Feedback on FT new style, March 2018
Mar 27, 2018, 5:21 pm
#316
Join Date: Apr 2017
Programs: Qatar, Turkish, Aeroflot
Posts: 546
If this includes the homepage, then it would be this:
Post articles quicker and remove older ones more frequently. An example of each:
1) about the BBC reporter being stuck on a plane, this was reported several days ago on various outlets and yet only just appeared here.
2) for quite a significant amount of time, there was an article about a hotel in Da Nang which probably lasted a good 2 months. Why? Who knows.
Post articles quicker and remove older ones more frequently. An example of each:
1) about the BBC reporter being stuck on a plane, this was reported several days ago on various outlets and yet only just appeared here.
2) for quite a significant amount of time, there was an article about a hotel in Da Nang which probably lasted a good 2 months. Why? Who knows.
Mar 27, 2018, 6:05 pm
#317
Join Date: Feb 2003
Location: On strike
Posts: 8,135
And one specific comment that I didn't see above: the "Go to first new post" icon at the left of a thread title used to be a square that was large enough to click on. It's now a tiny triangle which is much harder to zero in on. It seems to accept clicks in a limited region around the triangle itself, but I'd like to see something larger - ideally the previous icon restored, but in any case something that one can realistically expect to hit with a mouse at least 80 percent of the time.
Mar 27, 2018, 6:17 pm
#318
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: Back in Reds Country (DAY/CVG). Previously: SEA & SAT.
Programs: DL PM 1MM, AA PLAT, UA Silver, Marriott Bonvoy Titanium
Posts: 10,352
Not a fan of the coloring for the new layout. Too much white, making it difficult to read. My eyes seem to have trouble adjusting between trying to read black font on a nearly all white (with some bright blue) coloring. Also more difficult to tell where one post ends and another begins compared to the old format unless one looks to either side of the side of the screen, versus the old format where the color bars made it much easier to distinguish between posts.
Mar 27, 2018, 6:34 pm
#319
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: May 2006
Location: SEA or BGR, Lower Earth Orbit
Programs: UA 1K
Posts: 17,217
I don't recall seeing an explanation as to WHY this involuntarily change was implemented.
It's simply unusable for any duration. And, believe me, I'm not a technological fuddyduddy. I design apps and websites (and earn money doing it). I don't like it when Sonos changes things arbitrarily either. Sonos pull this stuff all the time. Why turn something on its head when it's something that thousands of people have bought into and obviously love already? Give haters options; don't take away options from the lovers. It's quite simple, really.
[After further usage...]
Far beyond any issue of esthetics, the current design is causing eye pain. Increasing the font size makes certain elements far too large and otherwise unreadable. A member since 2003, I can say I'm forced to take a break from FT due to this design (I've considered it for other reasons and this now puts it over the top). It's clear I'm not alone in hoping you get the site usable again for all of your members.
It's simply unusable for any duration. And, believe me, I'm not a technological fuddyduddy. I design apps and websites (and earn money doing it). I don't like it when Sonos changes things arbitrarily either. Sonos pull this stuff all the time. Why turn something on its head when it's something that thousands of people have bought into and obviously love already? Give haters options; don't take away options from the lovers. It's quite simple, really.
[After further usage...]
Far beyond any issue of esthetics, the current design is causing eye pain. Increasing the font size makes certain elements far too large and otherwise unreadable. A member since 2003, I can say I'm forced to take a break from FT due to this design (I've considered it for other reasons and this now puts it over the top). It's clear I'm not alone in hoping you get the site usable again for all of your members.
Mar 27, 2018, 7:18 pm
#320
Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: Bainbridge Island, WA
Posts: 8,964
Have the owner(s) and head site moderators acknowledged this is a mess? I have seen a few comments addressing individual issues....but nothing to acknowledge the overwhelming disapproval by hundreds of members.
