Please Don't Get Carried Away

[Ryan]

It's been about 2 weeks now. Things are moving rapidly and shaping up very nicely here. I had a concern early on and that concern still lingers. There have been many cases where I've seen a new feature implemented that looks cool and is flashy, but it interferes with my use of the forums.

Examples

- Multi-Quote
That feature, to me, is for single-quoting, and nothing more. It's fine when quoting one person, but it is not realistic as a multi-quote feature. It's annoying to have to scroll up and down and up and down and up and down to quote multiple people.

- The confirmation dialog on "Mark all forums read"
It's just unnecessary. I know why it was put there - and that's because people were accidentally clicking on the link (myself included) when it was first in the sub-navigation. Problem is, you fixed this accidental clicking by moving the link - you don't need to add a confirmation on top of that.

- The "mini me" avater to indicate you've posted in a thread
When you shrink an avatar down that small and then put it on top of another avatar, it looks like a mess. It's hard to pick out when scanning an entire page, defeating the purpose of the indicator. Also, when you shrink an avatar down that small, it's hard to even tell what it is a picture of. The fact that it's your avatar is a moot point by the time you lean in close to the screen to squint at it. A simple icon is all that is needed there.

- The "bouncy" effect used when zooming to quotes or resizing images
When you click the up arrow in a quote, you're shot up to the original post. When you get to the top, the screen bounces back and forth real quick. It looks cool the first few times, but it gets annoying fast. The same is true for the animation effect when you click on an image that's been resized. Unnecessary animations make me cringe.

- The floating description when you hover over a subforum
The description should just be fixed underneath the title


Now, before you start throwing stones at me...Kier and Mike are doing a lot of things correctly here. There are a lot of flashy features here that I love (member card popups, thrread page number scrolling effect, quick nav in the footer, alerts...). They're being very innovative and cutting-edge. Most times, they're hitting the target, but a lot of times they are not. I understand that in order to be innovative, you've got to be radical. When you are radical, you're going to try stuff that doesn't work, and maybe that's what they're doing.

Not here to argue individual features (there is a separate thread for every one of these). I'm more here to point out this basic trend that I've noticed that features are being add that look cool and hip but aren't very practical. I don't want XF to get bloated with animations, popups, etc. Part of what is so appealing to me about XF is how sleak everything is.

Am I alone?

 

[Ryan]

That's not entirely my decision, as Mike disagrees with me on this point.

Yeah, but you hit harder, right?

 

[Grover]

I had a concern early on and that concern still lingers. There have been many cases where I've seen a new feature implemented that looks cool and is flashy, but it interferes with my use of the forums.

Examples
- The "mini me" avater to indicate you've posted in a thread
When you shrink an avatar down that small and then put it on top of another avatar, it looks like a mess. It's hard to pick out when scanning an entire page, defeating the purpose of the indicator. Also, when you shrink an avatar down that small, it's hard to even tell what it is a picture of. The fact that it's your avatar is a moot point by the time you lean in close to the screen to squint at it. A simple icon is all that is needed there.

- The floating description when you hover over a subforum
The description should just be fixed underneath the title
I'm more here to point out this basic trend that I've noticed that features are being add that look cool and hip but aren't very practical. I don't want XF to get bloated with animations, popups, etc. Part of what is so appealing to me about XF is how sleak everything is.
Am I alone?

Nope, you are not alone: I fully understand you and agree with the points I quoted above. Those are the 2 obvious instances where I feel that design stands a bit in the way of usability.

But you see, the beauty of this place is that even if our remarks may get sometimes a little bit on the nerves of our beloved fellow potential customers and staff, the developers listen to our opinion. The mini-avatar is now under reconsideration I believe (it has been removed for the time being) (I fully agree with your remarks on that one and I am sure more of my members will) and the floating description is a very easy template change according to Kier.

