# Improving FA'S UI



## Dragoneer (Mar 31, 2006)

I'm putting some finishing touches on FA's new UI, English Muffin. I'm looking for feedback on the current interface, and want to know the things that piss you off the most about it.

If you could change any one aspect of it, what would it be? And why?

Provide reference imagery if you want.
*
Keep flames down to a minimum. *Constructive comments only. Non-constructive, flaming comments will be BAHLEETED. This is improve the site. Draconian, I know... but hey, look at my name. =P


----------



## Myr (Mar 31, 2006)

*Administrator Notices* - Another user here suggested that we have them so they've got checkboxes and can be deleted. I thought this made a lot of sense. Also, by having them only display a subject and link to a control panel or forum topic by their subject it'll cut down on the amount of space they take up. For a visual demonstration of what I've just said take a look at a second UI I had made up a few days ago: http://files.pyxaron.ath.cx/files/FApossibleUI002.jpg . This will kind of turn them into things similar to private messages or those EZboard notices.

*Register/Login Screen Update* - I'd say make this like a lot of sites like Gamespot, IGN, and others. Have a login box to the left and a registration box to the right. This makes the login/register thing a one stop shop.

>^.=.^<


----------



## Grave (Mar 31, 2006)

dumb question...how do you change it?


----------



## yak (Mar 31, 2006)

Oiii, why do i have the feeling that this is going to be the biggest flame thread FA's forums has ever seen  Nothing personal.. 
I'll post my opinion a bit later, sorry....


----------



## Dragoneer (Mar 31, 2006)

Grave said:
			
		

> dumb question...how do you change it?


You'll be able to select your UI in the interface later. We'll offer multiple versions in different color schemes down the road.


----------



## Dragoneer (Mar 31, 2006)

yak said:
			
		

> Oiii, why do i have the feeling that this is going to be the biggest flame thread FA's forums has ever seen  Nothing personal..
> I'll post my opinion a bit later, sorry....


I appended my original message. That should be sufficient.


----------



## Dragoneer (Mar 31, 2006)

timoran said:
			
		

> I think I'd change the part that says "This page loaded in 328.5 seconds" before worrying about making it look prettier.


I think we should add 90,000 features and see if we can break page load world records! C'mon, guys! WE CAN DO IT!

But seriously, we're working on trying to fix that. We dislike lag as much as everybody else. If not more so. The solution is both simple and complex, and I'm working on the server hardware myself... but unfortunately, I am not made of money, and the fixes that I want to do are not cheap.


----------



## timoran (Mar 31, 2006)

Speaking as a programmer... I think you should look at the orders of magnitude of the code. It seems like the site is 100 times worse with 600 users online than it is with 100 users online (when it should only be 6 times worse in a linear situation). This is why it's pretty nice now, but around midnight the site slows to a standstill.

You can throw expensive computer hardware at the problem, but if the number of operations increases exponentially or even squares itself for every additional user, you will never be able to upgrade enough to meet the demand. I think you need to examine the efficiency of the queries that are being made.


----------



## Dragoneer (Mar 31, 2006)

timoran said:
			
		

> Speaking as a programmer... I think you should look at the orders of magnitude of the code. It seems like the site is 100 times worse with 600 users online than it is with 100 users online (when it should only be 6 times worse in a linear situation). This is why it's pretty nice now, but around midnight the site slows to a standstill.
> 
> You can throw expensive computer hardware at the problem, but if the number of operations increases exponentially or even squares itself for every additional user, you will never be able to upgrade enough to meet the demand. I think you need to examine the efficiency of the queries that are being made.


Actually, we've got some other fixes in the works other than just the server. I'll let Jheryn announce them when it's time.


----------



## Mitch_DLG (Mar 31, 2006)

Okay, about the user interface, and what bugs me about it:

1:  The new vertical layout of site navigation to the right of the FA logo and Fender image is both visually revolting, and really hard to use.  A horizontal layout underneath the banner image would be far more agreeable and unobtrusive.

2:  The "Welcome (Username) Logout  You have (da da da ) new messages (number stuffs here)"  has terrible placement.  We are in a mostly English speaking and reading society, one that reads from left to right.  And we expect to find new and relevant information beginning at the upper left of any page.  Simply move it to the left instead of the right and it would be much better.  Even after it's been where it is for so long, I still keep looking to th4e left first.  It's simply bad layout how it is now.

