Thread: New Forum Design: Ideas for Change

Overwhelming Amount of Graphics:
The previous design was simple and easy on the eyes, but the new design not only has more graphics added but the graphics themselves are large and busy. The thread detail graphics in particular I don't care for just like I don't care for the new quest tracker icons in-game. The "go to first post" and "go to last post" graphics seem completely unnecessary seeing as you're able to either click the thread to get to the first post or click the last page to get to the last post.

I thought everyone knew the phrase "Less is more!"?

The Background Colors on Thread Detail Graphics:
I'd love to see the backgrounds removed and simply left with the scroll similar to the previous icons. Without using a background, simply changing the color of the scroll would be a good way to discern between a hot thread and a not-hot thread. This used to be how it was done with the tan scroll and red scroll, open for unread and closed for read. The more there is on a small graphic, the less effective the graphic itself becomes.

New Emoticons:
The thread heading emoticons have a white halo instead of being designed for a dark background so they don't look like they belong. Also, the detailing on the faces for the small emoticons that go into posts aren't contrasting enough compared to the color of the faces so they're somewhat hard to see. They're so much more "cutesy" than they used to be which I also don't enjoy but that's just personal preference.

The "Re: Thread Title" Portion of Each Post:
The title portion on the top of each post is extremely distracting and with no color variant between that section and the thread post, it crowds the posts themselves with repetitive words, and bolded ones at that. Perhaps take away the bold and right align it so it's not in the way so much? Ideally we'd have a slightly darker color for that row to visually separate each post from the next, but any change here would be a good one.

White Borders Harsh on Eyes:
The white borders around the edges of each section is so contrasting to the rest of the backgrounds that it's harsh on the eyes when scanning around the forums. I'd suggest using either the dark green that's currently used as a top border or another varying shade of gray. This also goes for the white borders around the icons next to thread titles representing the page numbers and the forum page numbers icons on the top as well. The top section with all the navigation has the right idea.

"Online/Offline Now" Graphic Location:
Having an entire row dedicated to such a tiny icon makes the layout look messy. I'd suggest placing the "Online/Offline Now" graphic to the left of each user's name instead of under it. Moving this up would also help the current "OCD" issue of the text to the right of each profile image being slightly longer (below) the images themselves.

Not Enough Cell Padding:
Each post seems to be much closer to the border of the sections now than it used to. That could be a visual trick due to the now white border or it could be because the cell padding isn't quite large enough. Either way, the white borders, white fonts and white section lines are overwhelming to the eye making it all run together.

Post/Thread Creation Options Hard to See:
When creating a post/thread, it is extremely hard to see the b, i, u icons as well as the alignment, indent and list icons. The black on dark gray is simply not contrasting enough.

Thread Titles Crowded and No Right Alignment:
This one was hard to title but the issue I'm seeing is that the column for "Last Post By" is too wide leaving a large amount of empty space on the far right. Perhaps the thread title column could be compensated to have a bit more room with the far right column moving over a tad?

Stickies Crowding Regular Post Section:
Previously, there was a section dedicated to stickies which made the flow of the forums MUCH nicer. Perhaps bring that feature back or at very least change the row color for a stickied thread to be slightly darker than the rest so it's easier to spot the thread on the top of the list.

Border Lacking Around Avatar Images:
This one is a personal preference, but to make the site look unified, I think it would be great to force a thin black border around each and every avatar image. As it is, they stand out as non-turbine-created and just look like they're floating around.

Report/Edit Post Gone - Moderation In?
I'm not sure why the "Moderation" feature was added. I'd love to simply have the "Report Post" option brought back directly on the posts themselves as well as an "Edit" button brought back and placed to the left of the quote links like was previously there. There is no reason all those things have to be all over the place; putting them closer together makes for a section of things instead of a random placement of features that the user constantly needs to search each section of the post to find (if they even bother to look after they don't see it where they expect it to be.) Also in regard to this, the icon to give reputation to a post is hardly noticable.

New Thread and Reply to Thread Not a Graphic?
The text for creating a new thread or replying to a thread makes it difficult to find what you're looking for. People often skim past text and look for graphics so making those graphics would be great.