I noticed that when someone makes a remark of the design getting in the way of the usability, it somehow is sometimes welcomed with a fair amount of resistance by the community. Why? Ryan is only pointing out what is actually happening in some (although very few: I only see it in the ones I quoted) areas, and sometimes it seems that people are somewhat sensitive when it comes to these points. They are just valid points, made to start an open friendly discussion about it, so the developers together with the community can collect feedback and the best decision can be made, that suits most boards the best.

I mean, it's obvious that XenForo has the best UI on a forumproduct available in today's forummarket. But there is always room to improve even that.

I can not wait for it to become Gold!

 

[darkon]

So you have to decide on this issue like real man.... pillow fight!!

I like the "mark all forums read"-link at the top of the board and i prefer to be asked when i´m doing something "dangerous". It´s just to easy to accidently click on the wrong link.

 

[Wired]

It's all in the templates. A styler can fundamentally change both how XenForo looks and operates.

Cannot wait to see more on this. When's a more detailed example due to be shown?

As for the whole thread topic: Relax and have faith that Kier and Mike will do their best. As long as the forum doesn't blow up, we'll all be happy.

 

[Sador]

The point was not that you would be able to pick out details in the tiny avatar image, it was simply a visual cue that had the following benefits:

1) Nobody would be able to doctor their avatar to overlay your avatar in such a way as to fool you into thinking you had posted in a thread (for whatever reason they might want to do so)

2) As it was your avatar, you would recognise the rough colour tones and shapes of your own image - but being able to pick out details was never a goal.

3) It was designed to be unobtrusive - whether or not you have posted in a thread is of tertiary importance compared to other indicators, and the presence of the little avatar was intended to make the thread starter avatar area look just different enough that you could see at a glance when scanning down the list which threads you had posted in.

I believe that the mini avatar achieved all these goals.

Exactly.

 

[mrGTB]

What happened to my post that Kier replied too?

Something odd happened then, the thread title was called (-Null) and when clicked it didn't work, then when I refreshed the page the original thread title was displayed in it's place and my post is gone.

 

[erich37]

As for the whole thread topic: Relax and have faith that Kier and Mike will do their best. As long as the forum doesn't blow up, we'll all be happy.

agree !
We should be relaxed and happy that this software-project even exists.

 

[Vilandra]

For what's it's worth (very little) I don't see anything wrong with the avatar-in-an-avatar look - you could tell that a square in a square meant you posted in that thread. I just think it should be consistent across all of your posts - even for threads you start

 

[Kier]

What happened to my post that Kier replied too?

Something odd happened then, the thread title was called (-Null) and when clicked it didn't work, then when I refreshed the page the original thread title was displayed in it's place and my post is gone.

Bug in inline moderation. I'm working on it.

 

[Kier]

Bug in inline moderation. I'm working on it.

Unrecoverable I'm afraid. Feel free to re-post what you said.
/me must not merge posts into redirect threads

This was my response to your post at any rate:

-------------

The point was not that you would be able to pick out details in the tiny avatar image, it was simply a visual cue that had the following benefits:

1) Nobody would be able to doctor their avatar to overlay your avatar in such a way as to fool you into thinking you had posted in a thread (for whatever reason they might want to do so)

2) As it was your avatar, you would recognise the rough colour tones and shapes of your own image - but being able to pick out details was never a goal.

3) It was designed to be unobtrusive - whether or not you have posted in a thread is of tertiary importance compared to other indicators, and the presence of the little avatar was intended to make the thread starter avatar area look just different enough that you could see at a glance when scanning down the list which threads you had posted in.

I believe that the mini avatar achieved all these goals.

 

[mrGTB]

Na, it's OK. Just wondered what happened then? As probably only I saw that -Null thread title in topic view, then refreshed the page and saw the correct thread title displayed again. Then saw my post gone next, but another person had already quoted your reply to me fast. So knew I wasn't imagining things.

Glad to help you spot a bug.

 

[Kier]

I wanted to move the posts where we discussed the mini-avatar thing out into the other thread that was discussing them, so i moved those posts out into a new thread, which I called _null.

Then, i selected _null and the posted-in-indicator thread and merged them, but the posted-in-indicator thread had actually been moved into the implemented suggestions forum, and the item i selected was actually its redirect thread.

