Usability and Design advice

[Sirotnikov]

Hey,

I've allowed myself to compile a list of things I think can, and in most cases should be improved in the current Apolyton design.

I think the current design is quite nice, and only needs a few small touch ups to be excellent.

I hope no one responsible for these design choices takes offense if I criticize them.



Things to Improve1

Publish at Scribd or explore others: Health Education memory coffee

[Asmodean]

While I do not agree with everything, you have some valid points. My main beef continues to be that so little screen width is dedicated to what it is all about.......conversation!!

Asmodean

[Gramphos]

I'm not able to access that url.

[Jeje2]

Sirotnikov: you have very good poiuntas and I do agree on them.

Except slide 32. - The width...
We all do not use the same resolution in viewing pages.
Thus this structure of using max X-pixels for width centered is something I do like.
(Your arrows just go too far out in both ends)

Nice very visual presentation also - me liked

[OzzyKP]

Awesome presentation.

A lot of the complaints though need to be taken up with vbulletin. Many of the things you pointed out are default design things.

Also, the posting rules box in the bottom left can be minimized. Give that a try. Overall the bottom page looks fine to me. I agree that there are too many colors. I agree the quote & reply buttons should be more prominent.


(also, I request the old blue thumbs up & thumbs down smilies instead of the new yellow/red ones)

Blue
Yellow/red

[DrSpike]

Very nice.

I hope your points are taken on board.

[ZEE]

//signed

[Sirotnikov]

I'm not able to access that url.

it's marked as private.

here's the full link:

http://www.scribd.com/doc/9685964/Things-to-Improve1?secret_password=136yuwv4f3gk4zcub9wk

btw, thre's a bug in the reply smilies board:

[Asher]

I'm not going to read Siro's pretentious and baffling embedded presentation because, from a usability and design perspective, such advice is best given in plain-text point-form. Talk about self-defeating.

It's the basics, what I hoped would be pretty common sense. For instance: It is too hard to figure out which thread I've posted in at a glance, the tiny little nub indicator is a handful of pixels without much contrast. I'm surely not the only one who pays special attention to threads I've already participated in, so why is this feature so hard to use?

[Asher]

Sirotnikov: you have very good poiuntas and I do agree on them.

Except slide 32. - The width...
We all do not use the same resolution in viewing pages.
Thus this structure of using max X-pixels for width centered is something I do like.
(Your arrows just go too far out in both ends)

Nice very visual presentation also - me liked

Uhh.

It's because we all don't use the same resolution that fixed pixel-defined widths are stupid. For many, the page is too wide. For many, the page is too narrow. Proportional widths resolve this issue...

[Sirotnikov]

Awesome presentation.
A lot of the complaints though need to be taken up with vbulletin. Many of the things you pointed out are default design things.

well the good thing about vbulletin AFAIK is that many elements can be moved around or cancelled.

the overload of bold/non-bold text in 7 different colors can also be easily fixed.

Overall the bottom page looks fine to me.

do we really need the poll there?
and the "forum jump" at the really really bottom?

(also, I request the old blue thumbs up & thumbs down smilies instead of the new yellow/red ones)

good point.
blue is probably not the best for this style, but they should be the same color.

I'm not going to read Siro's pretentious and baffling embedded presentation because, from a usability and design perspective, such advice is best given in plain-text point-form. Talk about self-defeating.

nice try, but wrong

usable does not equal plain text. on the contrary, the best way to present criticism of design is graphical form using screenshots.

i hoped to include the powerpoint, but poly is limited to 500K uploads, and it weighs 1MB. so my only option was embedding.

It's the basics, what I hoped would be pretty common sense. For instance: It is too hard to figure out which thread I've posted in at a glance,

agreed

It's because we all don't use the same resolution that fixed pixel-defined widths are stupid. For many, the page is too wide. For many, the page is too narrow. Proportional widths resolve this issue...

also agreed.

[Zoid]

Excellent presentation Siro

Altough I'm almost beside myself with joy over the long awaited overhaul of the site, it needs a fair bit of tweaking. One thing I miss is the Upload function. But I assume it's being put back once the major bugs has been eradicated?

[Jaybe]

The signature area is not too tall. It only takes up a lot of space if the post is too small ... since the amount of space taken up by the poster I.D., avatar & stats is static.

[Koyaanisqatsi]

I guess I'll copy/paste the post I did in OT since I know some of the admins don't read that...

------

A couple of things that I did to avoid working that made it a bit better for me...ymmv. It's still bad, but less bad this way.

Stylish rules:

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain("apolyton.net") {
.thead, .navbar-row td.vbmenu_control, .navbar-row td, td.footer-row td, td.tfoot{
  background: #551100 !important;
}
.postdata{
  background: transparent !important;
  border: 0px !important;
  margin: 0px !important;
  padding: 0px !important;
}

td.alt2 .smallfont div{
  display: none !important;
}

td.alt2 .smallfont .postdata{
  display: block !important;
}

td.alt2 .smallfont{
  color: #808080 !important;
  font-size: 9px !important;
}

td.alt2 .usertitle{
  color: #000000 !important;
  font-size: 11px !important;
}

table.maintable{
  width: 95% !important;
  border-left: 2px solid #866 !important;
  border-right: 2px solid #866 !important;
  background-color: white !important;
}

.bbcode-rounded-quote{
  width: 90% !important;
  margin-left: auto !important;
  margin-right: auto !important;
}
.row-new div{
  background-color: #ffffe5 !important;
  padding: 1px;
}

body{
  background: #ccc url('') !important;
}

}

Greasemonkey script:

// ==UserScript==
// @name           Apolyton Fix
// @namespace      http://apolyton.net/forums/
// @include        http://apolyton.net/forums/*
// ==/UserScript==

function fixUserInfo(){
	var cells = document.getElementsByClassName('alt2');
	for(var i=0; i 0){
			if(children[4]) {
				children[4].parentNode.removeChild(children[4]);
				if(userTitle[0]) {
					userTitle[0].innerHTML += '' + children[3].innerHTML.substring(9);
					children[3].parentNode.removeChild(children[3]);
				}
			} else {
				children[3].parentNode.removeChild(children[3]);
			}
			children[1].parentNode.removeChild(children[1]);
			children[0].parentNode.removeChild(children[0]);
		};
	};
};

window.addEventListener('load', fixUserInfo, false);

Images to block, since I can't replace them with anything:

http://static.apolyton.net/vb3/images/acs2/misc/nav_right.gif

http://static.apolyton.net/vb3/images/acs2/misc/nav_left.gif

http://static.apolyton.net/forums/images/civgroups/* (optional)

http://static.apolyton.net/vb3/images/ca_evo2green/buttons/reply.gif

-----

That was all starting from the restricted template.

Again, up to you whether you use it or even think it's better...just my two cents.

[OzzyKP]

do we really need the poll there?
and the "forum jump" at the really really bottom?

The forum jump thing was in the last version, and I use it often.