Director of Technology
|
| 3 people marked this as a favorite. |
Wait, there's a camp for restoring backups?There's always such a group.
Last time Slashdot tried a major update they dramatically changed the functionality of the site, for the worse. The web-designer marketing droids behind the changes obviously had no grasp of what the site was, or how it was used, and the design changes literally defeated the whole point people visited. The users rebelled and the changes were rolled back and have never been reinstated. Because it was awful.
Last time ArsTechnica tried a major update, they broke major site functionality and they too misunderstood a large part of how the site was used. It wasn't as bad as Slashdot, but it was bad. They too rolled back, discussed with users, and spent a couple months revisiting their changes. They then updated again, with the broken stuff fixed, and quality-of-life changes in place that made things usable again.
Those were extremes. Both sites were massively impacted and the redesign made them unusable. That's NOT what's happened here. Yes, there are some things that are still broken. Yes, there are things that need to change. But Paizo has indicated they're working on it, and we're talking days. It's easy enough to work around things like "no new PM notification" for a couple days; check manually every once in a while.
Give the team some time. That's my advice. And again, I don't like change.
Thanks for your feedback Anguish... Nicely stated . :)
A few problems I've noticed:
The drop-down menus on the main page work well when I have my browser in full-screen, but if I have my browser in a smaller window, I just get taken to a blank page when I click any of the headers. (paizo.com/community or paizo.com/pathfinder for example). Using the menu button off to the right works to bypass this issue.
I also had a heck of a time navigating to the adventure paths from the main page. The first Adventure Paths link in the text on this page (http://paizo.com/store/pathfinder/adventures) is not correct, it just redirects to the blank paizo.com/pathfinder page again. The other links further down the page in the products listing is correct. Then, once you get to the Adventure Paths page, the text links are broken again, and the product links are correct.
I'm using Firefox, for the sake of completeness.
Before I dive in, I just want to say that i like where this is going! The new format seems much more "clean." That said, it's not all the way there yet.
Here is my list of complaints:
1. The font size. It was too small. Now it is too large. I'd really like it to be similar to other websites because right now if i use my browser zoom/unzoom then it will mess up all the other sites too.
2. PM's are hidden and need to be displayed next to My account with a notification of when there is an unread PM.
3. Website links are hard to differentiate from regular text.
4. In general, the number of clicks-to-destination has increased SIGNIFICANTLY. It's not even just a matter of not knowing how to navigate. Once you know how to navigate now you need extra clicks where you didn't before. For example getting to ACG forums I need to click on Community, then forums, then card game. Before I could just click on ACG on the sidebar and bam, forums were on the page below store items.
5. This may or may not be related to the site update...I think it might be because I didn't have any issues in January. When using a coupon code in the store, there is NOT a place to use the coupon code when checking out for yourself since my payment info is already in there. To use the rain18 coupon code I needed to "mark as gift" so payment info would pop up, enter the promo code, then mark "not as gift" to get it to convert back to an item for myself, then mark it to combine shipping with my subscription. Quite the headache to save a few bucks!
Okay, so some of the things I've noticed and complained about previously are actually not quite what I saw before, and possible related to Thebazilly's post:
Chrome browser, Ubuntu 64 there are two sets of navigation links, one is above the paizo logo, these are on a blue background with all caps text. These go no where useful. These links hide when the window is beyond 960px wide. The menu that works like a side navigation bar while under 960px wide then shows up under the paizo logo and works, but with the too-many-clicks-for-navigation behavior I mentioned earlier.
The menu that collapses to a nav button when under 960 should be a visible side navigation while above 960, not a top nav. The top nav above the logo while under 960 needs to just go away.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Hey folks, quick update: we pushed a batch of hotfixes, including restoring access to the My Downloads page and some eccentricities when accessing sessions.
Restoration of page data has been continuing, and you should be seeing more of the content normalize over the course of the day.
My critique of the new design.
It looks clean, but:
1)text is too large. I cannot see as much text without having to scroll.
2)too much white space between lines and item. I cannot see as much on the screen without scrolling. I used to see the status of my 4 PbP games without having to scroll. It is annoying.
Wait, there's a camp for restoring backups?There's always such a group.
Last time Slashdot tried a major update they dramatically changed the functionality of the site, for the worse. The web-designer marketing droids behind the changes obviously had no grasp of what the site was, or how it was used, and the design changes literally defeated the whole point people visited. The users rebelled and the changes were rolled back and have never been reinstated. Because it was awful.
