New Boards Design

i like it -- looks great, nice colors. I like it even better with just one image across the top.

does all this extra ad revenue mean a raise for the moderators?

We promise to spend our impending raise wisely.

There should be more ads...

If you were going for "slick", you found it. Could probably benefit from some minor tweaking in the colors/contrast/shading of type versus backgrounds etc., just a matter of degrees, but I've been the victim of waaaaay too many focus groups in my life so out of sympathy for your web-designers, I'm going to shut my trap and let the rest of the peanut gallery do the dirty work.

Back to the Land of Frito-Lay for me...

I love the colors, after staring at the computer all day, my eyes get tired of staring at a white screen all day. The darker color is easier on the eyes.

thanks!

quote:

Originally posted by nerokerr:

quote:

Originally posted by RalphTheWonderLlama:
it jars somewhat (the more so as it's a slightly different height to the Community Links box next to it)

If you were using Firefox (as you should), this wouldn't be a problem.

I don't find it to be too top heavy at all.

I am, natch, using Firefox - the fact remains that the two elements were, on my screen at least, of different heights. I confess to not checking it with different browsers and resolutions. The rest, however, as I said, was only my opinion. I am always happy to be in the minority

quote:

there will be one text ad after the first reply only, and only when there is more than two replies. It will show up again on subsequent pages of the same thread, but there won't be ads all the way through long threads.

the only thing that really bugs me about the new design are the ads inside the threads. as much as i personally dislike ads, i'm fully aware that ads are necessary and in theory they are more effective embedded as they are now. But perhaps think about placing them at the top of all posts on the page? or at the bottom? You'd have the same amount of ad space per page, but it'd be less invasive. just my two cents for the moment.

whoa whoa whoa whoa hold the boat. i retract my compliment about the new redesign until you get rid of the ads in the middle of the threads. those suck.

Like the colors, tho I liked the brown more. Both are readable to me, just personal preference. Lotta ppl dont like brown online, but these muted blues/greys are kinda generic to me. Doesnt match the home page either.... meh... its like I care but really I dont heh

HATE the ads that show up in the middle of the thread.... not even the most commercial forums that I go to (w/animated pop-over ads and crap like that) do that. I find it intrusive almost to the point of being offensive. It's mostly travel-spam ads anyway from what I can tell -- I know what Orbitz is -- and I'm not likely to click away in the middle of a thread anyway. Please kill them!!

I appreciate the consistent header that lets me click from my PMs back to the forums. That's good. Had the same thought about the people as Zopa did... where are their bags n all? but minor.

Last words: liquid layouts! Both the home page and the forum need them. Seriously.

Yeah, I'm retracting my compliment for the time being as well. I HATE the middle of the thread ads. Not cool. Not cool at all.

Yer Baby! I love everyone's honest feedback - even when you hate it.

Glad to hear that most like the colors, layout.

Mina: Regarding liquid layouts. 87% of BnA Board viewers have resolutions of 1024 x 768 or greater. The % of folks with 800 x 600 is going down fast - by the month. The 990px layout lets us make it display how we want to, versus the uncertainty of liquid layouts. Do you have any other site examples that use liquid layouts effectively?

Ad after the 2nd post: Yes, we do have a contextually relevant ad in between the 2nd and 3rd post.

Think about this:
1) Homepage of the boards, all category pages, all profile pages, all search pages do not have these ads in the middle of the page.

2) On the thread pages, we are using about 5% of the page's real estate for some contextually relevant ads. It's not like we are inducing pop-unders for credit cards and flashing casinos ads...

Do you folks that don't like the ad, really think that how we have done it is not fair and stupid considering what I said in #1 and #2? If so, I am listening to reasoned/thought out responses.

Love the colors - the previous stark white made it insanely obvious that I was not on a work-related site while in the office

I also like that the posts alternate colors. When scrolling through long rambles of my fellow booties (err... or my own rambles...) I occassionally missed the next post, now I won't have to worry about that.

I'll have to third (fourth??) the "get the ads out of the middle of the thread"... from what I understand they're dynamic? That's definitely cool, but put them at the top/bottom/side, whatever. In the middle of the thread is about the only place you can 100% guarantee I WON'T read them. *edit* Since Sean snuck in a post while I was writing, I want to stress my last sentence. It's not that I object to the presence of the ads, it's that in the middle of the thread I'm simply not going to read them. I've already started the thread, I want to see what is said next, I don't want to interrupt my train of thought to read something else. Soooo, in my case the ads are not even doing their intended job there.

I can deal with the ads...but the blue link color is officially grating on my visual cortex...especially on the thread list pages where is contrasts poorly against the blue/grey bg.

quote:

Originally posted by Stoo:
I can deal with the ads...but the blue link color is officially grating on my visual cortex...especially on the thread list pages where is contrasts poorly against the blue/grey bg.

Agreed... I liked how links looked before. Blue for links is sooo 1997. And, I'm generally not a fan of underlined links... it's already in a different color. I get it. I'll click it should I so desire. You don't have to underline it, too.

quote:

Originally posted by Sean:
Do you folks that don't like the ad, really think that how we have done it is not fair and stupid considering what I said in #1 and #2? If so, I am listening to reasoned/thought out responses.

I'm not sure how to evaluate this in terms of 'fairness'. In terms of stupid or not, if your aim is to put an advert where it'll get noticed, then no, it's quite the opposite since it clearly works. Personally they're very distracting - but then I guess that's the aim of an advert, right?

If you get paid regardless of location, then I'd say move them, however I suspect this isn't the case. I imagine the purchasers of said advertising space would be less then happy with their ads being somewhere where they're never noticed.

In short (Me? Never...) - do I like ads being thrust in my face? No. Do I pay for the boards? No. Does it physically hurt me? No.

But re: blue, underlined anchor tags, imho they suck more than a bag of limpets. It looks like someone forgot them in the stylesheet. Would trade a change for the ads

Don't give a toss about the ads or where they are and you soon just whizz past them as part of the wallpaper.

Personally if it was me, I'd have them as an indexed reference of sorts at top of each destination as a sticky.

But the blue/grey is so wishy washy, sort of what you might expect in a fellas washroom, and don't frequent the ladies.

Could be jazzed up or neutered down, but in between is just mediocre.