testing the new look and feel from non-logged in users

Very nice Paul! Is JForums the result of some enterprising folks from your JavaRanch site?

Everything I tried out while logged out worked fine. I like the new look, even the "plank" siding!

Bill Kearns
Ritzville

I noticed right away that in the recent posts list, there is no listing of the person who made the thread, or the person to last respond with an answer, as was on the original site. Sometimes, I tend to click on something because I enjoy a specific person's take on things, and find that I learn a lot from this particular person in general. I might be more apt to connect with more posts if I knew that it was started by someone, or responded to by someone who I follow a bit. Its not that I wont click on a thread that I might be interested in, but that I know that I click on more when I am inspired by certain personalities. Does that make sense?

I like it!! I don't mind the wood grain, felt warm and inviting. I really like the new layout. I think it will be much easier for me to find things to read. It was a bit difficult before. Thanks!!!

Wow. I really do not like the new look at all. So busy looking! So much clutter!

When I go to a section, be it a subforum or recent posts or whatever... I want to see the thread titles so I can quickly scan for things of interest.

Everything else - the menu on the left, the extra columns of 'best ever', the expansion of a bit of crap from each thread... is just crap getting in the way. Really not working for me at all. I don't object too much to the quick list of forums on the right hand side, it doesn't use too much space or look too clutter.

The left hand menu in particular reminds me of about 1997, before people in general realized that giving over huge reams of space to a menu was... suboptimal.

Worked fine for me.

I like it, but maybe there could be a button people could click which says "view site in classic mode"?

First impressions: I'll try to go from subjective to objective, and please read with an eye of levity:
* the new look made Creed start playing in my head - it really took me back to that same time when rounded corners on everything were the flavor of the month.
* the woodgrain feels really dark. like the room this is in doesn't have enough windows, or it's always a winter night (but never Christmas). Definitely not Paul's goal of "luxurious".
* the shape, outlining, highlighting, and texture of the buttons was a distraction from the buttons' text - read Tufte on how outlines can be a huge distraction
* shadows come from all angles, making the 3D attempts look corny, since there's no realistic light source that would give those shadows
* the button text color contrast is way too low; use Jonathan Snook's color contrast tools to get into a range that is readable for the larger audience.
Let me know if I can help further.
Thanks!

I'm a long time reader (and suscriber of the Daily-ish e-mail) but I've just registered because as UI/UX design is part of my job and readings, I really think I have to share with you some feedback. I'm not a developper, I know nothing about Java (a shame isn't it ;)... but I'm not totaly a noob for web-design/UX (and for web-marketing/SEO).

First, I want you to know that I love you Paul (Cassie and all others)... I love your work, the character you are, etc... so don't take the following too personnal.
It may be rude... but I just want to help.

In my opinion, Permies.com/forum look old fashioned since many years, so I was very excited to know that you we're working on a "new fresh design".
But I'm very confuse with the new version as it look more old fashioned than before and offer very poor user experience.

2016 is almost ringing here... we can't make website like it was 2002.

So let me quickly summarize... By 2016 YOU CAN'T:

Make a website which is not mobile-friendly.

Make an index page with 4 sidebar on it.

Make a repetitive textural background like this woody one.

Make textural buttons with useless artworks but no Hover class.

Make buttons and calls to action with very low contrast.

Make poor advertising integration

Add useles animated Gif and artworks

We can list more but I prefer focus on primary aspect and things that are not too subjective.

So my advices are:
Ask peoples you don't know who are in web-design industry to rate Permies.com/forum... Having only two answers from professionals will be way more usefull than thausends "It's fantastic !" from people who don't ordinary care about that.
Surf on the web, take a look at what big brand do (because they spend big money to know what works best and what is trendy) and take inspiration to make a better one... no need to reivent the wheel.

I'm a bit busy by my own projects for now, but If I can help you in any ways tell me...


PS1: Would love to share with you on the "reprint of the playing cards" topic, but I have to go to sleep it's 6:30 am here O_o
PS2: Sorry for my poor english... Frenchy on board :)

I love Permies, and I, too, was stoked for a new look.

I do very much like the more picture emphasis, and the highlighting of the best of columns. At first I thought the buttons for posting on the bottom were way too hidden, and was going to suggest having them on the top as well. But then I reviewed, and they are at the top as well... which brings me to my biggest concern. I find the buttons very hard to read.

