The new top bar is out on meta. Consider it a beta

Question

EDIT Dec 4 - We're doing it live! Please post bugs or concerns as questions tagged [top-bar]

We have rolled out our 95% completed top bar for feedback.

Note:

• We are still adding a few final features, so if you have a request for a feature that is not there you might hold off on that for a day or two
• Yes, the bar is black¹. Also give that a day or two to sink in.

I also want to specifically address the meta/main/chat links.

I'm very aware that many of you like having the links at the top of the page and that this new version is different.

The thought process behind moving these links is that the "site switcher" should be an automatic place to go when you are on a site and want to go to another one. If you haven't already developed the muscle memory for these links, getting between them required a bit of a cognitive load: You must first decide that you want to switch sites and then you have to decide which area to go to to switch.

Also, we find that less familiar users aren't entirely clear what a standalone link that says "main" or "meta" actually does... Not to mention that it hurts my UX sensibilities that we are dynamically changing links in an element that should be fixed.

It is true that we have added a click in the process, but we have also removed a lot of clicks for other common actions that are much more frequent than switching between main and meta.

All I ask is that you give it a few days and see if the new "switch sites at the top left" paradigm grows on you.

What do you think?

^{1. Jin points out that technically it's not quite black.}

Answer 1

The "logout" functionality has been effectively hidden. It is now only under the "StackExchange" drop down menu.

I would expect "logout" to be associated with my profile. If the logout link is not available in the nav bar, the first thing I try is looking at my profile. If I navigate to my user profile, the logout functionality is not apparent. The "My Logins" link there looks promising, but doesn't offer any functionally for signing out.

A drop down called "StackExchange" is pretty far down my list of places I would try to look for a logout link.

While I like many of the features of the new bar, the logout needs to be more prominent. I would suggest adding a "logout" link on your own user profile.

Answer 2

Some more feedback concerning reputation.

1. Can I haz my Stack Overflow rep?

   I believe this is a bug, and I think somebody else noted this already, but it's probably worth stressing it: the Stack Overflow rep is missing in the dropdown.

   This has been fixed.

2. Can I haz my Meta rep?

   The dropdown is a nice place where I can see all the reputation points across multiple sites. I know it's probably redundant, but I would like to also see the reputation points of the site I'm in. Currently the meta reputations points are not being displayed and the chat/blog/logout links have been moved there.

   I know I can see the reputations point a few pixels away on the top right, but I still think having all the reps listed together would be nice.

3. You broke my workflow!

   I used to click on my reputation point score to jump to the Reputation tab in my profile. Now I have to click on it (1) and then select the reputation tab (2). I know most of the information is now in the reputation dropdown, but hey, I still think the reputation tab is useful (bar charts!)

   Two clicks, can you believe it?! I suggest you to cause a CPU overheat when I hold my spacebar so that I can configure it as shortcut to the reputation bar chart.

Image by xkcd: http://xkcd.com/1172/

Answer 3

The notification for new message looks odd when you look at it. Everytime I have that red square, I get the feeling something isn't right with it. It was until I actually took time to think about it that I understood that the odd look came from the tray behind it and it wasn't the red square that had a drawing problem. I zoomed the image for a better view but the normal sized appearance looks like the square isn't right. I still find the look bad even knowing this.

The red notification square for a new message should either be bigger as to overlap completely the tray or the tray behind it should be removed. Either option will make it look better IMO.

Answer 4

My two cents:

• The contrast between the blue Stack Exchange logo and the black bare is terrible. Consider making either the Stack Exchange logo or the bar’s background light grey (preferably both, like it was before).
• The amount of whitespace between the badge counts and the help button is way too large.
• The icons next to the Stack Exchange button are not sharp but rather fuzzy.
• Where did the chat button go?
• Where did the current user drop down button go?

If this would be the final bar, I’d be sure to add this to my user style sheet:

.topbar {
    display: none;
}

Or you know, just make it possible through a user setting to bring the old bar back, which was totally fine anyway.

Answer 5

Should there really be a green icon for each rep change? It's distracting and I keep clicking it :P

Then again, that might just be because it's new, I'll probably learn to ignore it.

What happens when there is an acheivement of another kind, like the edit/badge notifications? Edit notifications are more important than the rest, I don't want to end up ignoring these too. Will there be a separate icon for these?

Also, what happens to mod messages/replies now? Are they buried under the notification bar?

