There's absolutely to reason to think we did it completely right the first time.

It may not be completely right, but it is, hands down, the most user-friendly, clean, pretty, and functional boards I've ever seen. Can't wait to see where you go from here.

I don't think you limit them by saying you don't care about decorating for people who couldn't find the front door.

Nah, just the people who came in for your party, had some chips and bitched about the way it looked when they left.

Obviously it's no skin off my back, I am just concerned about going to a lot of trouble for a couple ungrateful disgruntled. Also I'm against large items just because of making the site inconspicuous at work, but the great design here was made without my input and will be great without it.

ok miss niceypants. Honestly, if one goes to the homepage, reads the slugs and can't figure out where to go (I'll even give you skipping the FAQ), that's pretty bad. I think it is really clear what is what.

Of course if someone has specific suggestions above and beyond what is already on the request list, it 's always valid to consider changes.

Therefore my question.

Just to repeat the question...

I was wondering -- do you figure it's [saying we're hard to navigate] an artifact of just being used to different boards and never the twain shall meet?

Yeah, I do think it's an artifact, and I don't think it's something we need to worry about too much. I think fiddling with the site design based on comments like that would be unproductive, as we have no way of knowing what those commenters would think is an easier site design, or how many different opinions about what easier means between any or all of the people making those comments.

bitched about the way it looked when they left

I'm not talking about aesthetic concerns. I'm talking about usability ones. That doesn't count as bitching. I think that counts as feedback.

I do think it's probably mostly about what you're used to. I could go to the most perfectly-designed threaded board ever, and I'd still find it hard to navigate. Because that's not what I'm used to and I don't get it. I'm sure I could get it, but at a glance? Nah.

As far as looks, I was just going along with the decoration metaphor.

I see your concern; after all, it's hard to get feedback on initial usability. Navigating to the BBaB is advanced level. IMO this site is usable as can be within the TT framework.

Maybe we could have a popup come up when you exit the site saying "Wait! Why don't you like us?"

It's an annoying issue, since you just may never hear from the people who get confused. It could be one, it could be ten thousand (not that we could handle all of them).

It was just interesting to see it mentioned three times in two weeks on different boards that had used a b.org link in a post.

If we were to make the Next and Previous links more prominent, then someone would complain that they couldn't find the Message Center or Read New buttons. I remember having a lot of discussions when we were setting this up about what should go where, and the final design was a compromise.

That's not to say elements of the design couldn't be improved, but I don't think this particular issue is one of them.

Could you email them?