Mar 27, 2018, 7:23 pm
#321
Moderator: Hyatt; FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Jun 2015
Location: WAS
Programs: :rolleyes:, DL DM, Mlife Plat, Caesars Diam, Marriott Tit, UA Gold, Hyatt Glob, invol FT beta tester
Posts: 18,931
They still do not appear for me. Android, both Opera and Chrome browsers, with or without ads blocked.
Mar 27, 2018, 7:43 pm
#322
Suspended
Join Date: Jan 2018
Programs: UA Premier Silver
Posts: 311
One of them has PMed me following my large post up above after not getting a response for 12+ hours to any of my concerns. I will not be releasing the PM as I have enough respect for them still to hold that as privileged communication (unless of course they give me permission to release the content of it quoted). I can, however, in good conscience say that there was no acknowledgement that this is a problem, no acknowledgement that they screwed up, and absolutely no indication they are going to do anything to fix it - instead that they intend to "Keep Moving Forward(TM)" as Meet The Robinson's would say.
Mar 27, 2018, 7:59 pm
#323
Moderator Hilton Honors, Travel News, West, The Suggestion Box, Smoking Lounge & DiningBuzz
Join Date: Jun 2000
Programs: Honors Diamond, Hertz Presidents Circle, National Exec Elite
Posts: 36,027
Thank you,
cblaisd and JDiver, Co-Moderators, Technical Support forum
Last edited by JDiver; Mar 28, 2018 at 6:20 am Reason: Sign on
Mar 27, 2018, 8:02 pm
#324
FlyerTalk Evangelist
Join Date: Dec 1999
Programs: Marriott Lifetime Titanium
Posts: 15,352
There are some things with this redesign I do not hate, to be honest.
There are a few things I would like to see addressed.
(1) Links show as black text until one hovers over them. Some of these are not bold or set apart from other text. This is poor design.
(2) Thread titles in MyFlyerTalk are smaller than other text.
(3) Forum names in MyFlyerTalk are smaller than other text.
Screenshots attached.
Mar 27, 2018, 8:46 pm
#326
Join Date: Apr 2013
Programs: SPG, AA, United
Posts: 1,815
It's nice to see a bit of a facelift to unify the old vb3x style to the rest of the site, but I'm pretty surprised I didn't see a transition to xenforo. After the shakeout at vbulletin over vb4 and vb5, the team at xenforo seems to have made the next level forum software that seems truly 'modern' not only in appearance, but also in functionality. All the others seem to just take away features to look 'pretty', but not xenforo.
My 2 cents coming from a fellow forum owner still married to the vb3 platform.
My 2 cents coming from a fellow forum owner still married to the vb3 platform.
Mar 27, 2018, 8:46 pm
#327
Moderator, Emirates
Join Date: Oct 2012
Location: Where My Heart Is
Programs: BAEC Silver, FB Platinum, KQ Asante Gold, Shebamiles Blue, Emirates Blue
Posts: 3,386
Mar 27, 2018, 8:52 pm
#328
Join Date: Nov 2005
Location: on the path to perdition
Programs: Delta, United
Posts: 4,786
You are correct. I cleared my cache and now the buttons are consistent. My complaint now is like others, the overall brightness of the color palette.
Mar 27, 2018, 9:24 pm
#329
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: Everywhere and Nowhere
Programs: DL GM
Posts: 515
Slightly OT question... why is the person handling feedback not the person making the changes here? It would be much better to have the people answering these "tech tickets" (who actually are these tickets even going to) come to answer our questions and alleviate our concerns. There is absolutely no reason many of these changes should take this long in vB.
Whoever made the decision to flip the switch on this really does need a talking to about testing and debugging workflows in a technical environment. You do not just say "here's my idea, let's force it on everyone all at once with no feedback". You run tests - opt-in beta being the best, an A-B being worse but still okay (but idk if forced A-B test is possible in vB). There is absolutely no reason this skin (which isn't ADA compliant and is extremely poorly made with regards to color selection) should have been forced on anyone with the problems it has that have come to light in this thread. This forced rollout, the response to community concerns, the time it is taking to fix glaring issues that would easily have been caught in testing had it been conducted. The only "preannouncement" was a thread in this forum that was never global-stickied or announced - at least in the two forums I actually read regularly on FT. The thread did not even allow users to try the style before release - it only showed very minimal photos of the style. This thread was not even up for 1 week before the forced rollout.