Poster Name Linking to My.Lotro:
Really not a fan of this feature. When I click someone's name, I'd like to see the brief summary of their account including links to see their post and thread history. If I want to see their my.lotro page, I'll go there some other way but forcing it through the forums isn't a great idea, imo especially considering how many people won't have any interest in doing anything with their my.lotro pages.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I'm sure I have more, but this is a start..... >.<

Spot on with your details.

Plus most of the content is not even working. Things like "My Characters" and "My Kinship" tabs do nothing that I can see.

Ok I know they are trying to improve things but the old forums were really easy to read, to find things and to navagate.

Now I need my sunglasses to even read what is on the screen.

Please take a look at the color scheme once more. It just does not work in a home. Maybe it looks good in an office or a conference room with harsh commerical lighting, but in a average persons home this is really bad.

Originally Posted by Sapience

The original thread was moved to the correct forum (Community Site Discussion).
Please do not repost threads in multiple locations.

Ya know... It's not enough that we have to go through F2P changes, but since the turbine community team decided we need to put up with forum changes as well, attitudes like this are pretty unecessary. The thread I created (which you moved and had no "Moved" icon placed with it... it was just gone) was placed in a section of the forums that it would have ALWAYS been in. Then was moved to a NEW section of the forums I didn't even exist. There's going to be a learning curve behind things like that so holding the "don't repost threads in multiple locations" snide comment would be great. Especially considering I pasted the disclaimer that stated I lost the original thread and apologized in advance if it was a duplicate.

Sapience, you're going a long way to being the single greatest reason I hate these forums. I'd tell you that in a PM but it's going to just go ignored anyway.

Thanks for the suggestions - you have some great ones in there. I'm also going to be taking a very hard look at the forum menu dropdowns; it seems like there's some work to be done there.

Originally Posted by Patience

Thanks for the suggestions - you have some great ones in there. I'm also going to be taking a very hard look at the forum menu dropdowns; it seems like there's some work to be done there.

PLease just give us back what we had.


Since that is not likely, an option to change the forum template to the original would be nice. I've used Vbulletin extensively and there is a way to give users the ability to choose what format they want.




((I think the sky reall ~is~ falling))

Originally Posted by romoen

.........attitudes like this are pretty unecessary. ...................... the "don't repost threads in multiple locations" snide comment would be great.

Sapience, you're going a long way to being the single greatest reason I hate these forums. I'd tell you that in a PM but it's going to just go ignored anyway.

I used to love these forums. I'd check them before I even logged into the game. I really dislike the new set up. The forums feel bunched up, tight, restricted, and generally more difficult to navigate.

Concerning your quote: You're not the only one who feels a lack of respect from certain individuals. Its not everyone, just a couple individuals. Proper etiquette and customer care are not part of these forums much anymore. Its funny to see how other individuals start up their own sets of forums because of unjust and unfair treatment on these forums. A large group of Meneldor PvPers don't even bother posting on the lotro forums anymore because of poor treatment. In my opinion, the quality of the forums and quality of the people posting is going to decrease if this poor customer treatment continues.

Its like the Devs took the saying "If it isnt broke dont fix it" and threw it out the window.

I am usually one that supports change. However I am finding a lot of UNNECESSARY changes made to a system that worked perfectly and had very minimal complaints. There are so many other features LOTRO related that could have been focused on more. Off the top of my head I can tell you HOUSING, A more thorough Kinship Management system, and crafting could have used the time and man hours used to update our forum and community area.

Combine this Forum change and the Vault change, I am very suspicious of Turbines Priorities.

Originally Posted by Davlin

There are so many other features LOTRO related that could have been focused on more. Off the top of my head I can tell you HOUSING, A more thorough Kinship Management system, and crafting could have used the time and man hours used to update our forum and community area.

Please keep the thread on the topic of changes you would like to see.

Just to be very clear, the LOTRO dev team didn't code the site. We have a dedicated team of web engineers who work on all of our sites. They don't have anything to do with game systems.

Constructive criticize

I have a 22 inch wide screen monitor and all the fonts on this page are so tiny I almost have to sit with my nose to the screen to read it. (No, I'm not exaggerating.) Please increase the size of all fonts on this forum. Most of the main headers are the smallest font allowed.

Also please removed the forced margins. I have over 4 inches of wasted black space on each side of the posts. I can't imagine how much space is wasted on a larger monitor. It would be so much easier to read posts if they were allowed to be wider and not forced into a tiny box.

