Timeline for What does constructive criticism of a design change look like?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
29 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Aug 22, 2018 at 15:11 | comment | added | Peter Taylor | @JosephWright, I know it's there, and I've commented in more detail in a site meta that (a) having three hamburger menus in the top bar is not great for discoverability; and (b) that means two clicks rather than one. Clicking on the site logo takes you to the "Top questions" sorted by activity, but I also like to view all questions sorted by newest. | |
| Aug 22, 2018 at 15:07 | comment | added | Joseph Wright | @PeterTaylor It's in the 'Hamburger' menu next to the 'StackExchange' logo at the top-left. I just click on the site logo to go back to the questions ... I've never used much else. | |
| Aug 22, 2018 at 14:55 | comment | added | Peter Taylor | I wish I could agree with @JosephWright that the left nav is a total waste of screen space. Unfortunately, one link which I use a lot (Questions) has been moved there, so it's a case of damned if you do hide it and damned if you don't. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 14:42 | comment | added | sth | If the site is more usable with the sidebar turned off, then it shouldn't be turned on in the first place. You accept that reduced usablility to have a space to promote teams, but that doesn't make it less annoying for your users. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 6:51 | comment | added | Massimo Ortolano | @Shog9 Well, in any case, the new design and the attitude of the SE staff after its deployment do not really constitute a great advertisement for Teams. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 3:32 | comment | added | Shog9 | If the site is more usable with the sidebar turned off, then folks should turn it off, @cfr. If folks are unhappy because they can't figure out how to turn it off, then we should make that easier. There's little value in something that just gets in the way when you don't need it; UI should adapt to each person's needs whenever possible. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 3:28 | comment | added | cfr | @Shog9 What the hell does that mean? If there is one thing you don't have, it's happy users. Honestly, I give up. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 3:19 | comment | added | Shog9 | Guinnea pigs are less important than happy users, @cfr. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 3:16 | comment | added | cfr | @Shog9 Yes, but you have few guinea pigs to try out improvements on. Plus I don't think most users will turn it off, as they won't know how. Rather, most of those giving feedback are turning it off because one of them finds the way and then leaves comments in the feedback. So word spreads among those giving feedback on Meta, but not among users generally. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 3:00 | comment | added | Shog9 | That itself is feedback, @cfr. If a large portion of users are turning it off, then we have the wrong default or the wrong UI entirely. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 2:58 | comment | added | cfr | If the idea is to push the 'on' default onto sites to get constructive feedback, I don't see how that's going to work as everyone likely to offer feedback has switched it off, precisely as a result of discussions around that feedback. So any tweaks you make to make it more usable are now irrelevant to your guinea pigs, because all the guinea pigs have switched it off. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 2:55 | comment | added | cfr | @Shog9 How can it be that much of a headache to have an 'off' default for one version and 'on' for another? I don't get that. The design already allows both settings. It's just a question of which is default. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 2:54 | comment | added | cfr | Given that pretty much everyone has turned off the left side bar by now - word spreads fast as @JosephWright suggests - I can't see it would make any odds to make some sites usable by default. (For all I know, maybe Teams is aimed at only users with big monitors.) I'm almost always using a 12.5" laptop screen, which is a bit big, to be honest but I couldn't get another 11.6". I don't know or much care what 'responsive design' is, but it seems pretty unresponsive to me. Three columns are always horrible. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 2:53 | comment | added | Shog9 | Couple things to consider, @cfr: there's a LOT more to the design aspects of Teams than just the sidebar; it touches all major aspects of the site; also, there are plenty of folks on Stack Overflow who also don't use Teams - the design should work for them too. What you're describing is roughly what we've had for the past ~7 months - and it's been a whale of a headache the whole time. | |
| Aug 16, 2018 at 2:49 | comment | added | cfr | I can understand that maintaining separate designs for a myriad of sites is unsustainable. But you're presenting this as if that means that all sits must use a single basic design. That's a false dichotomy: would it really be unsustainable to support two core themes, one for sites with Teams (whatever that is) and one for sites without? I can understand that SE can't support a thousand core themes, but could it really not support two? They needn't even be that different: just collapse the left side bar by default in one version and don't collapse it by default in the other. | |