I understand that there's going to be a third dropdown, but I guess that will only be on the sites where I have a diamond. Will mod message notifications only be accessible from the site I moderate?

Answer 6

I keep thinking my gravatar is a notification. I suppose I'll get used to it eventually, but the reasons I think this are:

1. The gravatar is small; looks to be about the same size as the inbox and rep icons.
2. The gravatar flashes in and out when it loads, but everything else on the bar doesn't.

So it's the size of a shiny notification, and it flashes in and gets your attention. This is what the red "you have mail!" inbox notifier on the old bar did; it faded in after the rest of the bar had loaded. So the gravatar keeps tricking me into thinking something has changed, when really it hasn't. Any way to make the gravatar load at the same time as everything else? Obviously the size won't change, but if it were static I don't think I'd think it was a notification (I don't think the inbox and rep icons are notifications, after all.)

Answer 7

The Achievements dropdown should more clearly explain where the numbers come from.

Including the +1's from Community Wiki votes because it just becomes weird when those are involved.

I had +51 show up when I visited the site just now, with no explanation as to why it says +51 in particular. +50 would be understandable, but where's the +1 come from?

I think it's from a Community Wiki upvote. So I might have received 50 rep from 5 upvotes, then my suggestion in this question became community wiki and received one more upvote.

It would be helpful to see a breakdown for this. Something like:

• +30 The new top bar is out on meta. Consider it a beta
• +20 A question of some kind
• +1 CW vote on The new top bar is out on meta. Consider it a beta

Answer 8

This is possibly by design, not related to the changes, a different change I've missed or something that MSO is just an exception for, but moderator new meta questions don't show up in the inbox:

Biology meta notifications showing up on Gaming Inbox

But no Meta love

Answer 9

The inbox-icon looks like a printer-icon. It should look more like an idealized open letter.

Answer 10

For a minute I thought you had decided that using Stack Overflow would now require and be integrated with a G+ account.

Answer 11

It might be just me (I don't see anyone else having mentioned this), but when I click on the Stack Exchange dropdown and see at the top of the list "Meta Stack Overflow ... chat / blog / log out", that looks to me like those three links only affect that site. Which is even more confusing because I'm not even terribly active on MSO!

I'd say that the links that don't relate directly to any one site should go together with "explore our sites", not together with any one particular site. That makes it much more clear that they are network-wide.

Answer 12

I would like to see the achievements tab 'remember' what sections I collapsed and what sections I want to be open between two page loads. It currently only remembers this until I click a link to an other page

Answer 13

There seems to be a bug with the top bar and Internet Explorer 9 (don't question it, they forced me!). When there is a number on top of the achievements button and the user clicks on it, sometimes the browser tab will completely crash. I think it might be related to clicking outside the achievements window to close it. It happened twice to me today, but I am not sure if it is related to just this computer or to all IE9 browsers.

Answer 14

I do not like its blackness. It's hard to see dark grey on black and it's very contrasting with the white bg.

• Will there be an option to change the color of the bar?
• Will there be an option to hide it?

Answer 15

"The Workplace" has disappeared from my list of sites in this version. Is it because it is in beta? Can we have a list of our beta sites too if this is the case please?

Edit: It is there if I search for it, but not in my list of sites I have an account on. Strange:

Answer 16

Overall, not bad. Some specific criticism:

• The solid “almost” black is too harsh a contrast with the white page background, and gray-on-black will just about disappear under less-than-optimal viewing conditions (glare, bad monitor, bad eyes, bad gamma — take your pick). I would prefer colors which match the site theme.

• "Achievements"? We don't have no stinkin' achievements around here. I guessed this was supposed to be a term for “reputation and badges” (if so, it's a bad choice, because "achievements" has a specific understood meaning which reputation does not fit), but I don't see badges I've recently earned listed there (or anywhere else).

• I think moving chat and meta links into the site switcher is not the best idea, for a specific reason: chat and meta for a given site are not different sites, they are ways I can further participate in this site, and having them be prominently linked has helped me choose to participate more in those ways.

Answer 17

The actual gravatar image should be twice as big to look nice in HDPI screens.

At the moment the size of the image is 24px and the requested size is 24, but instead it should be 48px for the same size.

Here is the difference and it's quite noticeable on HDPI screens when it's not optimised for them. I think also that is not worth it to treat it differently in that case and requesting for 24px size for normal screens but rather requesting always the 2x size.