3: We have areas on a user's main page for "Featured Submission," "Latest Submission (View Gallery included)" and "Favorites," but nothing for scraps.  Now, I know a lot of people don't have any scraps, but I have quite a few, and feedback on them helps me to decide which image I'll finish next.  If we could add a "Scraps" area beneath the "Favorites" one, that would help people to realize when an artist has scraps, and that they might like to go and see sketches or works in progress.

4: The it's become it is and other such apostrophe related issues.  It just plain needs to be fixed, and it had been before, so I don't know what broke to cause it, but it ain't working now.

5: The "New Messages" screen absolutely needs to be fixed.  Ever since the new layout came into existance, I, and many others, have been notified that we have new comments, shouts and fav's, but the New Messages panel does not show them, it seems locked on where it was at the time of update, only new Watches register.  I'm getting really, really tired of having to search through all my pieces to find a comment when before I was able to just go, "Oh, (so and so) commented on (particular image), I think I'll check it out.  Done."

6: The "New Messages" layout is also atrocious, as I've mentioned before.  There was really no good reason to have changed it from the previous layout, and the new one is actually more of a pain to navigate, not to mention it seems to waste more space.  Please bring back the old design.

7: Mouseovers.  While on a user's main page, you can mouseover the links from their gallery, and you get a preview image, how cool!  But, when you mouseover their favorites, DENIED!  If there's a way to make the mouseover preview image work on favorites, that would be awesome.

8: Previous and Next buttons.  One thing that could really, really help both browsing of galleries, as well as reduce strain on the server would be to simply have "PRevious" and "Next" buttons while looking at one image from a user's gallery.  That way instead of having to hit your browser's back button and re-load that gallery page, then click on the next image, you could simply scroll through their gallery one image at a time.  Little preview images would also be cool, too, so that a user could know if they even wanted to hit the next button.  It would promote deeper viewing of galleries, too, I believe.  Most every other gallery site has this feature, and I've found many pieces of artwork that I would have previously overlooked had it not been for that feature.

That's all I can think of for now.


----------



## Xax (Mar 31, 2006)

As always, my biggest whine is the site not being accessible enough: You shouldn't be using font tags, you shouldn't be using table tags for layout purposes, you shouldn't be using nested tables period, you should be specifying titles and media and types for your link rels, you should link rel (or @import) instead of having a <style type="text/css"> in each page, because that makes every single page on the site larger.

If you added <link rel="prev" /> and <link rel="next" /> on submission pages to the next and previous submission in that user's gallery, that would be awesome. Go read the W3C specification on link types and use as many as you can.

From the frontpage: "This page contains 3 font tags and 53 nested tables." just make those numbers go down. please.

I mean, the layout itself is hardly good, but I'd imagine other people can give critiques as to why it sucks... but most people don't care about standards compliance or accessibility. AND I DO. VERY MUCH.


----------



## timoran (Mar 31, 2006)

Xax said:
			
		

> As always, my biggest whine is the site not being accessible enough: You shouldn't be using font tags, you shouldn't be using table tags for layout purposes, you shouldn't be using nested tables period, you should be specifying titles and media and types for your link rels, you should link rel (or @import) instead of having a <style type="text/css"> in each page, because that makes every single page on the site larger.
> 
> If you added <link rel="prev" /> and <link rel="next" /> on submission pages to the next and previous submission in that user's gallery, that would be awesome. Go read the W3C specification on link types and use as many as you can.
> 
> ...



Please don't take this "advice." The only part that I agree with is the link rel-ing of the CSS. (Some browsers do not support @import.)

I'm in the process of writing an XML book... and making this site 100% strict XHTML would cause it to break in most browsers (as in, a download prompt will show up instead of the page) and look horrible in the rest. And for what? I say don't worry about strict XHTML... worry about compatibility.


----------



## Xax (Mar 31, 2006)

timoran said:
			
		

> Please don't take this "advice." The only part that I agree with is the link rel-ing of the CSS. (Some browsers do not support @import.)
> 
> I'm in the process of writing an XML book... and making this site 100% strict XHTML would cause it to break in most browsers (as in, a download prompt will show up instead of the page) and look horrible in the rest. And for what? I say don't worry about strict XHTML... worry about compatibility.