I agree with the OP that the emoticons faces just blend. I can't tell most of them apart without mousing over them.

Half of the formatting icons are invisible until you mouse over them. All of these buttons should be clearly visible. People shouldn't have to guess where the bold, underline, list buttons, etc, are located.

What happened to all the avatars we had on the old forums? We don't have half as many as we used to have. More importantly what happened to the special avatar we had for pre-ordering MOM?

Originally Posted by Elfheart

Constructive criticize

I have a 22 inch wide screen monitor and all the fonts on this page are so tiny I almost have to sit with my nose to the screen to read it. (No, I'm not exaggerating.) Please increase the size of all fonts on this forum. Most of the main headers are the smallest font allowed.

As a temporary solution, you can hold down the CTRL key and scroll your mouse up to increase the font size in your browser!

Originally Posted by Elfheart

Also please removed the forced margins. I have over 4 inches of wasted black space on each side of the posts. I can't imagine how much space is wasted on a larger monitor. It would be so much easier to read posts if they were allowed to be wider and not forced into a tiny box.

This is done to accommodate lower resolutions and I'm not sure we can get it changed, but I'll add it to the list.

Originally Posted by Elfheart

I agree with the OP that the emoticons faces just blend. I can't tell most of them apart without mousing over them.

This does depend on the color scheme you're using. I lightened mine up, so they show up better. I am not sure we will be able to make them look good on all color backgrounds, but we'll look into it.

Originally Posted by Elfheart

Half of the formatting icons are invisible until you mouse over them. All of these buttons should be clearly visible. People shouldn't have to guess where the bold, underline, list buttons, etc, are located.

This has been noted and is on the list!

Originally Posted by Elfheart

What happened to all the avatars we had on the old forums? We don't have half as many as we used to have. More importantly what happened to the special avatar we had for pre-ordering MOM?

That's a good question and we'll look into it - previously all avatars were handled by the forums but now they're site-wide, so I'm not sure we can tie them together by permissions anymore. Adding to the list for investigation.

Thanks for all the feedback!

-Meghan

Brilliant posting! And thank you Patience for the good laundry list style reply. (Fond memories of USENET.)

I'd like to second the remarks on small fonts and huge margins.

Adding to the list: are there plans for a mobile version of the forums (http://m.forums.lotro.com)?

I submitted a bug on this, but I guess I'll post about it as well.

When I've tried to change my avatar, I upload a new image and the page to size the small and large versions loads the very first image I tried to load early yesterday. The new image (totally different image, file name, etc) never shows up anywhere. Even when I select the crop borders on the old image, it still shows the small version as completely black.

can we have the announcements forum post on the front page like we use to have.

Originally Posted by san-br

can we have the announcements forum post on the front page like we use to have.

I think the RSS Feed and Community News widgets are the same thing. You can move them to a more prominent location if you so desire. I have mine on the top left of my front page.

My suggestion - Increase the Speed of Loading / Accessing Forums.

They have gone from 'Fast' to 'I could walk to Rivendell Faster'

It has a longer delay than the old my.lotro did.

Can someone explain why the changes have resulted in such bad load times?

Originally Posted by san-br

can we have the announcements forum post on the front page like we use to have.

The Announcements forum is going to be phased out in favor of Community News, so keep that widget on your home page.

Ideas for change (some have been stated already):

• A readable font size that doesn't induce eyestrain would be a good thing.
• On a related note, toning down the busy and borderline garish feel of the packed pages would be appreciated.
• I'd love to have the delineation between stickied pages and the most recent current thread in a forum as we had before. Finding the current thread as it stands is a pain.
• Make visible buttons, both in the editor and with things like the reputation star. Seriously, what kind of a genius would ever think charcoal gray/black buttons on darker gray/black background is in any way good web design? Sorry, but that's just mind boggling.
• I know we had dark backgrounds before, but the smaller fonts and icons are not showing cleanly against the black now.

Originally Posted by Odin_of_Freyr

Concerning your quote: You're not the only one who feels a lack of respect from certain individuals. Its not everyone, just a couple individuals. Proper etiquette and customer care are not part of these forums much anymore.