Answer 18

I LOVE it. The only thing I miss is seeing my name, for some reason. It's almost like a little security blanket I didn't even notice. Sure, the avatar is great, but there is something subconscious missing.

Answer 19

I was slightly shocked initially (I even cleared my cache thinking that something had become corrupted and showed the background as black).

It's OK I guess, I didn't really have a problem with the old one though. The missing "main" and "chat" links are a loss to easy navigation.

Also, in my opinion, I don't really like the vibe of the solid black bar. I feel like I'm on some silly blog site (or in one of Google's zillion different themes on their sites). The old bar felt cozier and integrated.

Answer 20

Two points.

Resize Achievements Window to Fit Content

It looks really peculiar to have a large white space left when collapsing the achievements window. It should be relatively straight forward to have the expand/contract to fit the content with a little Javascript.

Alternatively we could draw a cute little ghost in the unused space.

Collapse Categories by Default

I would collapse "Last 30 Days" and "Older" by default. As I think the majority of users will only be interested in their recent reputation changes / awarded achievements, when not viewing from the reputation page on their profile.

Answer 21

You now need three clicks to log out - click the Stack Exchange name & logo, then the "log out" on it's menu, then the final log out button.

Previously it only took two clicks - hover on username, click the "log out" link, then click the final log out button.

As ICT professionals we are vulnerable to RSI, so IMO basic functions like logging out should require as few clicks as necessary.

Ideally, I'd like a "log out" button on the top bar itself.

As an alternative, maybe hovering on the Stack Exchange name & logo could cause it's menu to appear automatically. Just like hovering on your name in the old design automatically gave you the dropdown with the logout button.

Answer 22

I like the achievements feature, but I think the icon could be improved.

I can see now that it is supposed to be some sort of graph, but it looks, at first glance, more like Mum, Dad and their three kids are out walking in the dark.

Which isn't exactly suggestive of what functionality it supports.

Could you please make the icon less suggestive of a group of people?

Answer 23

Mod-messages are not shown properly. The picture below is not censored.

Answer 24

Can we have the reputation abbreviated with the usual k units, please?

wout turn into the much more readable:

Answer 25

Consider running a test for achievements indicator, assuming a user who starts with something like +20 (+50, +100...) and then gets frequent +1/-1 rep changes from answers un/downvotes.

To me, it took quite a while to figure that flashing green digits indicate "daily reputation balance across the whole network" which lights on every time I get tiny rep changes from un/downvotes or when someone removes an answer I downvoted once upon the time.

It gets even more confusing when these flashes start messing with larger "daily total" updates from upvotes / accepts. Frankly, I am not sure how long it will take me to get used to this...

---

Per my reading of comments from SE developer, it was intended to behave differently, showing only increments compared to last time I checked:

The big green number is how much rep you've gained since the last time you checked.

Answer 26

Where can I easily see the server time? I want this when I have hit the rep cap, used all my votes, or otherwise been busy. Time zone math was never my thing and there's daylight savings too, so I always used the reminder at the bottom of the rep change dropdown. Where is it now?

Answer 27

The badge notification includes the text "see your profile" but the whole thing is just a link to the question or answer that earned the badge. There is also no colour indicator for those who haven't memorized whether Great Answer is gold or silver.

I tried to get a screenshot but failed. Hovering over the words "your profile" shows a link to the question or answer but it should be to your profile.

Here's the old notification:

Each of the bolded words is a separate link.

Answer 28

Previously we had 2 possibilities to check our daily reputation sum:

• Hover over the name on the top bar
• Click on the rep to get to the reputation tab of my profile

But now both possibilities are gone.

Could we split the link to the profile again to take me to the rep tab when I click on the left side or directly on the rep number?

Answer 29

Could we please get the AJAX bug fixed that doesn't update the rep display? Currently, any rep increase will update it, but rep decreases only show when you refresh the page in some way.

Answer 30

What does everyone think of badge notifications going into the main inbox instead? How intrusive that would be would depend on how often you get badges, I suppose, but my current fear is that the badge notifications are going to be lost in all the content that will be in the graph dropdown. I definitely want to know when I get a badge, but all the other info that's currently on that tab I just check from my user profile. I'm not going to probably use that tab, and I don't want to have to sift through it to find badges because there will be so much other activity... Does that make any sense? /ramblings

(There's always the option of letting us customize where we want certain things... "Do you want badge notifications? Inbox/Rep Tab/No" etc. But that's probably more work than needs to be added right now.)