[borceg]

As title says, Dear CrackBerry, I want the old forum style back This one is driving me crazy...

[carullo]

how come??? i like it better seems more organized to me

[howarmat]

no cookie for you, sorry

[Nyce22]

This new style is well...not very good at all. Give us the option of having the old theme back please!

[mnhockeycoach99]

You can never please all the people all the time. You can please some of the people some of the time...and sometimes it seems you can not please anyone any time.

[kemj]

People who resist to the change...

[Xader]

I'm actually not fond of the new style.

Too bright and stark. It hurts my eyes trying to read anything. The layout is just fine, it just needs some softer coloring.

[gorang]

How does mobile version of the forums work on you phones guys? For me it suck! I click on somethin and it takes 3-5 seconds to register the command and start loading 'topic'. When scrolling up and down with touch screen it works very poorly, like it just doesn't register flicking of my thumb. And before you guys start saying that my phone is f-ed ill take a chance and say that forums work equally bad on my brothers 9900. On the other hand dosktop versio works and looks great on my computer, PB and Mac. But mobile version is pretty bad.

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Hey All,

Soo... Love the feedback. Keep it coming. BUT... if you're going to give feedback, PLEASE MAKE IT USEFUL FOR ME.

Tell me specifically what you like, don't like, etc. Be sure to clarify if you're talking full website or mobile. Are you visiting from a desktop computer or trying to visit the full site from your phone. We take all the feedback very seriously into consideration -- our goal here is to MAKE IT THE BEST IT CAN BE -- not to change it for the worse. But unless feedback is backed up with some points, opinions don't really help me at all.

We've received a TON of positive feedback on the new forums as well. People like the wider browsing, moving the post bit to the left, and cleaning up and modernizing the look. If there's things you don't like, tell me what they are. There's also so many new features in the new forums too... that are not visiual but functional, that saying you want the old forums back is like saying you'd rather have OS 4.1 instead of 7 on your BlackBerry.

If it's theme / color / layout stuff, that's pretty easy to change, and we ARE STILL IN THE PROCESS OF MAKING CHANGES. And as I said, a darker theme is on the way as well.

ALSO - these forums are not *new*... been working on the designs for a long time, and we rolled them out on Android Central months ago and did many tweaks to the layout based on user feedback there. Initially people didn't like the changes there too -- because it was different and people get used to what they know -- but after a short time everybody loved them so much more and continue to do so. I wanted to do the forum rollout not on CrackBerry first specifically for that reason... so we could get a lot of user feedback and testing and having things pretty good before we put them on CB. But we also put the changes live here knowing that people will like some things and dislike other things.

What's funny is even with the old forums, that wasn't the initial design we launched with, and I remember when I put that iteration of the forums live the same sort of comments happened and people preferred the older one at first. But now that's the one people love.

So anyways... GIVE ME DETAILED feedback if you're giving me feedback. And keep in mind we are still making tweaks here based on feedback. The goal for me is clear. I want everybody to love the forums, whether visiting on computer or mobile device. And we're getting there.

Have patience, keep using the forums, keep giving feedback and we'll get there... quick!

Kevin

[JR A]

Kevin,

The functions of the new site are great.

I haven't personally experienced any pep in the new forums, pages and images still load the same for me (I'm at the office on a 10Mb connection).


However, the ONLY 2 gripes I have:

1. COLOR!!!! Orange and Grey are what gave CB it's personality! PLEASE bring back Orange and Grey!!! When I said this new look reminds me of iMore and AndroidCentral, I meant that it looks BLAND. And I think the thing makes us CB'ers stand out from the rest of the hipsters, techies, geeks, pretty-people who tout smartphones is that we have a distinct personality. The name CRACKberry alone demands something that stands out more than blank white pages... And yes, I know you made these changes long ago and rolled them out on the AC and iMore first, but still that doesn't mean we have to use it; it seems the only Mobile Nations site that has some personality left to it is WPC.

2. Emoticons - I don't know about you guys, but I can't tell what the emoticon is suppose to be 9 times outta 10. I used a couple emoticons in a recent post, and even I kept thinking, "Did I type that right? What the heck is that suppose to be?" There's GOTTA be a way to have the old emoticons back with these new forums.


Thank you for listening.

[rupam95]

There is also a huge bug on this forum. For instance, if I'm logged out of CB account and i try to reply to a post...it takes me to the registration page and here's the odd part. Once you click "Login", it takes you back to the Crackberry.com Homepage. Now i have to go to the forum and try to look for the same thread and the post just to reply back. Please fix this issue ASAP!

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Good feedback. I'll work up some "crackier" color combos... even aside from the darker theme.

I did do some testing on those types of combos before and never found one I loved... the problem being with the brighter colors is that with the forums being long down the page and so much repetition between post to post, it can go very bad looking very quickly. But we'll do some tweaks here.