Last time ArsTechnica tried a major update, they broke major site functionality and they too misunderstood a large part of how the site was used. It wasn't as bad as Slashdot, but it was bad. They too rolled back, discussed with users, and spent a couple months revisiting their changes. They then updated again, with the broken stuff fixed, and quality-of-life changes in place that made things usable again.
Those were extremes. Both sites were massively impacted and the redesign made them unusable. That's NOT what's happened here. Yes, there are some things that are still broken. Yes, there are things that need to change. But Paizo has indicated they're working on it, and we're talking days. It's easy enough to work around things like "no new PM notification" for a couple days; check manually every once in a while.
Give the team some time. That's my advice. And again, I don't like change.
I know. I also tried giving feedback not based on emotion. Really, the quoted post was only semi-serious and mainly just poking fun. Though I do hate responsive sites, and that is what we seem to have been given. Popularity does not equal good.
Also, people are far more likely to speak up about negative issues/changes than good ones, no matter the topic.
|
Community it's fairly easy to misclick or tap into this screen. Adding a link there to the forums so that users don't have to manually click or tap menus to get back to the overall forums would be groovy.
My preferred method of engaging with the forums is to scroll the whole thing and click discussions that that interest me or have updated, I basically never break down into the individual sections unless I'm doing a search inside that section.
In Edge, the Paizo logo and golem in the footer are ludicrously large and pixelated. (I presume the more svelte version I'm seeing in Chrome is the intended one.)
My old bookmark asked me to sign in again, then got hung up and never went anywhere. Coming back later skipped the sign-in step but didn't get any further. Using Firefox.Heya, could you let us know which URL you're trying to navigate to?
Turns out it was just the ones to forum groups that weren't working. The ones to individual posts work fine.
Chief Technical Officer
|
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
New Request (from me anyway, someone else has probably asked for something similar):
Under the home page, when I go to the community pulldown menu, I'd really like it if I could click on the title "Forums" and be taken here:
Maybe I'm not used to the new way of doing things yet, but it seems to me I can't directly go to that list of all forums and all subforums (which is my default starting point when browsing the site).
What I have to do is to go to one of the subforums (like Paizo or whatever) and then click "outwards" from there.
It's no big deal, but if that forum word could be turned into a link I think it would be both useful and intuitive.
This was the very first issue that I personally reported after the roll...
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Community it's fairly easy to misclick or tap into this screen. Adding a link there to the forums so that users don't have to manually click or tap menus to get back to the overall forums would be groovy.
My preferred method of engaging with the forums is to scroll the whole thing and click discussions that that interest me or have updated, I basically never break down into the individual sections unless I'm doing a search inside that section.
This is like my method, except I keep it "Focused." I rarely go find new threads unless I need something.
That said, when starting a new thread I often have to figure out where to navigate and go there. Ig'd be easier to have the page for making a new thread have a dropdown for where to put it.
I do on occasion use the "campaigns" page, but I'm not sure where they put it now.
This was the very first issue that I personally reported after the roll...New Request (from me anyway, someone else has probably asked for something similar):
Under the home page, when I go to the community pulldown menu, I'd really like it if I could click on the title "Forums" and be taken here:
Maybe I'm not used to the new way of doing things yet, but it seems to me I can't directly go to that list of all forums and all subforums (which is my default starting point when browsing the site).
What I have to do is to go to one of the subforums (like Paizo or whatever) and then click "outwards" from there.
It's no big deal, but if that forum word could be turned into a link I think it would be both useful and intuitive.
Well then, I expect my request will carry some weight! :)
Oh, new bug, if I click on "My Account" then click on the menu button (to the far right of My Account), then the menu pane opens underneath the My Account pane.
RPG Superstar 2008 Top 32, 2011 Top 16
|
Not sure if I've seen this mentioned, but the forum order seems different. It used to be that after website feedback was Pathfinder RPG general discussion, advice, rules questions, product discussion, beginner box, then the third party subforum, etc.
Now after website feedback is paizocon, community use, licensed products, archive, planet stories, dragon and dungeon magazine forums, RPG superstar forums, and THEN Pathfinder RPG general discussion, etc.
I'm assuming this is an error, since the subforums which moved up in the order are mostly for old products no longer in print, or things which seem to me to be of less frequent need for customers.
