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.
I think that the suggestions of screenshots in the FAQ was a good one.
Speaking of the FAQ, on my brief poke in there just now, I noticed the Storetrooper info - should that come down?
Is anyone going through teh FAQ and suggesting to remove outdated things?
msbelle, Dana and Jon were talking about that in B'cacy.