I think the personality point is well taken. While we do want their to be a commonality between all our Mobile Nations sites, we also want them each to stand out with their own distinct personality. Maybe we're not quite there yet. Will keep working on it!

K

[pr1nce]

I like the new forum format. I use the mobile version the most, what's the easiest way to get back the forum you're already in? Thanks!

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Now on the bug list. Thanks!

There is also a huge bug on this forum. For instance, if I'm logged out of CB account and i try to reply to a post...it takes me to the registration page and here's the odd part. Once you click "Login", it takes you back to the Crackberry.com Homepage. Now i have to go to the forum and try to look for the same thread and the post just to reply back. Please fix this issue ASAP!

[JR A]

Good feedback. I'll work up some "crackier" color combos... even aside from the darker theme.

I did do some testing on those types of combos before and never found one I loved... the problem being with the brighter colors is that with the forums being long down the page and so much repetition between post to post, it can go very bad looking very quickly. But we'll do some tweaks here.

I think the personality point is well taken. While we do want their to be a commonality between all our Mobile Nations sites, we also want them each to stand out with their own distinct personality. Maybe we're not quite there yet. Will keep working on it!

K

Kevin,

I appreciate the speedy response and open-mindedness.

There doesn't have to be TOO much color. The light blue, mixed with orange, purple and grey just look like a funky mix. What if you made the REPLY, REPLY w/ QUOTE, THANKS, LIKE buttons orange and got rid of that light blue?

That'd be a nice start.

And maybe you can see what it'd look like if you had a lighter shade/hue orange for the top section of the page with those buttons on the top left hand (New Posts, My Posts, etc)

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Did try orange buttons as we worked our way to this design... too bright.

Here's the thinking, and I think it's what people over look in a LOT of the feedback we're getting.

The point of the forum design is to HIGHLIGHT the user-posted content on the page and minimize everything else.

Think of it this way... you're standing in front of our four sheets of glass. You can see all the way through the glass to the other side, but there's four distinct panes you're looking through. The most important stuff you want to be on the first pane, the least important stuff in the forums on the back pane. All together they still make one image, but the stuff on the front pane should jump out at you first... the stuff on the back pane, last.

IN THE PAST... CrackBerry's design (and all of our sites for that matter), have felt a little too "HEAVY"... the reason being that we tended to design everything onto one single pane of glass. The content, the navigation, the ads, the buttons, etc. When everything is set at the same priority level.. the front pane... the site is busy and heavy feeling.

So with this redesign, we gave a lot of thought as to what's most important in the forums... and what's less important, then we picked our design elements around that. The thread title is super important for example. That's your article title. If you land out of google on a forum thread, you want to know what the page is about. The text people are posting is important. That's the actual user generated forum content. So big fonts for thread title and posts help get that important across.

The tables and buttons in each post are important, but they're not more important than the content. People should notice the written content first... not the buttons and tables. So when we try something like bright orange buttons for reply, etc.... then you notice them first on every single post down the page, instead of what the user posted.

The most important buttons, Create Thread, etc., we put in bright colors, as we want those to be instant for a user to see. The things that are redundant throughout the forums, we minimized... you don't need them jumping out with insane colors down the page.

So this is just it... when we went with a cleaner look, and some lighter colors in areas... it's not for the sake of VISUALS... like a theme. It's very careful design with the intent of highlighting the most important things on the page. It's not fashion design we're doing with the forums here... it's geared at usability... both first time usability and repeat usability by regular users.

And that's why we've found as people have spent some time on this newer design, compared to the old one, they start to love it. A lot.

But again.. keep the feedback coming. But keep this in mind too as you're using the forums.

[esk369]

So far I'm good I wiil say I would like a darker background other then that I like it.
Good job team CB!:-)

[SwitchBeach]

Can you make everything smaller? I don't need the buttons to be 3/16 of an inch tall. And I don't need the thread titles to be in 36 point font. Thanks.

[clvrbas]

from what i have noticed with the CB Forum App it works just fine functionally, i do miss the CB Orange though

On m.crackberry.com on my 9800 it runs much slower than the old forum... that really isn't a big deal though, i'll just use the app.

Other than those two pieces keep up the good work.

"change is inevitable... except from vending machines"
-- Robert C. Gallagher

Sent from my BlackBerry 9800 using Tapatalk

[geoffsdad]

+1 Reminds me too much of Google +. Too bright and looks so 1999.

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Lol... if this is 1999, was the old forum design 1989?!

Interesting observation on the Google +... we definitely looked across the web for inspiration and formulated our thoughts on best practices, and there definitely are a few Google + like elements in here. Those elements though tie back to what I said above though... highlighting what's important.

Keep the feedback coming everybody. Good and bad. A mix of feedback isn't a bad thing... seeing tons of positive feedback. Some opinions otherwise. But it'll all help us refine it up.

K

+1 Reminds me too much of Google +. Too bright and looks so 1999.