I actually like the new font size, although I don't like the obligate giant borders on each side (getting rid of these would alleviate people's need to scroll to read stuff). But I wonder if it is related to the following bug: When I go to my profile, the two columns overlap a bit, at least when using Firefox 58.0.2, Chrome 64.0.3282.186, or Safari 11.0.3 (13604.5.6), all under Mac OS X High Sierra -- actually, the problem is slightly worse in Safari.
By the way, the Rules Questions sub-sub-forum of the Pathfinder sub-forum is still not listed in the summary at the top of the Forums page, even though the corresponding one for the Starfinder sub-forum is. The Pathfinder Rules Questions sub-sub-forum actually exists, and is even listed somewhat more than half way down the Forums page, but you wouldn't see it unless you did a text search for it or scrolled that far down the huge page.
|
|
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
[...] although I don't like the obligate giant borders on each side (getting rid of these would alleviate people's need to scroll to read stuff).[...]
Scrolling is very easy (and in the annals of user experience testing, almost never scares users away) but reading very long lines of text is hard* and does tend to frighten visitors off. Give the Paizo site a few more days and see if you're getting used to it? You might even find that you can read the site faster now.
* even with the increased font size and the gutters on either side, Paizo's site is still presenting us with a line-length that is over three times the recommended standard for ease-of-reading. So it's not as if the site is unusually narrow, now. It's just less amazingly wide.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Scrolling is very easy (and in the annals of user experience testing, almost never scares users away) but reading very long lines of text is hard* and does tend to frighten visitors off. Give the Paizo site a few more days and see if you're getting used to it? You might even find that you can read the site faster now.
If only there was a way for someone who doesn't want a site to be the full width of their monitor to choose how wide it is. We could call it something like "windowing". A user could NOT maximize their browser, and when thus signaling the OS that they wished their browser to be smaller, the site could accommodate that.
Humorous sarcasm aside, plainly put, my point is that people who don't want wide columns have had the ability to enforce their preference for the last oh... very nearly 30 years. I would be nice if those of us who don't mind watching-a-tennis-match wagging our heads back and forth could be respected in kind.
Can you do that on an iPad? (Genuine question).
Is there a way to get back to the Project Swallowtail forum, or has that fallen by the wayside?
Coming back in on mobile to say that bold looks weird, both for regular black and the green dice rolling text. It’s like there’s little white lines for me in the middle of the letters.
I’m running safari on an iPhone 6.
Regardless of the final font size, they still need to fix it so that the base font size is between [ bigger] and [ smaller] on the desktop. And, they need to have more than a 1px span between them:
.messageboard-bigger {
font-size: 14px;
}.tiny {
font-size: 13px;
}
Unless they plan on having a 13.5px font size, there is not a lot of room in between these for "normal". But they don't actually specify the font size for desktop browsers anywhere that I can see, so really they should be doing something like this:
.messageboard-bigger {
font-size: larger;
}.tiny {
font-size: smaller;
}
The site is more responsive today. That was my biggest peve. There's still a set of useless links above the logo when less that 960 wide.
so really they should be doing something like this:
.messageboard-bigger {
font-size: larger;
}.tiny {
font-size: smaller;
}Oh, that works nicely. Just added it to my one line Stylish... Thanks
-- david
Many have said what my complaints already, but the new site while looks nice, but is hell to navigate via phone. Links lead to dead ends, message board navigation sucks, and finding products is a pain. Others above have expressed this feed back more eloquently than myself. Hate to say it, but overall liked the old lay out way better.
Can you do that on an iPad? (Genuine question).
Turn it portrait.
Please (I beg you) make the text font smaller.
And the lines of a paragraph more compact.
I feel like I have to scroll a whole lot to see anything, and step further away from my monitor.
|
| 2 people marked this as a favorite. |
Please (I beg you) make the text font smaller.
And the lines of a paragraph more compact.I feel like I have to scroll a whole lot to see anything, and step further away from my monitor.
Oh, heck no. Don't make the font smaller! Smaller than it already is makes my eyes hurt!
Not sure if I've seen this mentioned, but the forum order seems different. It used to be that after website feedback was Pathfinder RPG general discussion, advice, rules questions, product discussion, beginner box, then the third party subforum, etc.
Now after website feedback is paizocon, community use, licensed products, archive, planet stories, dragon and dungeon magazine forums, RPG superstar forums, and THEN Pathfinder RPG general discussion, etc.