Uh, while yeah creating a strict XHTML website (semantically as well as structurally) would entail making the site display less than ideally in IE, it's not gonna do the download think unless you're using XHTML 1.1 and you do that whole type="application/xhtml+xml" or whatever, which I don't do exactly because it doesn't work right in anything yet. But XHTML 1.0 Strict is (or can be) still text/html and so it'll load perfectly fine in IE, even if IE sucks and can't read half the CSS used. But that's why you kind of throw semantic perfection out the window when making a big website, because 3/4th of the internet uses IE and it's important that it displays okay in it.

Most of the XHTML I write: Perfectly fine in Firefox and Opera, slightly sucky in IE because I'm a standards whore.


----------



## Final_Destiny (Mar 31, 2006)

wtf is a UI!?

not everyone here is a total webhead....

whatever it is, my pageview count still cant count


----------



## uncia2000 (Mar 31, 2006)

Final_Destiny said:
			
		

> wtf is a UI!?


= "User Interface" (i.e. "What You See On Your Screen")

But UI is shorter than WYSOYS


----------



## Final_Destiny (Mar 31, 2006)

uhm, its been changed?

lol... the only thing i look at when i open FA is my usercount...

and its not cuz of the fact that its stopped, i always have watched it, i just love seeing my count count =3


----------



## Silver R. Wolfe (Mar 31, 2006)

Final_Destiny said:
			
		

> uhm, its been changed?
> 
> lol... the only thing i look at when i open FA is my usercount...
> 
> and its not cuz of the fact that its stopped, i always have watched it, i just love seeing my count count =3



No it hasn't been changed. =3

They're asking what *should* be changed about it.


----------



## Grave (Mar 31, 2006)

silverwolfe said:
			
		

> Final_Destiny said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



How do we know what to tell them that should be changed about it if it hasnt been changed or we cant change it?

I am very confused....


----------



## Silver R. Wolfe (Mar 31, 2006)

Grave said:
			
		

> How do we know what to tell them that should be changed about it if it hasnt been changed or we cant change it?
> 
> I am very confused....





			
				Dragoneer said:
			
		

> If you could change any one aspect of it, what would it be? And why?



You're supposed to suggest things that should be changed.

Edit: Like features you would like to see implemented when they release a new UI.


----------



## Grave (Mar 31, 2006)

silverwolfe said:
			
		

> Grave said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



OOOOOOOOOOOOOH, duh, lol. Im suck a doobag. Sorry, i havnt slept and the sleeping pills i took arent working there just making me dopey.

but as far as the ui goes...i like it, no probs here.


----------



## Final_Destiny (Mar 31, 2006)

oh right... lemmie think on this

ill go visit my other online art galleries to compare them to FA =3

[EDIT]

i tihnk i'll agree with sumone elses suggestion, made on the first page - to be able to see if the user is online or not

that would be very handy

[EDIT AGAIN]

im not sure if someone did uggest it, but i think i remember sum1 mentioning it sumwhere...

if it hasnt been mentioned before, then i put forward the online user idea as a suggestion


----------



## *morningstar (Mar 31, 2006)

One thing I'd like to see again is the number of watchers you have displayed down at the bottom of the window. I realize that this is just ego fapping, but I personally like to know about how many people are seeing my work in their inboxes when I upload.

Also, I think FA needs a standard icon size. Icons are 100x100, but in the watch list window, they're resized (doesn't resizing those icons just make more work for the server?) and this makes some of them really ugly and pixelated looking, especially the ones in .gif and .png format. Having icons display at a standard size all over the site would make it just look a lot nicer.


----------



## timoran (Mar 31, 2006)

Xax said:
			
		

> timoran said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



I encourage you to check my site, xmlbook.info, which is served as application/xhtml+xml and validates as XHTML 1.1 (and it degrades gracefully in IE... when I upload the XHTML chapter, you will see how I did it). What I'm doing is actually using XHTML as XHTML. What you're doing is creating an HTML document with a bunch of funky self-closing tags in it that the browser snickers at, since you're using self-closing tags in regular HTML.

