There must be a better organization than the confused mess on the home page. Not sure what it is, but almost anything would be better. Scrolling down to find the forum you are looking for is a huge pain. How about 10-12 main choices with either pop-up submenus or clicking on the main choice to get to sub-choices?
April 20, 2023
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Actually, it's well structured. 😁
But it is changing and we will take your ideas under advisement.
Alan
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What !
It looks perfectly okay to me on my desktop computer and iPhone.
Edit: to search the page until your eye becomes accustomed to the layout...
On a PC use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+F aka Control+F (press both keys at the same time).
Cmd⌘+F on a Mac. -
It is optimized for mobile devices, so on desktop there is some wasted space between buttons and on the left and right sides, but in terms of organization I see nothing wrong with it. Maybe with better colour scheme, different sections could be easier to find on the page, because right now they are all white with thin grey lines separating them.
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Few comments from me too.
What disturbs me most is two-directional structure (with no clear rows or columns) - to find some specific forum, I have to scan visually in both vertical and horizontal direction (don't recommend Ctrl+F here, OK?). I have nothing against scrolling, but I would expect either scrollable single column list (categories could be in bigger font) or non-scrollable multicolumn list (like it was in dpreview forums popup, see attachment). Or both :)
What about multiple popups or expandable folders/submenus, then I personally do not like that so much - I always prefer to see full information in compact form. Well, single-column list with expandable categories could be actually usable, if browser could remember each category state - then I would close most of them and browse happily between others :) -
I'm not sure it's a 'huge mess'. The problem is that there is a huge number of category, forums. What you have is a three layer structure - top layer is broad section headings, next layer groups like interests, that is for instance cameras by brand, bottom layer is the categories/forums themselves. The layout is what the forum software gives us with that arrangement - but actually it's quite efficient. On a phone it's just a flick down list. On a computer you can get to any forum in one click. Both your suggested alternatives need an extra click.
Anyhow, as we customise the SW, we'll look for better alternatives. -
The home page is my favorite thing about this site and a huge plus over DPReview or DPRForum. You can view top discussions on each forum at a glance rather than retreating to your preferred echo chamber. Posts can be tagged to multiple forums rather than having to copy-paste it in different forums and having disjointed discussions in all of them.
Admins if you change the home page (aside from making reasonable, minor improvements) I will probably hate coming here.
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Perhaps a large, prominent red button at the top of each page that will summon a waambulance?
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I’ve had a page scroll button on my mouse since 1998
My Mac mouse today handles multiple gestures... welcome to 2023
support.apple.com/en-gb/HT204895LMAO
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I'm gradually getting used to the layout. There is quite a bit of scrolling but you can also see everything at a (rather long) glance.
Maybe one thing that could help is to make the top level thingies (eg News & discussions, Photo equipment) expandable/closable with one global click. You could then choose to display all the forums in their magnificence or just the top levels thingy names.
Perhaps each top level thingy could then also be individually opened and closed with a click.
That way someone could (for example) choose to have all the news forums fully expanded with all the other top level topics closed up. Or they could choose everything to be open. Or they could have everything closed and manually open the ones of interest with a click.
Basically an expandable tree structure.
(It's the usual flat vs threaded thing again, isn't it, just at the top level)
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Yeah, on a mobile device having to scroll on the home page is a pest.
Suggestions for the mobile site home page:-
keep main categories just as they are handled now.
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a drop down submenu button next to each main category to open a list of subcategories.
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maybe an additional profile setting to switch between the current "IT stone age" view and a new "scroll free" home page layout.
Alternate suggestions:
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add profile settings / checkmarks for each sub- and main-category, to hide (or show) them on the front page.
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make the order of the main categories configurable.
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On DPReview all I have to do is hover my mouse over the word "Forums" and slide the mouse over to my preferred forum and click. No scrolling through pages to find where I want to go. Simple and effective.
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I think 'mess' is a bit harsh but clunky and not very user friendly, for sure. Imo the dropdown menu list of forums on dpreview was much more user friendly.
Something like below would be much more user friendly as well with just a vertical list of forums
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Yes, "confused mess" was not a good choice, even though that was my initial reaction trying to figure out where Medium Format Talk was located. Clunky and not user friendly is a much better way of putting it. While the page is organized, finding and accessing what you are looking for is much more difficult than it needs to be. I just thought the Home Page could be presented in a much more elegant and easily navigated way.
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I think formatting/shading the top-level categories (i.e. "Photo Equipment") would help so they differentiate from the others - but I think the threads page is much more efficient, you can see everything or choose a specific category/sub/forum from the dropdown menu.
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What I don't understand is why certain threads are highlighted twice - I can understand the latest post in each category to be highlighted, but these appear over more than one forum - why?
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I had the same question. But because Alan seems so confident that the site is well designed, I had to conclude that I am just too dumb to figure it out.
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I said it was "well structured". Not quite the same.
Can you provide me with a sample - or point me to a post/thread that shows this? I may be able to help (or it may be a bug)
Alan