I'm assuming this is an error, since the subforums which moved up in the order are mostly for old products no longer in print, or things which seem to me to be of less frequent need for customers.
I mentioned it, though I don't remember if it was in this thread or the other one about the boards. I'd assume that's probably something they're going to fix, since the old playtest forums are likely less heavily trafficked than the ongoing ones.
Oh, heck no. Don't make the font smaller! Smaller than it already is makes my eyes hurt!Please (I beg you) make the text font smaller.
And the lines of a paragraph more compact.I feel like I have to scroll a whole lot to see anything, and step further away from my monitor.
Context is everything. The new design has a good font size for small screen mobile devices but it is way too big on desktop browsers.
Oh, heck no. Don't make the font smaller! Smaller than it already is makes my eyes hurt!Please (I beg you) make the text font smaller.
And the lines of a paragraph more compact.I feel like I have to scroll a whole lot to see anything, and step further away from my monitor.
Obviously compromise is a thing. The current font is larger than is normal for a} Paizo's forums and b} forums in general. The font immediately after the upgrade was smaller than normal. This was a quick fix and is likely temporary.
If you didn't have hurting eyes before the forum change, you shouldn't have hurting eyes once a final size is chosen. If you did, you need glasses or contacts or eye surgery or to stop using a 4" cell phone to do serious reading on the Internet, or to increase the font scaling on your 18" 3840x2160 monitor because the problem isn't Paizo's.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Guys, seriously, just make font and site width user adjustable. Do that and there is no need to figure out a good comprimise as everyone gets to be happy.
I'm not sure how changing the font woukd work on the back end, bug I can't imagine it'd be difficult.
As for adjustable size, that shoukd be as simple as having an entry box in account settings to take the value from instead of the OS or where ever it is making the width choice right now.
Simple and helps the most people. I don't see the issue with it, so why is everyone ignoring it?
Guys, seriously, just make font and site width user adjustable. Do that and there is no need to figure out a good comprimise as everyone gets to be happy.
I'm not sure how changing the font woukd work on the back end, bug I can't imagine it'd be difficult.
As for adjustable size, that shoukd be as simple as having an entry box in account settings to take the value from instead of the OS or where ever it is making the width choice right now.
Simple and helps the most people. I don't see the issue with it, so why is everyone ignoring it?
Intellectually, the best idea. Practically, I believe not going to happen.
User-defined font sizes isn't something I've seen in... oh, nearly ever. Why? Because browsers and operating systems have font scaling built in. Zooming is something users can do. And should do.
I'm not a web developer (am an IT guy with different specialties) but I believe these days most web "look" is done via CSS (cascading style sheets), where a bunch of UI is defined as a group to look good together. That's where you get light themes versus dark themes on some sites... the designers wrote a pair of CSS and users can select between them. I don't think CSS is designed to be highly granular. "I want the dark theme with the big font and the green underlines but don't do the bold section markers." I'm pretty sure that means a stylesheet has to be written with all of those transforms.
Anyway, all I was arguing for (and gently at that, because I can live with bigger-than-normal fonts) is that there's a fairly universal "normal" on the Internet, and I think Paizo should shoot for that as the default. Like everyone else. Because... oh... probably a couple decades of experience is how we got the standard. If folks can't use the standard, well, that's why most operating systems have things like accessibility tools to magnify areas of screens, etc.
But again, your idea is good. I strongly prefer a world where everything is optional. But... we don't live in that world.
Well done all! I know this was a huge undertaking, and it is looking great! Thank you for all of the hard work!
I've seen the 'bigger' font size issue mentioned, but it doesn't appear to have been fixed, eh? Would be nice to see that, as I usually use it for headings on my pbp character sheets.
| 4 people marked this as a favorite. |
Status update for folks, our last one for the week...
We have another roll of fixes planned for early Monday to include: restoration of forum tabs (such as My Campaigns), restoring creation of new threads on products, and some outstanding CSS/javascript fixes (some relating to menu display).
Tonight I hope to finish resolving the URL issues (Starfinder sublinks should no longer be redirecting you) and restoring access to the blogs in a few places.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Periodic reminder that Anguish is a terrific community member! (Not only providing useful feedback to people who know what they're talking about, but also good at explaining why things are the way they are to the clueless). Thanks, Anguish. :)
@ Anguish
Zooming in is way too clunky. It is like holding a magnifier to the screen. Ideally, the web browser should have the option of allowing the user to define the screen width, so websites don't need to, but failing that, you get my suggestion. Zooming is never something a user should do, because it is nothing more than a quick fix, and an absolutely terrible one.