I agree with the basic premise, though for me it's just not centered in a few individuals. It's a problem I feel we've seen for over a year now. Simply put, the problem is not that things don't always work. It's the attitude used when communicating with us players. There is a vast difference between, "We know it's broken, but you shouldn't be questioning us and should be glad we're fixing it," and "We know there's a problem, we're fixing it, and we understand your concern." The former is what I've seen for the last year, the latter is what I saw from Turbine at the beginning. Both sides need to treat each other with respect.

(I posted something related in a now-closed thread this morning. Patience replied before closing the thread and I saw some of the old respect again. Thank you, Patience.)

Thank you for the emoticons back. Hopefully they're here to stay.

So I've found some more things....

Textured Graphic Backgrounds:
The community site is extremely contemporary and the current textured background images in some of the sections is making it look outdated. Solid lines of clean and crisp colors is preferential again maintaining that less is more. When you take into account that some table cells have a solid color and some have the textured background image, it also makes the site not unified in appearance; the colors of gray don't match because a solid gray is a very different color than a textured gray.

I don't mean to be harsh on this one, but the texture makes the site look very amateur.

Community Site Forum Section:
This is not being listed under the Forums mouse-over section for General Discussion. While not a huge deal, this is the area I'm frequenting atm so it's noticable.

Mouse-Over Sections:
Obvious clean-up has taken place on the hover-over menus but I'm still not a fan of them. I frequently check the forums from my Droid and the site's functionality has decreased a great deal to me since this change was implemented. As long as navigation is simple and clear there is no need for mouse-over menus, imo. All these mouse-overse are also causing a great deal of loading-lag and delay. It's much nicer to click a button or a link and have it simply go.

Icon Legend for Hot Posts with New Content:
This graphic is not displaying correctly in the icon legend, and is showing up as instead of the open scroll.

Navigation Bar Sections Order:
I'm not sure why My Lotro is in position #1, but I would suggest moving it further down the list somewhere. For my personal preference I'd suggest clumping similar items next to one another with the most important ones listed first and last (the first places a reader's eyes go.)

Example: News & Articles > Lorebook > Forums > My LotRO > My Characters > My Kinships > My Account > Download the Game > Help & Support

Space Between a Quote and a Post:
The space forced between a quote ([quote]) and the post outside of the quoted text doesn't seem large enough which again makes it look cluttered.

can we get some preset themes to chose from?

Patience,

Can you investigate why the color-customization feature on the forum isn't working? I can change the colors of the forum and hit Save, but the minute I click to a different thread it all goes back to the green and gray theme. I'm using Firefox 3.6.9 if that's of any help.

Many thanks!

Originally Posted by Patience

Changes to color themes will only “stick” if made on the player’s home page.

Originally Posted by moxieblossom

Patience,

Can you investigate why the color-customization feature on the forum isn't working? I can change the colors of the forum and hit Save, but the minute I click to a different thread it all goes back to the green and gray theme. I'm using Firefox 3.6.9 if that's of any help.

Many thanks!

from the announcement forum thread:

Originally Posted by Patience

Changes to color themes will only “stick” if made on the player’s home page.

Overall, I think many of the changes are nice (I like the new "look") but there are some usability issues.

I very much like the fixed width for the forums. It makes them much easier to read, because the line lengths are shorter. It may be just me, but I feel like the posts themselves are also easier to read - maybe a font changed? Regardless, I find reading here much easier now.

I also like the textured backgrounds. Gives the areas some depth without making them busy. I guess I'm not up on the hip new web design trends, but this is one that I liked the minute I saw it, and it fits well with the graphics used elsewhere on the page.

I agree that the white lines are a little too white.

On a 1280x1024 monitor, and even on my widescreen at home, the navigation fonts are okay, but could stand a small bump up. The breadcrumbs especially could use a point or two increase.

The color selection works great on Chrome. Really like that feature, as green is not my favorite color

I like the extra icon in the thread title so I can jump to the first unread. Some threads grow so fast that the first unread post is on page 5 of 15. By making this available from the main forum view, it saves me a click per thread, which I appreciate.

I like the drop-downs for the class forums, server forums, etc, but other than that, the whole top navigation is confusing. Some of the tabs go to other sections of this site, but some open other sites entirely (like My Account). That's very jarring, and I'm never sure where I'm going to end up.

