Official Feedback Request: Categories and Forum Display

[abnegation]

I appreciate the work you guys are doing here by the way, in case you seem flooded by responses to what some would consider to be a minor addition. With that said, I do think matters of usability are worth taking seriously. Even though I do feel that CQ&F threads are a messy method of heuristic evaluation. It might be worth considering creating a model for interactive design features and implementation. It would help rollout and overall usability of features you guys are hoping to create. I know for a fact that on the Admin team some things are made/done on a whim without much else other than a vision or idea (I did it myself) but that doesn't always lead to favourable results.

Now I don't have a massive amount of time to suggest more in-depth ideas however I do suggest that you consider using the "Categories Bar" as a Legend of sorts on thread indexes. On the main index you could probably keep the long "wording" in the Categories, however once you enter a section I think you could simply go down to colour co-ordination (with title tags) like so.

Spoiler:

With that in mind I do understand that you'll need to create an alternative for colour blindness which in turn could be the resolution you're currently using. With that in mind I have a slightly off-topic suggestion in that given PC has so many colour related denotation (ranks, categories, userbars, etc.) it may be worth concatenating some of these toggles in the User CP and simply add a "Usability and Accessibility" section. I personally discourage the use of toggles, but only when it comes to creating them for personal preference. A toggle should be created with usability and accessibility in mind, not personal preference.

 

[Salzorrah]

i kinda prefer the first change you did (aka the categories with its own section on the left side) because tbh, the forum looks god awful. especially the enlarged font :|

however i did like the hot topic thing, but i kinda didnt like how the first unread post link is on the right side of the thread title :(

 

[kingdenas]

I have to say, I prefer the categories on the left side! Because, with the categories on the right side the forum looks more awful! When the categories were on the left side, at least the forum was much more beautiful, and the categories bars drew attention to the title of the post!

 

[esperance]

I think you may need to adjust the criteria for the "hot" tag to appear, because right now nearly every thread in Progressing Hacks is "hot".

 

[Spherical Ice]

I think you may need to adjust the criteria for the "hot" tag to appear, because right now nearly every thread in Progressing Hacks is "hot".

B)

But yeah I feel like the hot criteria should be based on the section the thread is in instead of being the same across the board, because what is actually a hot thread in a slower forum may not have the tag while a relatively inactive thread in a very fast forum would. Not a major problem though.

 

[Salzorrah]

Tbf, I actually like the direction the forum displays are going at, and I know the admins are working hard to make it work for everyone... but atleast make the font smaller again, the enlarged font is making me ocd with how absurdly huge it is ;~;

 

[destinedjagold]

I don't like the enlarged font size for thread titles... Please set it back to the way it was. :3

 

[Dedenne1]

I agree with Destinedjagold the font sizes for threads make me feel like im overlyzoomed so then i zoom out and everything else is tiny it was definately better the way it was.

Also what is the criteria for a thread to be hot? Cause theres alot of "hot" threads right now so maybe that could be highered?

 

[esperance]

I don't understand all the hate for the larger thread titles. I think they looked nice. :/

 

[Spherical Ice]

I love the way it looks now!

I noticed a small bug with the search, though:

 

[Her]

jfc the view counts in that place are insane