Latest News & Latest Topics on forum homepage

[ENTERPRISE]

Hey all, 

 

So as you are likely already aware, for those who visit the main homepage you have the Latest News & Latest Topics feeds which give you a small overview of forum activity. This is great for those who are sweeping past the homepage and also wanting to check out a review or two of ours but it left me wondering if perhaps we would like to see this on the forum homepage as well (forum index). 

 

Would love to hear some feedback on this. Please also feel free to vote on the poll. 

 

Cheers,

E

[KyadCK]

Mmm... Yes and no?

 

I am ok with it being on just the homepage, but the issue is that even on a 1440 tall screen I can only see "Latest Activity", and not the things under it, due to the top bar, the "Welcome to...", etc;

 

 

The Forum page has less on top, so if it had a more condensed version of the news up top that would be nice, maybe if the carousel was shrunk a bit vertically. But if I'm going to the forum specifically, I'm probably not looking for news anymore.

 

If the home page lost or minimized the "Welcome to" bar, changed the grey bar into a full on carousel, moved the four items below it into the carousel, shortened the carousel but had it show 3-4 things horizontally, most of the news/latest would be visible without scrolling on a 1440 screen.

 

Then again, I'm that guy with small font size and compacted user interface in a ticketing system, so I may be bias when it comes to information density and a dislike of scrolling.

[axipher]

Having a top area of two columns that had latest topics and latest news articles would be great, even better if they can be turned on of off.

[ENTERPRISE]

  On 04/11/2020 at 20:34, KyadCK said:

Mmm... Yes and no?

 

I am ok with it being on just the homepage, but the issue is that even on a 1440 tall screen I can only see "Latest Activity", and not the things under it, due to the top bar, the "Welcome to...", etc;

 

 

The Forum page has less on top, so if it had a more condensed version of the news up top that would be nice, maybe if the carousel was shrunk a bit vertically. But if I'm going to the forum specifically, I'm probably not looking for news anymore.

 

If the home page lost or minimized the "Welcome to" bar, changed the grey bar into a full on carousel, moved the four items below it into the carousel, shortened the carousel but had it show 3-4 things horizontally, most of the news/latest would be visible without scrolling on a 1440 screen.

 

Then again, I'm that guy with small font size and compacted user interface in a ticketing system, so I may be bias when it comes to information density and a dislike of scrolling.

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Can you show me what the homepage looks like with you scrolled down a little further ?

 

I assume the Latest News, Latest Posts and Podcasts are not all in one line ?

  On 04/11/2020 at 22:41, axipher said:

Having a top area of two columns that had latest topics and latest news articles would be great, even better if they can be turned on of off.

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It would be something we would make as a switched feature.

[Snakecharmed]

  On 04/11/2020 at 20:34, KyadCK said:

If the home page lost or minimized the "Welcome to" bar, changed the grey bar into a full on carousel, moved the four items below it into the carousel, shortened the carousel but had it show 3-4 things horizontally, most of the news/latest would be visible without scrolling on a 1440 screen.

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I agree with this. The welcome bar takes up a lot of valuable screen space and it's not a great look. I hope at most it's meant to be temporary because the site's content should be able to speak for itself. I've redesigned customer portals before to get rid of that text on the home page. It muddies the portal's information hierarchy and unlike those portals I've redesigned, there's no need here to fill space for the sake of filling space due to a lack of content. Getting rid of that bar alone would make the titles of the Latest Activity columns plus 1-2 threads in each column visible above the fold.

 

  On 04/11/2020 at 23:16, ENTERPRISE said:

Can you show me what the homepage looks like with you scrolled down a little further ?

 

I assume the Latest News, Latest Posts and Podcasts are not all in one line ?

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I'm also on 1440p. Half an ultrawide minus taskbar, or 1720x1400 to be exact. The content below the fold is in three columns as expected for that screen width. The Latest Activity columns don't collapse to one column until you're at or below 750 pixels wide.

 

 

Edited November 5, 2020 by Snakecharmed

[ENTERPRISE]

I do understand the sentiment with respects to the Welcome section on the homepage. I am going to run some visual tests and hide that section and see if we see a decent improvement (Likely)

 

Thanks for the comments !

[Supercrumpet]

  On 04/11/2020 at 20:34, KyadCK said:

Mmm... Yes and no?

