't make it in. Various factors come to play.

It sometimes quite amazes me that people take my tongue-in-cheek remarks so seriously (even if it comes with tons of smilies), I have to say. In this case I am not even talking about XenForo, I am talking about the UI of Facebook . Not sure what that has got to do with XenForo? Although you mean well obviously with your comments, I think what you are explaining here must be common sense to every adult community member, including myself. Also, in my book there is actually nothing wrong with sharing our convincing arguments/feedback to the developers of XenForo. I think when you look at the majority of my suggestions I mostly explain why I think something can be improved and provide constructive arguments along with it. It is perfectly possible when you do it in a constructive manner to convince someone of your ideas/vision in the hope it results in an improvement in the software. Not sure how you get the impression they HAVE to do something; it's up to K&M, not us, but that is an open door really. I'd like to be convinced by my own staff teammembers for example of their ideas! I for one am really happy that there are many community members / potential customers over here that have the drive to keep spending their free time and energy putting out their constructive and convincing suggestions to XenForo Ltd. I am aware you think sometimes different about endless customers discussions concerning feature/design-improvements, but I try to respect that. If it wasn't for a lot of those continues long lively discussions, we might never have seen the great improvements to the mini-me, moving [report] to the left, making thread preview popup on top (instead of bottom) of the title etc, etc, etc...

Have a nice day ,

 

[feldon30]

Grover,

Put me in the camp of people who find arbitrary unannounced character length limits irritating. And it doesn't take any additional server-side code to count the number of characters in a text box. It's like 2 lines of JS.

 

[Paul B]

Put me in the camp of people who find arbitrary unannounced character length limits irritating.

Don't try and write a profile post over 420 characters then...

 

[dutchbb]

How often are you going to it that limit? In theory hitting it once should teach people there is a limit and people should adjust their habits accordingly. I sort of understand a counter for small messages (140?), but they really are quite annoying.

Solution: only start to show a counter when someone reaches like 800-900 chars from 1000. That way you have the best of two worlds: no annoying counter at low chars, but still a warning before people start to type for nothing.

 

[Paul B]

Solution: only start to show a counter when someone reaches like 800-900 chars from 1000. That way you have the best of two worlds: no annoying counter at low chars, but still a warning before people start to type for nothing.

The code would still have to be sniffing for the trigger point so in terms of overhead there would be no saving.

 

[dutchbb]

The code would still have to be sniffing for the trigger point so in terms of overhead there would be no saving.

I know. And I can't really tell if the cost-benefit ratio allows for this feature. You would think that a relatively large group of Facebook developers would have already thought about that. But maybe I'm wrong.

 

[Deleted member 2163]

I know. And I can't really tell if the cost-benefit ratio allows for this feature. You would think that a relatively large group of Facebook developers would have already thought about that. But maybe I'm wrong.

When you have an unlimited budget, you don't have to think about such problems. Just add more servers and problem solved.