These are just some usability issues I've noticed in the short time I've been here. These boards are great; my suggestions are things I think would make the experience even better. Nothing here is intended to get anyone's knickers in a twist.
Post pages:
All post pages have the same title: "Laser Pointer Forums - Discuss Lasers & Laser Pointers". I tend to use a lot of tabs when I am browsing, but on this site the individual sections and individual posts have no distinguishing features. You know how, on the home page, each section has a 'Last post' entry that shows the name of the thread that was last edited? If thread post pages had that same data in their title, it would increase the bandwidth for us out-of-control multitaskers. Right now I have a dozen tabs open that all have the same title.
Search pages:
There are two ways to search: there is a field at the top (the Google custom search) and the 'Search' button in the YaBB toolbar. The Google search dutifully reports the name of every page it returns... it's just that they are all (as mentioned above) named "Laser Pointer Forums - Discuss Lasers & Laser Pointers". Even looking down at the URL doesn't help, because the post pages don't have useful names, just links like "YaBB.pl?num=1213471542". I'd found this to be essentially unusable - it was easier to just read all the posts than to read the (short, context-minimal) blurbs returned by the Google search. Having post page titles that contained meaningful data would make the search function easier to use; it would also make the site as a whole more accessible, since Google's ranking algorithm uses the page title as one of the indicators of a page's relevance to a search.
c0ldshadow mentioned in a recent post that the Google search is preferable because it returns more results and doesn't put any load on the server. From a usability standpoint I've found the YaBB search to be preferable because it returns more context.
Random stuff:
I don't know if I got here at a bad time or what, but I know I'm not the only new arrival who has been dismayed by the amount and severity of the fighting going on, especially when it involves people who appear to be pillars of the community. I've read the discussions about moderators and/or the lack thereof, so I know things are in flux - but in general I feel it's best for everyone to be personally responsible and to police themselves and not piss in the pool. Some tools might be useful in that regard: specifically, the recent fights have made me wish for an "ignore" button. If we had the ability, for example, to ignore specific users for a two-week period, everybody wins: we get a higher signal-to-noise ratio, the people causing the disruption get slowly tuned out, and it could be useful for admins: if a large number of people start ignoring a specific user, it's clear there's a problem somewhere. We'd basically get to be our own moderators, to an extent, reducing the need for actual moderators.
Anyway, just some thoughts. I know some of this stuff could be a pain to implement, and not everyone will agree with me on what needs to be fixed or how to go about fixing it or whether it needs to be fixed at all. Sorry this turned into an essay.
- Foobario
Post pages:
All post pages have the same title: "Laser Pointer Forums - Discuss Lasers & Laser Pointers". I tend to use a lot of tabs when I am browsing, but on this site the individual sections and individual posts have no distinguishing features. You know how, on the home page, each section has a 'Last post' entry that shows the name of the thread that was last edited? If thread post pages had that same data in their title, it would increase the bandwidth for us out-of-control multitaskers. Right now I have a dozen tabs open that all have the same title.
Search pages:
There are two ways to search: there is a field at the top (the Google custom search) and the 'Search' button in the YaBB toolbar. The Google search dutifully reports the name of every page it returns... it's just that they are all (as mentioned above) named "Laser Pointer Forums - Discuss Lasers & Laser Pointers". Even looking down at the URL doesn't help, because the post pages don't have useful names, just links like "YaBB.pl?num=1213471542". I'd found this to be essentially unusable - it was easier to just read all the posts than to read the (short, context-minimal) blurbs returned by the Google search. Having post page titles that contained meaningful data would make the search function easier to use; it would also make the site as a whole more accessible, since Google's ranking algorithm uses the page title as one of the indicators of a page's relevance to a search.
c0ldshadow mentioned in a recent post that the Google search is preferable because it returns more results and doesn't put any load on the server. From a usability standpoint I've found the YaBB search to be preferable because it returns more context.
Random stuff:
I don't know if I got here at a bad time or what, but I know I'm not the only new arrival who has been dismayed by the amount and severity of the fighting going on, especially when it involves people who appear to be pillars of the community. I've read the discussions about moderators and/or the lack thereof, so I know things are in flux - but in general I feel it's best for everyone to be personally responsible and to police themselves and not piss in the pool. Some tools might be useful in that regard: specifically, the recent fights have made me wish for an "ignore" button. If we had the ability, for example, to ignore specific users for a two-week period, everybody wins: we get a higher signal-to-noise ratio, the people causing the disruption get slowly tuned out, and it could be useful for admins: if a large number of people start ignoring a specific user, it's clear there's a problem somewhere. We'd basically get to be our own moderators, to an extent, reducing the need for actual moderators.
Anyway, just some thoughts. I know some of this stuff could be a pain to implement, and not everyone will agree with me on what needs to be fixed or how to go about fixing it or whether it needs to be fixed at all. Sorry this turned into an essay.
- Foobario
(And great avatar! yay zim!)