| Aug 15, 2018 at 14:44 | comment | added | Shog9 | Just to be clear, @Joseph: the plan isn't to bring Teams to TeX (or any other network sites); it's to standardize on a core theme across all sites. The fact that this core theme has a sidebar is driven by the needs of Teams on Stack Overflow. Making that usable for everyone is a critical part of any eventual success here, as even on SO it is unlikely that a majority of users will ever be using Teams - hence the need for constructive feedback on the issues folks are having with it. | |
| Aug 15, 2018 at 5:26 | comment | added | Joseph Wright | ... and a small number of others has a very different design from the 'second generation' sites. Shoehorning Teams into all of the network sites, even though most will never use it, is not making any friends. Certainly for myself I've simply turned off the left nav bar: it's a total waste of screen space. So whatever you are planning, I won't see it ... | |
| Aug 15, 2018 at 5:22 | comment | added | Joseph Wright | ... everything else is really neither here nor there. The second issue is that of where you can make money. There are today lots of network sites, and I can't be alone in thinking that very few have any direct way of making money. So their role must be as bringing people in to the network, and thus toward the ideas that can contribute to the bottom line. But that means some features will never add to not only my 'home' site (TeX, mentioned in your answer), but also the vast majority of other ones. That's to-date been reflected in the fact that StackOverflow itself ... | |
| Aug 15, 2018 at 5:19 | comment | added | Joseph Wright | It's not a surprise that the 'big picture' changes are driven by the need to balance the books, and I think (hope) most users can understand that some changes will always be driven by commercial reasons. There are though two big issues. The first is that the 'three column' design significantly impacts on core usability of sites. The actual content gets squeezed to the point where it's no longer workable (at least unless one has a huge monitor). That's a compromise-too-far, and is bad news for StackOverflow itself I think: if the central point of sites is damaged ... | |
| Aug 14, 2018 at 6:29 | comment | added | Raphael | I think such a tool, if suitably interactive, could help a lot in getting design/theme feedback. Users could hot-swap and compare variants, and maybe even edit it so some extent ("I didn't like X so I changed parameter Y to Z"). | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 21:34 | comment | added | Shog9 | Designers do local builds and share screenshots; we can set up staging builds for more extensive testing too, though I'm not sure to what extent that's feasible for these @raphael. You should generally assume that few people have seen a design prior to the first meta post. | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 21:18 | comment | added | Raphael | @Shog9 True. However, even following the discussions on Meta Stack Exchange, I am not sure myself to which extent Computer Science will change. My feeling is, not a lot (since it's one of the newer, less customized designs), but I might be wrong. Is there still no theme preview site? O.o How do you review themes internally? | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 21:15 | comment | added | Shog9 | Maybe, @Raphael - but that's hard to manage as well. We blogged about it several times (two posts linked above) and had several network-wide featured meta posts, but a LOT of folks don't read those, and even for those who do read it can be hard to gauge the final effects of changes like this until they're live. And... In a big sense, that's the crux of the matter: for folks who just use these sites, even those who use them daily, but don't care to get involved in all of the meta conversation... That last step can be a rude awakening. | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 21:11 | comment | added | Shog9 | I know, @Raphael; branding is a double-edged sword, as numerous ill-branded sports teams have realized over the years. | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 21:11 | comment | added | Raphael | I suspect @rene's point is that it would have been useful to communicate (earlier) on some site metas, e.g. the first 10 you wanted to migrate. | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 21:10 | comment | added | Raphael | "we've had sites waiting on designs and even simple bug-fixes for years because of this" -- which also meant that when the lovingly crafted design was finally there, we grew immediately attached. And now it's being taken away (or so it feels). | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 19:20 | comment | added | Shog9 | I think it's important to remember that meta is our feedback site, @rene: not everyone who posts on meta is a "regular". Sure, we can ignore you, but when something hits -100 that's not just "the meta crowd". | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 19:15 | comment | added | rene Mod | I left a somewhat similar comment on the question, but: Is the meta-crowd, which is the group you're talking about here, even worth considering? Why would people like me be the best candidate to judge if a design is OK or a new feature you;re proposing? All I have to offer is resistance to change and lots of drama. I'm not even your core target audience, nor is anyone else that participates on meta I think. You might have lost the trust of regular meta users, have you lost the trust of your main community and isn't there a chance they are happy with the direction this is going? | |
| Aug 13, 2018 at 18:51 | history | answered | Shog9 | CC BY-SA 4.0 |