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

Hellloooo beautiful people! I have a request. I know you all have been super helpful for giving us feedback on the beta view for when you are logged in, but now we need to get the beta view up and running for people who visit permies.com who are not logged in. SOOO, for this, we want to turn it on here at permies for about ten to twenty minutes and get feedback.

So I am going to set a date and time to do that right now, and then hopefully all of you can get onto permies.com (NOT logged in) and try out the beta view and then log in and tell us what you think here in this thread!

The date and time this will be happening will be about a week from now: 6:30 PM MST Tuesday, Dec 8th, 2015

Put it in your calendars folks!!

test starts in 25 minutes.

IT'S ON!! Please log out, check everything out, then log back in and tell me what you think here!

On an index page, it was confusing at first what the two left vertical colums were, until I happened to notice the "Best of" text.

The right column of current topics gets confusing with every other topic being highlighted in white with the others using the same bg as the rest of the page. It kind of makes the same color bg items seem of lesser importance.

Robert Smith wrote:On an index page, it was confusing at first what the two left vertical colums were, until I happened to notice the "Best of" text.

mmkay, so do you suggest that we make the "best this year", "best ever", and "most recent" texts larger?

Please just leave it the way it is. Please lose that ugly wood grain background and never find it again. It's nice and clean and minimally designed, and highly user-friendly the way it is. Please keep it that way.

I noticed that when you do a search, the page style is still the original - it doesn't have the new look.

Ivan Weiss wrote:Please just leave it the way it is. Please lose that ugly wood grain background and never find it again. It's nice and clean and minimally designed, and highly user-friendly the way it is. Please keep it that way.

hmm, I like the wood background. i think aesthetics very important in a website though, almost as important as usability. and also i think this is is pretty user-friendly.

please help me to understand the ways in which you find it UN user friendly so we can fix those.

Jason Vath wrote:I noticed that when you do a search, the page style is still the original - it doesn't have the new look.

yes, good catch. that is one of the few pages that will be overhauled after the look and feel for the main pages is implemented for good.

Cassie Langstraat wrote:

Robert Smith wrote:On an index page, it was confusing at first what the two left vertical colums were, until I happened to notice the "Best of" text.

mmkay, so do you suggest that we make the "best this year", "best ever", and "most recent" texts larger?

I think if there were fewer of them (top 5?) with a link to the rest of the Best Of X, that might solve it. The fact that that one of those columns were longer than the current topics is what got me looking/scrolling down and missing the title

I love it! I like the idea of having the best columns. And adding the pictures makes it a lot more fun to browse.

I like it overall, it's feels easier on my eyes since there's darker colors.
Also I like the page formatting better as it's more compact width wise - the original style was slightly annoying to me cause the text in posts were very stretched out causing the eye to travel too long a distance.

Devaka: possible pie feature to turn off the wood background.

It looks cool, but was unable to find how to review most recent posts. Thanks

I think that if a user is logged in, on the forums page, on the right side is a list of some categories and forums. I think that if a user is logged in, the category names can also be links to the category page.

I like the look. On the best this year column it says Evans and village log has 691 apples. What does that number come from?

First thought when the page loaded was "Oh, wow" (in a good way.)
I like the menu buttons on the left.
Everything within the wooden background feels neat and tidy.

The content without the wooden background does look a little confusing at first glance.
There seems to be three main sections in that area: "Best ...", "Most recent", and "Top forums". I think if they had a little more distinction from each other (maybe a border or different color schemes than the alternating 2-tone currently used, or even larger headings) they would be more readily understood.

Overall I really like the direction it is going. Keep up the good work!

Lisa Allen wrote:It looks cool, but was unable to find how to review most recent posts. Thanks

Hi Lisa,

it's on the main page: https://permies.com/forums where it has been before.

it's just squeezed in between two other lists. or if you wanna JUST look at recent topics, there is a link that says "recent topics" in the bar at the very top of the page.

I like the new look, and I didn't have any problems accessing forums, the new look is a nice change of scenery, and its easier on the eyes at night than the old white background. I say good job!

Lisa Allen wrote:It looks cool, but was unable to find how to review most recent posts. Thanks

Oops, found those links, way at the top, but the dark color doesn't draw the eye up there so much. I realize you are making the top border to match the border around the forum feature. Now that I know where it is, it is all good hehe! But others may not see it either. All of you do so much, the entire websites of permies.com and richsoil.com are so appreciated! Need to visit "Zoo" again one summer and check out the homestead, since I left before so many projects were done. Will stay tuned for other San Diego appearances too

Just looked at it again and realized that the right-most column (top forums) already has little boxes around each forum category. I do like that.