 

I am ok with it being on just the homepage, but the issue is that even on a 1440 tall screen I can only see "Latest Activity", and not the things under it, due to the top bar, the "Welcome to...", etc;

 

 

The Forum page has less on top, so if it had a more condensed version of the news up top that would be nice, maybe if the carousel was shrunk a bit vertically. But if I'm going to the forum specifically, I'm probably not looking for news anymore.

 

If the home page lost or minimized the "Welcome to" bar, changed the grey bar into a full on carousel, moved the four items below it into the carousel, shortened the carousel but had it show 3-4 things horizontally, most of the news/latest would be visible without scrolling on a 1440 screen.

 

Then again, I'm that guy with small font size and compacted user interface in a ticketing system, so I may be bias when it comes to information density and a dislike of scrolling.

Expand  

 

Personally I agree with this 100%.

 

In regards to the original question though, I also don't really ever access the homepage. I'm either looking at the full forum listing or my subscribed or unread thread lists. Because I'm used to browsing that way, I think if this feature is added, I'd like to be able to turn it off like you mentioned we'd be able to, so I'm happy either way.

[KyadCK]

  On 04/11/2020 at 23:16, ENTERPRISE said:

Can you show me what the homepage looks like with you scrolled down a little further ?

 

I assume the Latest News, Latest Posts and Podcasts are not all in one line ?

 

It would be something we would make as a switched feature.

Expand  

 

Knowing that most users have a 1080 screen, that is a long way to go down to find information. I understand if site-created content takes priority, but being 2 full screens below what most people will see means it will likely not be noticed at all.

[ENTERPRISE]

Well the good news is that we are revising the homepage to get rid of the welcome message which at this point is surplus to requirement now that the material speaks for itself.  

 

With respects to the Latest Posts widget to the forum homepage, this definitely possible and we can have it as a toggle feature allowing it to be enabled and disabled. However this would be reserved for premium users. This would usually be an easier addition to the site, but due to our more advanced infrastructure, this will now need to be created via a dedicated plugin. Again, completely possible but will have to see the budget implications on that one.

[ENTERPRISE]

Fyi the homepage edit is complete

[Mistio]

I like it

[ENTERPRISE]

  On 05/11/2020 at 18:22, Mistio said:

I like it

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Awesome, I am rather partial to it as well after a little tweak. 

 

So with relation to this thread and the Latest widget, good news. 

 

The "Latest" widget will be making its way to the homepage soon. This will also be a configurable feature for premium users and will enable it to be toggled on and off. We are also developing what we call the "Premium Master Plugin". This will allow us to make the site more configurable for users as a whole, for now will only include the Latest widget, but in the future we will be able to make other elements configurable so users can further customize their experience. 

 

On a unrelated note but in relation to feature development, I will be testing the new Rig Creator this weekend with a view to making it live as soon as possible so we can once again get all our rigs entered into our profiles and showing back into our signature once again.

 

Thanks all,

E

[Supercrumpet]

  On 06/11/2020 at 10:03, ENTERPRISE said:

 

Awesome, I am rather partial to it as well after a little tweak. 

 

So with relation to this thread and the Latest widget, good news. 

 

The "Latest" widget will be making its way to the homepage soon. This will also be a configurable feature for premium users and will enable it to be toggled on and off. We are also developing what we call the "Premium Master Plugin". This will allow us to make the site more configurable for users as a whole, for now will only include the Latest widget, but in the future we will be able to make other elements configurable so users can further customize their experience. 

 

On a unrelated note but in relation to feature development, I will be testing the new Rig Creator this weekend with a view to making it live as soon as possible so we can once again get all our rigs entered into our profiles and showing back into our signature once again.

 

Thanks all,

E

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Sounds great, thanks for the update!

[KyadCK]

Much better, I can see at least a few topic from each category. Even if I need to scroll a bit to see it all, it's obvious that it is there. 

 

 

Looks cleaner without that break between the bar and article section too.

Edited November 6, 2020 by KyadCK

[ENTERPRISE]

  On 06/11/2020 at 19:53, KyadCK said:

Much better, I can see at least a few topic from each category. Even if I need to scroll a bit to see it all, it's obvious that it is there. 

 

 

Looks cleaner without that break between the bar and article section too.

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 Awesome ! Thanks for the feedback.