GibberingLunatic

Originally Posted by Genia

As an addendum to my previous list of points, a list of minor issues of lesser importance:

-Sticky threads are not distinct enough from regular threads.
-Links are the same colour as the rest of the text, which makes them more difficult to find. I liked it when they were distinct and stood out. (Yes I know they are underlined, but what fi someone simply chooses to underline plain text?)
-Underlining function is either not in UBB Code, or unavailable. Perhaps because of the link issue. That seems oddly unnecessary.

Originally Posted by Genia

I am going to broach an issue here that hasn’t been touched upon yet, probably due to the small numbers of the specific demographic which I represent. Specifically, I am going to attempt to draw your attention to the issue of accessibility.

The new forums are extremely, exceptionally unfriendly to people who are visually impaired. I honestly don’t know how many of these play CoH on a regular basis, but I am certain there’s at least one – to wit, me. I am normally operating with something like 18% of normal average eyesight, photophobia and colour sensitivity, eyestrain, fatigue and so forth.

I use a computer with a large monitor without aides, so I get to see the forums in their “natural state” so to speak. The factors I generally consider when deciding upon the ease of my user experience are icon sizes, colour contrasts, font colours, clear outlines and easily accessible forum functions presented as text labels rather than as icons.

So far the new boards have been an almost textbook example of how not to do it. Allow me to list some bullet points for you to consider:

• New Messages: With the removal of the colour change on new, unread threads, and with the only markup being bolded subject texts, they’ve become literally impossible to find. I open a forum, and have no idea where the new stuff is, beyond remembering which threads were not at the top before.
• The arrows marking going to new posts are much too small. I have, in fact, not found them ‘till my husband pointed them out to me.
• Font colour (white) upon the new blue-gray of the background is considerably more difficult to read. On the whole, half-tones and shades are much more of a mess than clear base colours, and this one especially seems not to contrast with the thinner white font sufficiently.
• Colour gradient: the change between blue-gray and darker blue at the end of the reply box is not conducive to ease. (Incidentally, if the dark blue were to be the base colour, readability would improve significantly).
• Fonts: The font size is smaller, and the font face is Arial (a sans-serif font which is notoriously difficult and seems to enjoy a certain bad reputation on the ‘net).which is thin and narrow. Sans-serif fonts are sometimes clearer, but serifed fonts are more easily parsed.
• Small icons with overloaded graphics: make it impossible to find anything on the forum.
• General graphics overload: On the whole detracts from the ability to focus on the text, hinders rapid responding and makes scanning a forum for new information completely impossible.

These things are important. Perhaps a skin looking more like the old forums, which were, on the whole, very easy to read, would be advisable?

Originally Posted by Sylph_Knight

You will not like my opinion, but I will deliver it respectfully.

The new forums, like the new website, is a bloated mess that looks to me like it was intentionally designed to run on resolutions much higher than 1200x768. There is SO MUCH wasted space that it's beyond ridiculous. The unnecessary "white space" and the various breaks and padding separating the different sections of the page are uncomfortably large and enforces continuous scrolling to complete reading most articles or even individual posts now. The theme is dark, dull, generic, and very non-heroic - I would go so far as to say that every section of the site is designed for the City of Villains atmosphere were I not aware that it is a copy-cat of the main NCSoft site's equally flawed design.

The muted colors are also psychologically demoralizing for me. After the site was first changed, I deliberately set up a hot-link to jump straight to the forums because they retained the bright, easy-on-the-eyes visuals of the previous web site. Now I not only have to deal with excessive scrolling due to bloated padding and a clunky interface built for extremely high resolution monitors, but I also must deal with a color scheme that strains my eyes and looks horrible.

Who ever is in charge of these site designs needs to quit relying on dreamweaver (or equivalent template-biased program), take a internet course in color theory, and try fitting the site to a 1200x768 desktop (which for many users is still a standard). The whole design feels to me like it means to alienate its viewership.

Originally Posted by Texas_Justice

Quick question for you GibberingLunatic. Is there a way to see what version of vBulletin these forums are on? I've been looking everywhere but I'm likely overlooking it.

TIA