I like the new look a LOT better. way more user friendly

Side by side view of:

Original vs. Beta

I am looking at the permies.com category. I see "best this year" but I don't see "best ever". ??

So I just now decided to view on my android phone, it appears the new format doesn't convert to mobile style. Perhaps a link to do so at the top may help? I saw on other pages there is a link to view mobile site at the bottom of the page, that could be useful at the top too.

I am thinking of just leaving the new look and feel on.

Server load seems okay.

We're waiting on bandwidth reports.

Devaka, can we switch all logged in users over to the new look and feel?

Cassie Langstraat wrote:

Ivan Weiss wrote:Please just leave it the way it is. Please lose that ugly wood grain background and never find it again. It's nice and clean and minimally designed, and highly user-friendly the way it is. Please keep it that way.

hmm, I like the wood background. i think aesthetics very important in a website though, almost as important as usability. and also i think this is is pretty user-friendly.

please help me to understand the ways in which you find it UN user friendly so we can fix those.

The wood grain is obtrusive, and it's an unnecessary distraction. It adds nothing whatever to the page, and it wastes space. If this is what you call aesthetics, and you like it, and you're the designer, then it looks like I will have to either endure it or go away. I'm not trying to be unpleasant, just telling you what I like and don't like.

I like the look and feel. More information is presented up-front which makes it a little more visually chaotic, but ultimately much easier to find things and explore. For my own purposes, I think it's great and I have no complaints. For new users not immediately turned off by the visual chaos, I think more of them will see the vastness and awesomeness in the forums than before. (Anecdote: Google has been directing me to Permies threads for years, since nobody else on the internet is asking the kinds of questions I'm asking, yet it wasn't until a few months ago that I clued in to exactly what was going on here. I suspect this is true of other people as well, who may be better able to see the big picture with these changes.)

I am concerned that some new users may be confused or overwhelmed at first, which might turn them away... I wonder if a prominent "how to use this site" feature would be beneficial to show to non-logged-in users?

Ivan,

When you are logged in, you should have the option of using the old view. At least for a few weeks. We'll see if we can come up with alternatives for you by then.

Worked fine not logged-in in Firefox under Windows 7.

Hello - I am a very new user - 5 minutes old. I have been getting the emails for a few months now but have never logged on to the site. So in the spirit of helping, I signed up tonight. I really like the job you have done, it is a nicely done website. But you asked for thoughts, so....

I was wondering if you would consider making the color of the words on the left column a bit of a different color. They tend to be hard to read with the brownish on brown. Also, if I can second the "new to site" quick tutorial that would be so awesome. I was able to cruise my way around pretty well. As a total newbie, I really do not understand the distinction between Hot topics and Best topics and flagged topics, recent ones are obvious . Thank you so very much for a wonderful site and your hard work. Great job to you and your wonderful team.

Kim

paul wheaton wrote:Devaka: possible pie feature to turn off the wood background.

paul wheaton wrote:Devaka, can we switch all logged in users over to the new look and feel?

Sounds cool to me!

It is easier to navigate on my phone and less weird quirks like missing bits than it used to have. I have tried it a bunch of times on my phone in the past and it was impossible to use. Now it's more useable.

I have the mobile site turned off in my preferences because the full site has the amenities. Every time you click thumbs up the mobile site reloads the whole thread, fir example, and you start back at the beginning. On Evan's ant village thread it goes back to day one every time, and that's a very thumbsworthy thread. The "quote" button, the "url" button, all that stuff.

The side options like best threads take up too much horizontal space. In the current full site I can make the text large enough to read and have it all on the screen. Scrolling side to side is not pleasant.

The wood seems less dark to me than it used to. Is it? Blonder wood would be easier on my eyes. If there was a pie option to turn it off I might but it is growing on me.

I wonder how many folks browse on mobile devices. Do we have a way of knowing that?

I fiddled with it, I can read the whole page on my screen without scrolling side to side, so I'm fine with the beta view now.

I tested it a lot on my iPhone. Worked great. No issues.

Trying it now on the laptop screen. I like how the "best thread" buttons go away when you go to "recent topics", this is logical and visually better.

I like the new look just fine but why are you asking. why not just do what makes you happy?

Lots of good feedback!

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

I can't recall for certain, though I think the 691 number is the total apples awarded in the thread.

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?

Logged in, on the main forums page tried to search and the "Submit" button

Also doesn't work logged out on the main forums page. Also, that is way down at the bottom. Maybe move that up to the top of the side nav? Would help with new folks who want to search for something there interested in right away.