Extremely poor technical management by whoever is making these decisions, and to be quite honest makes me question whether I should trust the FT site to be secure, safe, and reliable. Advice from someone who's been a part of multiple large vB based (and other forum software based) communities - get some people on the administrative and technical teams who know what they're doing and who care more about the users than "site unity" with the clickbait ad-revenue driven FT homepage.
Whoever made the decision to flip the switch on this really does need a talking to about testing and debugging workflows in a technical environment. You do not just say "here's my idea, let's force it on everyone all at once with no feedback". You run tests - opt-in beta being the best, an A-B being worse but still okay (but idk if forced A-B test is possible in vB). There is absolutely no reason this skin (which isn't ADA compliant and is extremely poorly made with regards to color selection) should have been forced on anyone with the problems it has that have come to light in this thread. This forced rollout, the response to community concerns, the time it is taking to fix glaring issues that would easily have been caught in testing had it been conducted. The only "preannouncement" was a thread in this forum that was never global-stickied or announced - at least in the two forums I actually read regularly on FT. The thread did not even allow users to try the style before release - it only showed very minimal photos of the style. This thread was not even up for 1 week before the forced rollout.
Extremely poor technical management by whoever is making these decisions, and to be quite honest makes me question whether I should trust the FT site to be secure, safe, and reliable. Advice from someone who's been a part of multiple large vB based (and other forum software based) communities - get some people on the administrative and technical teams who know what they're doing and who care more about the users than "site unity" with the clickbait ad-revenue driven FT homepage.
How did IB learn absolutely nothing after the last botched roll out? Please, for the love of all things sacred IB, start doing some actual testing. These are programming and design mistakes that even the most inexperienced developer would be able to fix in short order and, more importantly, would have fixed before rolling it out site wide. Some of these mistakes are amateur hour mistakes, like the hyperlink one. That's before we even get back into just how atrocious and blinding the UI is.
I never received much more than a throw away response to these same points last time IB botched an update, so I'm not holding out any hope that they'll be addressed now.
Mar 27, 2018, 9:28 pm
#330
Join Date: Feb 2017
Location: Everywhere and Nowhere
Programs: DL GM
Posts: 515
I don't recall seeing an explanation as to WHY this involuntarily change was implemented.
It's simply unusable for any duration. And, believe me, I'm not a technological fuddyduddy. I design apps and websites (and earn money doing it). I don't like it when Sonos changes things arbitrarily either. Sonos pull this stuff all the time. Why turn something on its head when it's something that thousands of people have bought into and obviously love already? Give haters options; don't take away options from the lovers. It's quite simple, really.
[After further usage...]
Far beyond any issue of esthetics, the current design is causing eye pain. Increasing the font size makes certain elements far too large and otherwise unreadable. A member since 2003, I can say I'm forced to take a break from FT due to this design (I've considered it for other reasons and this now puts it over the top). It's clear I'm not alone in hoping you get the site usable again for all of your members.
It's simply unusable for any duration. And, believe me, I'm not a technological fuddyduddy. I design apps and websites (and earn money doing it). I don't like it when Sonos changes things arbitrarily either. Sonos pull this stuff all the time. Why turn something on its head when it's something that thousands of people have bought into and obviously love already? Give haters options; don't take away options from the lovers. It's quite simple, really.
[After further usage...]
Far beyond any issue of esthetics, the current design is causing eye pain. Increasing the font size makes certain elements far too large and otherwise unreadable. A member since 2003, I can say I'm forced to take a break from FT due to this design (I've considered it for other reasons and this now puts it over the top). It's clear I'm not alone in hoping you get the site usable again for all of your members.
Luckily, this only makes me feel more confident in my use of an AdBlocker on this site. A company that does not give a single damn about user wants and needs does not deserve to make a single penny from my clicks.