[richardat]

So far I'm good I wiil say I would like a darker background other then that I like it.
Good job team CB!:-)

Just noting that in terms of coloring, a darker background has a functional aspect (personally, I'm fine either way), but the other coloring issues....don't get me wrong, nothing wrong with an opinion, and obviously Kevin wants to pay attention to details, but to put things in perspective, those coloring issues are subjective, and also....kind of trivial to my mind.

Big job doing an upgrade like this, I'd say dealing with bugs, darker background options, etc. should come first - worrying about window dressing - the color of borders or logos or buttons should be a distant second I think. I may be alone, but for me such things aren't an issue worth complaining about at the best of times let alone so early after a revision.

To me it would be like somebody cooking a meal for you, and then you complaining about the color of the dinner plates, the fact that the icing on the cake isn't your favorite colors....etc. ;-) That isn't to say that people shouldn't feel free to suggest, or even criticize....only that some people seem to be making their complaints about style and coloring with an unwarranted amount of importance and drama.

[JR A]

Did try orange buttons as we worked our way to this design... too bright.

Here's the thinking, and I think it's what people over look in a LOT of the feedback we're getting.

The point of the forum design is to HIGHLIGHT the user-posted content on the page and minimize everything else.

Think of it this way... you're standing in front of our four sheets of glass. You can see all the way through the glass to the other side, but there's four distinct panes you're looking through. The most important stuff you want to be on the first pane, the least important stuff in the forums on the back pane. All together they still make one image, but the stuff on the front pane should jump out at you first... the stuff on the back pane, last.

IN THE PAST... CrackBerry's design (and all of our sites for that matter), have felt a little too "HEAVY"... the reason being that we tended to design everything onto one single pane of glass. The content, the navigation, the ads, the buttons, etc. When everything is set at the same priority level.. the front pane... the site is busy and heavy feeling.

So with this redesign, we gave a lot of thought as to what's most important in the forums... and what's less important, then we picked our design elements around that. The thread title is super important for example. That's your article title. If you land out of google on a forum thread, you want to know what the page is about. The text people are posting is important. That's the actual user generated forum content. So big fonts for thread title and posts help get that important across.

The tables and buttons in each post are important, but they're not more important than the content. People should notice the written content first... not the buttons and tables. So when we try something like bright orange buttons for reply, etc.... then you notice them first on every single post down the page, instead of what the user posted.

The most important buttons, Create Thread, etc., we put in bright colors, as we want those to be instant for a user to see. The things that are redundant throughout the forums, we minimized... you don't need them jumping out with insane colors down the page.

So this is just it... when we went with a cleaner look, and some lighter colors in areas... it's not for the sake of VISUALS... like a theme. It's very careful design with the intent of highlighting the most important things on the page. It's not fashion design we're doing with the forums here... it's geared at usability... both first time usability and repeat usability by regular users.

And that's why we've found as people have spent some time on this newer design, compared to the old one, they start to love it. A lot.

But again.. keep the feedback coming. But keep this in mind too as you're using the forums.

I get what you're saying.

In my humble opinion, the color actually makes the forum more usable. I never looked at the old color theme as taking away from the user's posts, and actually quite the opposite. Whenever I pulled a forum thread, my eyes IMMEDIATELY zoned in on the person's posts. Now, well, everything just seems to float around in one big bowl of text. I can't distinguish your posts from any other post as it seems every posts gels together and looks like one big mega-post that never ends. Other than the lack of the cool people (except for Phil N., he's cool), this was one of the reasons why I got "bored" reading AC and iMore forums...

The old color format did an EXCELLENT job at making each individual's posts their own. I think the objective you're going for was better accomplished with the old color format is what I'm saying.

[ALToronto]

I really don't care about colour, but there are two functional deficiencies that exist now, and didn't exist before.

1. Before, when I started a new discussion and entered the discussion title, the search function automatically listed all existing posts with similar titles, so I could see if my problem had been addressed before. This no longer happens.

2. The search function on its own isn't nearly as powerful as before. I searched the forum about 'Google Drive', and nothing relevant came up. So I posted a discussion on the topic, and the first responder chastised me for not doing a search.

I'm sure these two issues are related, and should be addressed soon, before we are flooded with posts about the same old problems to which people can no longer find answers.

[JR A]

I really don't care about colour, but there are two functional deficiencies that exist now, and didn't exist before.

1. Before, when I started a new discussion and entered the discussion title, the search function automatically listed all existing posts with similar titles, so I could see if my problem had been addressed before. This no longer happens.

2. The search function on its own isn't nearly as powerful as before. I searched the forum about 'Google Drive', and nothing relevant came up. So I posted a discussion on the topic, and the first responder chastised me for not doing a search.

I'm sure these two issues are related, and should be addressed soon, before we are flooded with posts about the same old problems to which people can no longer find answers.

I didn't realize it was missing #1.


I do like the fact that I clicked "Reply w/ Quote" and instead of opening/loading a new page, the forum just quickly took your quoted post and put it into the Quick Reply.

MUCH more efficient.