There's no point in making your document strict XHTML if you are ultimately telling the browser you're sending it HTML anyway. You could have all kinds of errors in your code and never notice (there are errors that the validator does not report, because it's valid code but wrong logic).

I don't think any site should write XHTML code unless it is actually using XHTML.


----------



## Almafeta (Apr 1, 2006)

My biggest issue is that administrator notices are overused, when it could just be put into the front-page 'blog,' which is underused.  Save admin notices for maintenance going on at the moment.  That way, you wouldn't have to load the admin notices every time any page loads...

Finally, although this may be silly in comparison, I'd like a 'back' and 'next' at the top of gallery/browse pages, as well as at the bottom.



			
				Xax said:
			
		

> I mean, the layout itself is hardly good, but I'd imagine other people can give critiques as to why it sucks... but most people don't care about standards compliance or accessibility. AND I DO. VERY MUCH.



Well, considering that "standards" compliance is only an issue if you're using Firefox, there's always a simpler answer than asking other people to write their code differently just for you...

EDIT:  And while we're on the subject of user interface, could anyone change the boards so that BBcode is enabled by default? =p


----------



## Myr (Apr 1, 2006)

Another thing that I'd like to see is having shouts take up less space on the user page since many of them are just "thanks for the watch!" and similar. 3 or 4 columns is also a possibility. I'd like to see something that's a bit different from the normal 2 column art community since a lot of these sites seem to waste a bit of horizontal space for some reason. :/


----------



## uncia2000 (Apr 1, 2006)

AuroranDragon said:
			
		

> Another thing that I'd like to see is having shouts take up less space on the user page since many of them are just "thanks for the watch!" and similar. 3 or 4 columns is also a possibility. I'd like to see something that's a bit different from the normal 2 column art community since a lot of these sites seem to waste a bit of horizontal space for some reason. :/


With regards to shouts, I polled a number of people some time back and although the majority desired endlessly nested replies to shouts, almost all accepted that a single-level reply would be a highly acceptable compromise (either single reply from the user whose page it was or the possibility multiple replies all on one level).
A warning re. the character count limit on shouts was also requested multiple times, but that's a s/ware rather than UI issue.

UI-side, having the option to place the edit box immediately below a submission rather than at the foot was seen to be a "good idea" (in terms of encouraging comments/community building) so that it would be easier to type comments whilst looking at a visual submission rather than having to continually page up-and-down.


----------



## TORA (Apr 1, 2006)

UI = user interface, like your Windows desktop, etc.


----------



## yak (Apr 1, 2006)

I was thinking of using javascript to make the floating menu on the right (left? top? configurable placement?) with all freaquently used links and info, like
The submissions, comments etc. counters, links to forums and profile/galery/journals etc., login form if not signed in and others.
But it will take some time to make the code work correctly on all the browsers....


----------



## timoran (Apr 12, 2006)

Now that the fast server is FINALLY up and running... I have a few UI suggestions for you.

Main thing that bugs me is how the first fav on a userpage is all jumbled up and different. The image sort of tells all:






Basically have a column for usernames and a column for dates, and keep it consistent for all items.


----------



## sasaki (Apr 21, 2006)

How about instead of applying it immediately and force it's beta test, that may cause potentially negative outburst of oppinions (because there is no other alternitive to the new default UI, and it doesn't work propperly) you have the option to use the new through a drop menu in the account settings? This would be a lot better then potentially ruining an existing, working UI that users may prefer. Yay for run-on sentances.


I'll tell you right now that the tables are being torn apart by oversized thumbnails and the new side menu. That, and everything looks clutered. Nothing is uniformed, and navigation links on userpages blend in with the background. it needs a lot of work, and it souldn't be implemented. Rush jobs tend to do this.


----------



## uncia2000 (Apr 21, 2006)

sasaki said:
			
		

> Nothing is uniformed, and navigation links on userpages blend in with the background.


If by that you're meaning the User Page/Commission Information/Journals/etc., tabs, yes, I'd agree somewhat.
And for the former, the manner in which the user's avvie is fitted rather neatly into the User Page and Commission Information tab, but is rather kludgy (space hogging and on the other side of the box) on the Journals/Gallery/etc. tabs, for example?