The posts were then merged into the redirect thread, which of course would not display them. I edited the thread type in the db back to 'thread' from 'redirect' and the posts appeared.

I then went to merge the newly visible thread with the real posted-in-indicator thread, but when the merge took place, the system got confused that I wanted to merge a thread with what was registered to be a redirect to itself... and it went mental and deleted all its contents.

 

[Paul B]

and it went mental and deleted all its contents.

I actually LOLed at that.

It sounds like something I would say when trying to explain a technical problem.

 

[Peggy]

I wanted to move the posts where we discussed the mini-avatar thing out into the other thread that was discussing them, so i moved those posts out into a new thread, which I called _null.

Then, i selected _null and the posted-in-indicator thread and merged them, but the posted-in-indicator thread had actually been moved into the implemented suggestions forum, and the item i selected was actually its redirect thread.

The posts were then merged into the redirect thread, which of course would not display them. I edited the thread type in the db back to 'thread' from 'redirect' and the posts appeared.

I then went to merge the newly visible thread with the real posted-in-indicator thread, but when the merge took place, the system got confused that I wanted to merge a thread with what was registered to be a redirect to itself... and it went mental and deleted all its contents.

 

[anotheralias]

I'm seeing a tendency to request more and more "fluff", rather than functional options that would put the software at the top of the list. I suspect this is being done because many want to see the forum software more as a social networking deal like Facebook. As I'm one of those rare individuals who despise Facebook, requesting features of that type is an immediate turn off for me.

I despise Facebook as well, and I also hope they resist adding a lot of the fluff. Either that or offer the software in two flavors - streamlined and bells-and-whistles. Additionally, a lot of small-site owners would probably be more quick to buy their own forum software if they weren't taking on a complicated gigantic beast of an admin panel. (I never understood why any software is aimed strictly at the giant boards - it's the same price no matter who uses it, right?)

 

[welshstew]

The point was not that you would be able to pick out details in the tiny avatar image, it was simply a visual cue that had the following benefits:

1) Nobody would be able to doctor their avatar to overlay your avatar in such a way as to fool you into thinking you had posted in a thread (for whatever reason they might want to do so)

2) As it was your avatar, you would recognise the rough colour tones and shapes of your own image - but being able to pick out details was never a goal.

3) It was designed to be unobtrusive - whether or not you have posted in a thread is of tertiary importance compared to other indicators, and the presence of the little avatar was intended to make the thread starter avatar area look just different enough that you could see at a glance when scanning down the list which threads you had posted in.

I believe that the mini avatar achieved all these goals.

Agree, and I think I will be putting them back if I buy the software

 

[Kier]

Agree, and I think I will be putting them back if I buy the software

I did a little extra styling on them last night, and I think they look a whole lot better now. I'll put them back on this board when things are a little less busy and I can deal with the feedback.

 

[Anthony Parsons]

Quite honestly I am voting with those who think Kier and Mike should spend less time worrying about every nit picking addition users want, and just get a stable beta built with the features you believe it needs, then worry about add-ons. There is no possible way to please every user nor request, and this is exactly where others have gone wrong. Listening to a customer is everything, but customers are not always right, rarely actually.

 

[Been Told]

1) Nobody would be able to doctor their avatar to overlay your avatar in such a way as to fool you into thinking you had posted in a thread (for whatever reason they might want to do so)

No offense to anyone, but I think worrying about people "fooling" other people with an avatar like that is slightly paranoid.
If anyone in any of my forums decided to do that (which I can't see happening) I would just remove that avatar, tell them off and be done with it. That sort of stunt doesn't win anyone any friends or admiration. I seriously doubt anyone will actually do that.
To me that mini avatar thing is very original, very intuitive - you know instantly what it means. And to me, that is what xenForo is all about.

 

[welshstew]

I did a little extra styling on them last night, and I think they look a whole lot better now. I'll put them back on this board when things are a little less busy and I can deal with the feedback.

Schweet!