Having a drop-down for each server under My Characters is also very confusing, since a lot of us only play on one server. My Characters is far right, and Windfola is far left, so I have to go all the way across the page (without accidentally mousing over anything else) to get to the drop-down where I can select one of my characters. Same with Kinships - I'm in one kin on one server, so having to dig down through menus to get there is... tiresome.

(Note that I use Chrome as my main browser, so that may affect what I'm seeing. I have not done any real comparison with IE or FF)

Originally Posted by Patience

The Announcements forum is going to be phased out in favor of Community News, so keep that widget on your home page.

i dont use the home page...i go straight to the devtracker then my subs then new posts.

so...as long as CSM/dev announcements in community news continue to show up on the devtracker all is good..otherwise....
(gets pitchfork and torch ready)

While I do like the border graphics, the overall design of the thread layout makes my eyes hurt. And that's about what it comes down to... can I quickly browse topics without my eyes bugging out? Nope.

Originally Posted by gildhur

I submitted a bug on this, but I guess I'll post about it as well.

When I've tried to change my avatar, I upload a new image and the page to size the small and large versions loads the very first image I tried to load early yesterday. The new image (totally different image, file name, etc) never shows up anywhere. Even when I select the crop borders on the old image, it still shows the small version as completely black.

I got this too. Finally got it to work by refreshing the page (the one where you do the cropping) after uploading the second image. There may have been refreshing of other pages (the profile settings or somewhere along the way) too before I finally got it to show up. And now I am leaving my avatar as it is for a good long time before I will attempt that long and befuddling process again... :-)

I would not like to contribute anything to the "list", I want the forums that we had. They were very easy to use and navigate and were by far the easiest to look at and utilize. Now we are beta testers for just another garbage forums clogging the tubes of the internet. If there was a reason posted for the change I might feel a little better about it and less heated, but of course, I haven't found any word on why.

Maybe add "If ain't broke, don't fix it" to the list.

Originally Posted by Idiotpilot_down

I would not like to contribute anything to the "list", I want the forums that we had. They were very easy to use and navigate and were by far the easiest to look at and utilize. Now we are beta testers for just another garbage forums clogging the tubes of the internet. If there was a reason posted for the change I might feel a little better about it and less heated, but of course, I haven't found any word on why.

Maybe add "If ain't broke, don't fix it" to the list.

Maybe it is just a matter of getting used to the new site.

Adjustments Made Recently:

• Border colors no longer white. Thank you! This is a thousand times easier on the eyes.
• "Moderation" feature removed.
• Quote and Multi-Quote now located next to one another.
• Edit Post easy to locate and use.
• Report post now displayed nicely.
• Reply and New Thread text surrounded by color.
• Border added to all Avatar images.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Adding a few more and this time with visuals to point out the specific issues I'm having. Some of these may be a repeat or elaboration on previous issues I've already brought up.

Post Headers Layout a Bit Off:
This one I had mentioned before, but I'm not sure it translated into text very well.



Among the items I listed in the image, I wanted to elaborate on the solid line surrounding the avatar images (which while I'm not a huge fan, I certainly like the upgrade from no line at all.) The line surrounding the avatar being the same color as all the other lines makes it appear somewhat as though it's being highlighted like a link instead of as a graphic. I used the border image on the turbine avatars to show what I think would be ideal for this. As you can see it makes each image, even user created ones look uniform and like they belong on the site.

Edit to Add: Since the silhouette images simply show that the user hasn't selected an image, are they really necessary? How about simply removing those all-together and having no image display if the user hasn't selected/uploaded one. As it is, it feels like graphics for the sake of having graphics which is part of the primary issue I have with the new design. Less is more!

Gradient Fade on the Bottom of Sections:
On some sections there is a gradient fade that goes from the normal color to a lighter color and back to the normal color. I like gradient fades because it shows nice detailing and adds style, but the light color of the fade combined with the location as high up as it is causes some difficulty in easily reading text that continues on past the gradient.



My suggestion to adjust this would be to either use a fade to a darker color making the white text still stand out and/or to move the fade lower so as to not be so intrusive to the text flow itself.

Issues with Cluttered and Disorganized Post Layouts:
I had a hard time articulating this one into words so....



Note: I designed the above based on the current design, but ideally I'd also love to see the subject line not bolded and a smaller font.

Excellent suggestions romoen. I'd like to voice my support for your changes.