I hope its ok to attach a mockup. If it isn't, please feel free to dump my comment. But its easier to show than explain.

This is the biggest issue I have for the new look. Mostly, I like it a lot, and regardless of whether the wood look stays or doesn't stay... I do find the darker colors way easier on the eyes.

Thanks so much for asking for input!

I'm impartial to the wood, but what's missing is some green! Permies is about permaculture, which is about growies, and they're missing!

My other thought is that the forum view is cluttered and very not mobile friendly (which is also bad for SEO).

One solution that may solve both issues is to put the "best of" stuff below the left hand menu. That would declutter the forum to focus on the thread titles, reduce the minimum width needed (allowing for easier zooming on phones), and having the "best of" on the thread view will give people who come from search engines something else to click on to. Make it randomly pick best of this year or month, and then maybe only show five things to make it less overwhelming. The pictures would add the missing growies/colour and lessen the darkness of the plain wood in the thread view.

Overall, the feel is much more modern, which is nice.

Seemed to work well and I liked the best of with the current. Took me a while to get used to the brown background. It was okay after a few minutes.

I think the wood grain on the left side is a wast of space unless you make the menu float down the page. It would be especially useful to a new person that is exploring what is available to jump to a new forum from anywhere they realise the topic is not what they were looking for.

I didn't have any problems with the new site, just an old one that I might as well put right here. When you get to the bottom of the page, you want to go to the next page. But I can't seem to find the"Next Page" button. I have to go all the way up to the top to get to the next page.

My main concerns with the new design are these:

1. The wood background and curved corners looks very old-fashioned, like the earliest websites (I was there). If Permaculture is to be taken seriously, we need something that looks current, not throwback.
2. Button fonts: I find these very hard to read, and I suspect they'd fail visual contrast tests.
3. 'Best of' - nice idea, but they'll get old very soon, unless they're randomly displayed so that we don't have to scroll down to be inspired by one we haven't read.
4. It's really nice to have images to break up the text - they could be larger, lose the white-space.
5. The alternate-colour list: the beige ones tend to disappear, perhaps need a border.
6. 'All Forums' - I had to work quite hard to find where the 'not top forums' were (a faint link at the base of the Top Forums list)

My credentials: BSc Hons Ergonomics, 1st for Human-Computer Interface Evaluation project.

Layout good. Easy to navigate.

But Please, Please, ditch the dark background motif. Use the web site constantly for an hour and you will see what I mean -- eye strain. Low contrast goes against six centuries of knowledge about readability and publishing.

Good work otherwise.

For years we have asked for feedback on the new look and feel. We made the beta view available and we had open discussions with folks about it.

Some ideas we embraced, and other ideas went the way of "I guess different folks have different ideas of what is good."

Today's test is to make sure that the non-logged in view is working okay. It sounds like it is.

So, thanks everybody for your help!

I will start a new thread for suggestions for changes.

Fred Tyler wrote: On the best this year column it says Evans and village log has 691 apples. What does that number come from?

That is the total number of apples that have been granted to the posts in that thread.

Tate Smith wrote:Found a dead link maybe?

Logged in, on the main forums page tried to search and the "Submit" button doesn't do anything and acts dead. Hitting return key also doesn't work.

Anybody else tried?

I just now tried it and it worked fine.

What browser and o/s are you using?

Bill Kearns wrote:Very nice Paul! Is JForums the result of some enterprising folks from your JavaRanch site?

Sorta. JForum started off as a forum software written in java. And then the JavaRanch folks got it and made a few thousand modifications.

Here is the new thread for suggestions about the new look and feel:

https://permies.com/t/52099/tnk/suggestions-feel

Roberto, on the very top there is a string of links......one of them is "recent topics". That's the link you are looking for.

Like you, I prefer to see the postee's name.

My only complaint about the new forum is that it does not list the time of the post, instead it says how many minutes, hours, days ago. That's just a minor annoyance, but it does annoy none the less. If I know that I last checked in at 2:30 pm, I'll look for posts after that time. Now I have to figure how many hours ago that was. As I said, just a minor annoyance.