You can zoom in with a phone easy enough, just reverse pinch, but then you are stuck with scrolling the zoomed view side to side. Further, you can't zoom out more than the initial width, so if you're stuck with only three words to a line (and admittedly paizo is not as bad as some others) then there is nothing you can do to get more words per line.
Also, popularity and things becoming a standard does not mean they were better options, it really doesn't. Take the Dvorak keyboard layout, which is nominally faster and shown to be more ergonomic , yet qwerty is still the standard.
Standards are often standards because of the timing of their establishment and the pack mentality of favoring what is popular or established. Experience most definitely does not dictate standards. The military is a prime example. My grandfather went into the army, got out and went back in. He went througn basic training on both occasions. The first time, he was trained by ww2 vets who had experience, the second time, the drill instructors were not combat vets and the change in standard was terrible (ww2 vets call the new standards a good way to get shot) and still have not changed And military equipment, talk about a joke, much of the equipment goes to cheapest manufacturers.
In any case, the font size and screen width would have minimal impact on the code. the only code addition would be the entry boxes with valid value checking and default value. The rest just changes where the code gets those values from.
@ Tinalles
1) good defaults are defknitely important, but that does not actually make user-definable less valuable in any way.
2) depends on the settings and coding style. While a lot of options does become a problem, some options are simply not going to increase these issues, especially when properly coded. And either way, having a small number of the biggest complaints be options can remain small enough to not be a problem, especially when it is things like font size that everything else has to adjust to compensate for anyway.
3) bigger fish. I do agree with you completely about priorities. That said, if a one man operation like rpol can do it, then a pro team should be able to as well.
I find it particularly stupid to follow the pack, though likely in this case, it is google's fault. Google has decided that non-responsive sites will get kicked off the first page of search results unless there is literally nothing else they can reasonably post in front.
Those of you who have commented that the margins on the messageboard pages are exceptionally large—do you by any chance see a box displaying the contents of your shopping cart at the upper right corner, immediately below the black header?
I saw that briefly earlier today, but have been unable to make it reappear.
My browser window's viewport width is normally between the fixed ~650px to ~1250px that the Paizo website places on the content area of the forums, so I don't usually see any blank space on the edges.
As far as the font size goes, it's too big for me but I use a user style to make it smaller. (Initially it was making it larger using the same numbers. :)
I saw that briefly earlier today, but have been unable to make it reappear.
Same for me.
I'm also having the footer intermittently get stuck on the page so that it hides content. Several page refreshes usually get rid of that, but just now, after I "replied" to Parody's comment, the reply box was hidden behind the footer.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Blog posts back on the home page, nice! I like having them there, but it would be helpful to have some simple indication of what each post relates to (Starfinder, Pathfinder Society, Pathfinder Battles, etc.) Currently all I have to go on is the picture, the title, and the first half-line that appears as hover text. For several of the ones up there now that's not enough to let me know even what category of thing it's going to be. If I want to find out I just have to blindly click through, which is non-ideal.
Those of you who have commented that the margins on the messageboard pages are exceptionally large—do you by any chance see a box displaying the contents of your shopping cart at the upper right corner, immediately below the black header?
I'm afraid not, in my case. Screenshot(s) available if useful.
| 1 person marked this as a favorite. |
Periodic reminder that Anguish is a terrific community member! (Not only providing useful feedback to people who know what they're talking about, but also good at explaining why things are the way they are to the clueless). Thanks, Anguish. :)
Shy grin. I try to help as and when I "know" something.
Is this a new thing?
It appears that whether I'm in focussed mode or not is no longer tied to my account but to whichever device I was on. I'm pretty sure that if I browsed in focus mode on my laptop then quit and came back on my Ipad it would still be in focus mode. If I then switched to unfocussed, the same would be true on my laptop.
Now, it appears that each device remembers which mode it was in, irrespective of what I do elsewhere.
I may well be misremembering that behaviour, but figured I'd mention it in case it's both an accurate observation and not intended.
Uhh...
When I went to my digital content just now, I saw that I have only 74 products from Rogue Genius Games, when I should have well over 100.
Halp?!