IMO changes to UIs need to be as untraumatic as possible, otherwise even an overall improvement to the UI will often get a negative reception in the first instance.
SheezyArt has totally thrown me several times on that score; when I've been totally lost as to what's happened after a UI change.

(Spotted your comment re. the right-hand bar: no fun on 800*600, and overall still horizontally somewhat cramped on 1024*768, phps: have discussed that on IRC).


Thanks & all further feedback/suggestions welcome, I'm sure.


----------



## thorndraco (Apr 22, 2006)

*Hmm..*






I misspelled course.


----------



## Myr (Apr 22, 2006)

*Re: Hmm..*



			
				thorndraco said:
			
		

> [. . .]
> 
> I misspelled course.


Try http://www.furaffinity.net/view/88436/ instead since we can't link to images directly here. >^.=.^<

I agree with your position on the right side open space. I had thought advertising may have gone there, but I've learned nothing of it yet.


----------



## thorndraco (Apr 22, 2006)

*Re: Hmm..*



			
				AuroranDragon said:
			
		

> instead since we can't link to images directly here. >^.=.^<



Ahh thank you. I was avoiding a direct link simply becuase I didn't want it to seem like a cry for attention.

---------------------------------

Ack now it's been moved to the otherside which is even more visually alarming. I'm sorry but horizontal space on a website is precious and should be treated as so. It's not which side it's on it's the fact that it's there. The problem needs to be solved another way.


----------



## uncia2000 (Apr 22, 2006)

*Re: Hmm..*



			
				thorndraco said:
			
		

> Ahh thank you. I was avoiding a direct link simply becuase I didn't want it to seem like a cry for attention.


No probs. with the likes of that, friend!
Looks v.m. like positive feedback that you've taken time to consider and present.

Thanks again. 

=
_(UI has changed again since, sorry! We'll try to keep the number of changes within reasonable limits, so apologies for anything that's causing needless hassle, in the interim. And hopefully we'll get closer to 'right first time' for the next UI release)._


----------



## Myr (Apr 22, 2006)

*Re: Hmm..*



			
				thorndraco said:
			
		

> Ack now it's been moved to the otherside which is even more visually alarming. I'm sorry but horizontal space on a website is precious and should be treated as so. It's not which side it's on it's the fact that it's there. The problem needs to be solved another way.


I agree, but my problem is more of the "mouse travel" between left and right sides. FA makes me an unhappy touchpad user.  I have offered some suggestions to help reduce this, but we'll just have to wait and see what's planned next.


----------



## thorndraco (Apr 22, 2006)

*Re: Hmm..*



			
				AuroranDragon said:
			
		

> thorndraco said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



If the links were properly arranged you could just use the tab key on a touchpad laptop...

Hmm
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/88646/ This is a ghetto dirty rehash of the current design.


----------



## Almafeta (Apr 22, 2006)

timoran said:
			
		

> Now that the fast server is FINALLY up and running... I have a few UI suggestions for you.
> 
> Main thing that bugs me is how the first fav on a userpage is all jumbled up and different. The image sort of tells all:
> 
> ...



This bug is still broken on the original/servicable style.


----------



## CyberFoxx (May 2, 2006)

Personally, I'd like an option to turn off the avatar/preview in the mouseover, at least for now. For some reason, the mouseover renders oddly under Konqueror. If the thumbnail is on the right side of the window, Konq wants to render the mouseover off the screen, thus bringing up the horizontal scrollbar to scroll the new page width.

I honestly don't know if this is actually a problem with Konqueror itself, or maybe there's a forgotten tag that, by default, gets turned on by other browsers but not by Konqueror.

I hope I don't seem like a pest with all these Konq bugreports. It's just that I've gotten really used to using it instead of Firefox.


----------



## uncia2000 (May 2, 2006)

CyberFoxx said:
			
		

> Personally, I'd like an option to turn off the avatar/preview in the mouseover


Agreed on that (with regards to avvie/preview mouseovers, anyhow): but as much from a bandwidth p.o.v. and the fact that the mouseover window is often off the side of the screen, anyhow.

A simple user profile flag for this "wouldn't hurt", IMHO.


----------