I'm not a big proponent of change simply to jazz things up. But I admit that I like the new forum. So far it us working well on my iPad.

Sorry I missed the preview and comment period, but from what I saw, it looked great to me! I think the "wood-wrap" is different but better than the more plain look without it. I liked the quick links in the "best" columns too - I think they do a better job of inviting you in to take a more in-depth look!

I just noticed that the new forum design does not show us when people joined when I'm reading through a thread. I really enjoyed seeing this information as I read, as I could see when someone was a newby and should be welcomed/given lots of help. I also liked that feature because I could use it with the amount of apples and posts a person has made to give me a glance into how knowledgeable they might be. This was especially useful when I joined the forum and knew little about permaculture.

EDIT: I don't know if this should be in this thread or in the one for suggestions, as I don't know if it's a bug, or an intentional change. I posted it in both threads, just in case, so feel free to delete whichever one is in the wrong place!

Nicole Alderman wrote:I just noticed that the new forum design does not show us when people joined when I'm reading through a thread. I really enjoyed seeing this information as I read, as I could see when someone was a newby and should be welcomed/given lots of help. I also liked that feature because I could use it with the amount of apples and posts a person has made to give me a glance into how knowledgeable they might be. This was especially useful when I joined the forum and knew little about permaculture.

If you hover over their name, you should see that.

OooOOOooh! Okay, I do see that. Thanks! It was kind of nice having it in my face so that I didn't miss newbies, but this is fine, too. It's a cleaner look, and I'm sure I can get used to hovering over people's names.

I'm not picky, and it's probably more important that it is eye-catching, resonates with newbies, and resembles the other whiz bang sites. OK by me, as I find I can still find what I'm looking for, although I have to look at the edges, as it's not upfront now :) The effectiveness will tell in the upcoming months... counting old and new visitors, I presume.

Oh, and is 'Best' determined by most 'thumbs up +1" .... or views ... or .. maybe my answer is posted somewhere obvious??

Just took a look at the new format. Personally, I like it. Easy to navigate and visually attractive.

It looks good!
For the rest it isn't important to me as long as I can read posts, look videos, follow links and write my replies.

Hi, I was just browsing while not logged in and under the Best Topics page, I took this screenshot. It lists some posts as having lots and lots of apples, but when clicking on one thread (Rainwater collection to supplement... has 155 apples according to this list), no such apples have been awarded. I'm browsing with firefox, if that helps. BTW, this also appears while logged in--I just checked.

Galadriel Freden wrote:Hi, I was just browsing while not logged in and under the Best Topics page, I took this screenshot. It lists some posts as having lots and lots of apples, but when clicking on one thread (Rainwater collection to supplement... has 155 apples according to this list), no such apples have been awarded. I'm browsing with firefox, if that helps. BTW, this also appears while logged in--I just checked.

I just had a look - no apples awarded at all on that thread, and the OP has no apples. BUT the thread has 155 000 views (seems high!) and a thread score of 155, so I guess the figure is related to that.

Burra Maluca wrote:

I just had a look - no apples awarded at all on that thread, and the OP has no apples. BUT the thread has 155 000 views (seems high!) and a thread score of 155, so I guess the figure is related to that.

Yeah, that thread doesn't even have any replies! Why it should be so high seems a bit...you know.

Two apples for finding a bug that the rest of us missed!

In general, I like the new look and navigation ability way better. Except the wood grain. Grew up in 70's trailers...would rather not go back.

I don't know if it's a bug or an intentional change, but I noticed that there's no longer the cute little cabin at the bottom left of the page. It's really no big deal, but my toddler loved that thing and would have me enlarge the screen so he could blow out the smoke.

Just noticed that when I'm not logged in, I can't see the little pies under people's names, nor the pies on the posts. I don't know if this is intentional or not, but it might result in newcomers thinking we're crazy since they'll have no idea what the pie is that everyone is talking about...

I know everything is now trying to look like apps aka in squares instead of list form, but is that the best design?

I am seeing a pattern that people over 30 that are not tech saavy hate this system on phones, computers and now we are seeing it in forums and places.

I know it looks spiffy for a splash page for first timers, but I find a list form much more user friendly in the long run everydry day use scenario.....

Plus I fear with the amount of pages that we may over harvest these E-trees for the wood look.......haha!