I've added back the missing sections, and tightened it down a little. Let me know what you think. arn
For me at least is much much better... Is that possible to bring back the ''more'' button so we can see more posts??? I don't know if anyone else liked or use this option in the forums first page area but for me was convenient. Kudos for the quick response to the community feedback
I don't like the new site at all. The original desktop version was perfect and easy to navigate. Everything was right there in plain sight. The new site feels like a mobile version almost like the app that I didn't like or use. My favorite site feels dead to me like it doesn't exist anymore
As if the first thing one sees on the iPad wasn't bad enough, I just tried it on my Vita and it's even worse: http://oi40.tinypic.com/2wnsfo5.jpg
Thanks for the heads up about the vita. I won't be going there on that system anymore and not on my iphone either. It doesn't feel usable anymore
Yes, the missing sections are back, thanks a lot, that was fast. Could you give some more details on what you tightened down? Because I do not notice anything, quite the contrary. An image says it better than words, so I attached a screenshot of what it looks like now on my iPad2: While I understand that you need to expose your sponsors to your audience (aka us), all I (sub)conciously take in now is advertisement on the front page. Not a good first impression at all, and maybe a negative for us existing users (for me, definitely) . Have to add that on my computer it most likely is less of a problem: I use a 19" office monitor in portrait mode, for the extra height to see more content. @der-Kleine: your Vita screenshot doesn't look that different from what I see. The icon menu on the right is from the Vita, yes? By the way: Did you ever test TA in terms of accessibility? I just checked with a textbrowser (Narrow, first one I could find) and as text-only the site is only usable with lots of time and effort. From what I know about screenreaders for the blind / visually impaired, going through a long list of links until you arrive where you want to go is a huge pain.
Forum overview color scheme is better than before Forgot this: The new color scheme and fonts used for the forum overview in the right sidebar on the frontpage is a great improvement: The black on light grey is much friendlier and less straining for exhausted eyes (your typicial IT worker problem here) than the original reddish/black on bright white. I wouldn't mind at all to see the same color scheme for the forums.
Yeah, the icon menu (and the bubble in the bottom right) are all from the browser. My point was that on a 16:9 screen of a mobile device one can't even see the beginning of the first article when one loads the full site.
I reduced the font size, and spacing for the sidebar. Designing to fit everything into 768 pixels tall just isn't a reasonable goal. Scrolling is free and easy. Even in your best case scenario, if we removed all ads, you still wouldn't get an entire article on your screen. The old design also couldn't see a full article in iPad landscape mode. arn
C'mon guys. I'm open to suggestions, but let's not just start making up arbitrary rules that even the old design didn't pass. Edit: we do have a mobile version, but right now it detects iPhone browsers only. Once we get the toggle in place, we will include Android devices. Android devices are so broad, including tablets, I didn't want to umbrella include them in the mobile theme without a toggle. Here's the old on my iPhone 5 in landscape:
To be fair, the limitations of small screen devices is why the app was developed. You have to draw the line somewhere.
btw, this is the mobile theme for those who haven't seen it. (accessible if you visit the front page or article page from an iPhone)
two things the way i used to view toucharcade, my eyes would follow the main column, and i could quickly drill through the articles and reviews and other posts. more frequently, i would switch to TA and simply refresh the page to see the iphone forum threads that are most active. both of these elements are now greatly broken as it seems that TA would rather put precedence on new releases than forum content and activity. i do invite change and i like the direction on the new look, but the article section is too (big?) over powering, and the forum discussion tables are burried down (switched with new releases/reviews) and only show a handful of new activity (used to be able to expand to see more activity). as someone else said, the text below the video or img should be banned and illegal. i would like to see the article sections scaled down a bit as to balance the page - as in my case, it seems like each article takes up almost an entire laptop/ipad browser page; and the forum tables moved up to a more accessable/viewable location, and please add back the ability to show more forum activity/threads! just my $.02 crit thank you for all the hard work and continual updates and content!
Thanks for the feedback. Yes, I can see how if that's how you used the front page, this is a step back. Though it occurs to me maybe we just need a better consolidated forum index that handles all this on a dedicated page? The front page has many competing goals. Helping regular readers keep up and helping brand new users find content. Our old design was awful at finding content. Some of the changes we made was to address that sort of thing. Obviously, those that used the forum sidebar religiously aren't going to like the competing goals, since we probably did move away from that (though not intentionally). But we'll try to bring back that functionality and maybe see about doing it better. arn
I like it. I thought recently how outdated and basic the old look was, so I'm pleased to suddenly see a change! The way I have always scanned the front page is to read a main article, then flick my eyes to the forum column to see if there's anything interesting (if so, open it in new tab for later). Then I'd move down onto the next article, and then flick to the next set of forum links. Etc. etc. repeat process. However, in the old style, I'd finish all the newest articles, and then have a hefty scroll down to see the 'other' and 'feedback' forum sections. So the newer, condensed forum bits are great. Awesome work, that I'm sure will get better with more tweaking.
I used the desktop version on my iphone 5 and it was perfect. We no longer have a choice to use a desktop version on iPhone. Bottom line is it was perfect the way it was and I don't see a need to fix something that wasn't broken. I realize you guys must have put a lot of work into the new site but I myself don't think is was needed
It'd be helpful if you could give more details on what you don't like about it. The post you quoted was in reference to the ad space at the top of the page, which as Arn noted just a few posts up is essentially the same as it was before, if not better. I'm not involved with TA or the site updates BTW, just a supporter.
I don't want to sound rude but I said I don't like anything about the site on the last page. I loved the way it was, for me nothing needed to be changed or fixed, everything was right there when you loaded the desktop version. There is no longer a desktop version on the iPhone, its stuck in a mobile version and requires a lot more work to navigate and even then there still isn't as much info as there was before. I know it won't happen and I'm not sure how many other people feel this way but I want what I had yesterday when I loaded toucharcade.com
