Tim12, you make some points I had not thought about but definitely agree. The top two banners take more vertical space than they need to, given the text content.
The tiny icons on the second banner at the top have a problem not unique to this site. When you hover over them to see what they are, the ‘hand’ covers a third of the text. So I see “ents” for “Events” for example.
The banner at the bottom is also way too big, and all due to the logo for the ‘Hon Code.’ It takes up too much vertical space causing lots of empty space on each side. And, a larger banner is the result, taking up space that could be used for forum “meat” vs infrastructure.
The home page is basically one-half or more Tudiabetes ads and administrative info. Required, perhaps, but the links to the forum activities do not stand out enough to draw your attention quickly enough.
I am adding these comments even though I realize it may be too late to change the home page format.
I just think of the home page like a magazine cover. If I want to see actual content, I just click on the “view all topics,” analogous of turning the cover page to look inside. It did take me a few days, however, to discover that link. (I’m not always a very good observer.) I’m not saying this new site can’t improve but I don’t think it is that far off the mark.
Your observations are valid, of course, and I’m sure the site managers read reviews and make whatever changes they think are best.
I’m not moving around the new site with the speed and purpose that I did with the old but with each new day I’m learning more and more.
I log directly to the forum (https://forum.tudiabetes.org/) and skip the home page. I don’t “chat” so really don’t care about that.
I unpinned, from my session, the two topics that are globally pinned. They no longer dispay as the first two topics in my session. But I do understand during the transition why they have them globally pinned to the top. I would assume at some point they will unpin them.
@Tim12 I don’t think this is ultimately what the “home page” is going to look like once what I’ve been calling “the WordPress side” is fully integrated with “the Discourse side”. right now I usually have 2 tabs open, one for WP tudiabetes.org which I really only use for the chat room, and the Discourse side Forum Guidelines - TuDiabetesTuDiabetes (where we are here).
When I’m here, I always click on the Hamburger (3 stacked bars) and then click “latest”. I can see any new topics added since my last visit, and any new replies to topics I’ve read or have been following. If there’s new replies, it remembers where you last stopped reading, so you don’t have to go through PAGES, a def improvement imo.
That is what I did, and then I’ll one up Marie and admit that I saved that doing as my TuD link on my own bookmark so I go directly there when I click on to TuD at all.
Believe me, you’re not alone. It took me forever to figure it out when we went live. I kept looking for a hamburger, then I just started clicking on icons. To me it doesn’t look like a hamburger–maybe a vent or lines on a page of paper, but not a hamburger.
Some of us think the hamburger looks like a stack of pancakes! Lol! (And there’s a nice discussion about the history of that icon earlier in this thread.) I do like that this site is searchable and don’t mind the chat being on the home page 'cos it seems more approachable to me. I also like that it’s easier to get to the bottom of the word association game on my iPad (even if the 20 character minimum is a pain).
Below is a quote from … and thus also a link to … Karen’s earlier post to this discussion about the hamburger icon. I think the picture below illustrates rather well why some have referred to as “the hamburger”. There is more information on the history behind it’s origins in Karen’s post.
Great feedback, @Nell1 and @Tim12! We have definitely overwhelmed the home page with information about the site itself, rather than what we’re all actually here for - diabetes-related discussion - at the beginning, just to help people get oriented. A lot of that will disappear as time passes and it doesn’t feel as necessary.
You’re thoughts about the rest of the spacing on the home page are very useful, and I’ll bring them to our team to consider! Thanks for sharing
A few thoughts after reading through (most) of this thread:
As an IT professional, I find myself losing sight of how different computer technology is to us types, vs. many many many “lay” people “out there”. My own parents, in their 80s, are a great example. They’re smart people, but little about computers and computer software is easy for them. Much that is rather straightforward to us computer folk is not so to many others. And they don’t see the need to basically order a new language lesson from Rosetta Stone to use the tools that were working so well for them already.
I understand the reasons for selecting Discourse. I don’t understand the reasons (probably because I haven’t heard them) for rejecting vBulletin. If we were going to take the plunge, disruption, an force the community to learn a new interface, why we didn’t choose the most widely used BBoard software in use is puzzling.
Doing so would have the advantage of familiarity for many if not most new users, many if not most current users probably have some familiarity with vBulletin from other communities they participate in, and finally, once people unfamiliar with vBulletin learned it, these skills would be transferrable all over the internet for most other sites. I personally am new to Discourse, am very familiar with vBulletin for many years, and have not yet encountered any features in Discourse that are the “lynchpin” for our community that would render vBulletin a poor choice.
I’m not a huge vBulletin fan, nor do I have any association with the company. Indeed, I have plenty of criticisms for the platform.
However, it is ubiquitous, so if we wanted to make the site as easy to use as possible it seems vBulletin would be a better choice.
I would like to pop in and let the “team” know that the dismiss option is much appreciated by moi. And I am finding it not so difficult to get around here every single time I pop in. I don’t mind menus though
I wanted to post some comments In General to this thread–to the original idea of it, but so far, I never have a clue where my post might show up, so you get it, Dave. First—thank you for this post of yours.
—First of all: For some of us—Familiar IS better. Period. Most of the complaints about the old site I have read here just weren’t any big deal to me. I had long since figured out work-arounds. I did have a long conversation with Manny at one point, and from what he said—Ning was going down the tubes and getting flakey, so switching made sense to me. But it will be months before I get comfortable here.
—It takes me a long time to find a discussion to which I may add something constructive, by which time, I’m too tired to form coherent sentences.
—The abuse suffered by the English language in coming up with techie names like “hamburger” makes me cringe (and I know my dad is rolling over in his grave). The same goes for texting-style abbreviations—sometimes I can puzzle them out, most of the time it requires energy I don’t have to spare in pursuit of reading something I might normally care about, so I give up…I understand that language needs to breathe and sometimes when physics or astronomy or mathematics has to come up with a new terminology for a discovery, it delights me and I play with using it in conversation because it is fun. So far, my vocabulary doesn’t feel at all enriched or expanded here.
—Truly, I have absolutely no way to judge whether this site is better than the old one–and sorry Dave, I don’t know what vBulletin is either. But I DO know that sometimes in life, the comfort of the Familiar can help one get out of bed in the morning. The old TuD felt like Home because it felt intimate. I would share personal highs and lows there, especially the lows when I needed a boost—things I would never post on a place like FB—at least not with any detail.
—Well I’m not leaving. But it is too exhausting to check in more than once a day for the most part…
—Onward with blessings to all…
Hugs, Judith. I am sure you will learn to enjoy this site soon.
Everyone thinks texting is new, but I was doing that in the years before photocopiers when I worked in a lawyers office and had to type an Abstract. We just used texting language, was about 40 years ago!
Maureen
