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.
Mal ,'Bushwhacked'
Buffistas Building a Better Board
Do you have problems, concerns or recommendations about the technical side of the Phoenix? Air them here. Compliments also welcome.
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?
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Is anyone going through teh FAQ and suggesting to remove outdated things?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.
I'll leave it to them.
I think the "difficulty in navigating" comes from people who are looking for dicussion of a particular episode, and being unfamiliar with this board, don't know that "Nillytown" is the place to go for pointers.
Some other boards have one thread per episode, and if you're used to that setup, I can see why Buffistas would seem difficult.
That's a good point, bicyclops. It might behoove us to emphasise how useful that thread is.