Hi, I looked for a similar post before creating this topic, but I really just wanted to express a few things about the latest release, and didn't see anything similar in my quick scan...

I just wanted to say, as a personal preference with the Home page layout in the latest release, I like it back the other way, with Groups and friends aligned to the right and news etc on the left.

And also, Could you please bring back the Chat mouse-over on friends thumbnails on the home page, this was very effective, without having to go into the users profile to chat to them.

If this new layout is to stay, maybe look into a control panel for users to specify some simple layout options?

Why?

Because the eye moves from top left corner to bottom right, and the first thing that I'm looking for on the home page is the active discussions that I am participating in.

Then on to the groups that I am a member.

Also the thumbnails of the groups and friends are larger than the text for the news and active discussions, requiring more space, and there for should take up the larger portion of the screen real estate.

Hey Pseudyx, good feedback.

I think I agree but I'm happy to use it for a few days and see.

I'll check out the chat mouseover

yeah cool... I put it in here also because I wanted to see what other people think?

I'm happy to use it also, and see what kind of feedback is received.

Some of the new features/changes in this version:

• New Tangler home page (www.tangler.com)
• new user home page
• advanced group customisation
• improved edit box

I wish the home page video would drop to the bottom after some period of time. Then, all the good navigation stuff would be above the fold. The Tangler home page content is more about height than width, so I think that would be a nice, usable change.

Whereas the groups and topics pages are all about width...

Hey fred, what do you mean abt the video? Hiding it doesn't help?

Happy days are here again!

Oh cool!!

heheh you got me confused for a while there!

Ahem, the new home page is *very* nice

HAHAHAH

Why thank you!

Kudos to the design team for the brand new "Hide Welcome Info" link.

It's been there for sometime now

Well, brand new to me, anyways

hahahah

We might need to make it more visible

I can't believe that's been my nit for so long and I completely missed it.

I can't believe you never said anything before this!

Very patient, I am... 

Please, feel free to let us know about any other gripes/suggestions you have.

A fresh perspective is always welcome!

"advanced group customisation" - what is it, I was looking in the groups?

You can personalise your group's url. Eg http://www.tangler.com/group/dekrazee1

We now also have the ability to set the skin to our own specifications, but I'll let someone else jump in here and give you the specifics. (I don't know the correct terms etc)

that video should auto hide after the first visit, I've seen a number of users just scroll down every time they login.

duh..  I don't have a 165 IQ Dealy like Super-King. 

Still failing:

http://validator.w3.org

What's that Drazick?

One thing in this release you might notice is you can use descriptive URLs for your group. ie. instead of tangler.com/group/12334 you can now choose a name for it, such as http://www.tangler.com/group/marty

I assume that won't break the URL /group/12334, though, right?

yep, they still work.

I paste below private conversations I've had with dekrazee1 (Just my comments where pertinent) on this subject I hope they make sense. In any event I heartily agree with Pesudyx.

• What the bloody hell have you guys done to the Tangler home page?

You have squashed all my groups and contacts up against the left, which feels cluttered and claustrophobic,  and turned the right hand third (edit: right hand half) of the screen in to grey wasteland. Why? Are you guys going to be filling that in with something magical?.

It all looks awful and feels uncomfortable.

I am sorry. BUT.....

Change it back NOW!!!!!

• Sep 13, 07 (2 days ago)

I would like to point out that, IMVHO change for change sake isn't a good thing.

Why have you removed the "Available/Busy/Offline" tags from the contact icons??

• You know the more I look at it......................

....the worse it looks and feels.

• 03:55 AM (52 minute ago)

Why has there been more bloody changes to Tangler?

When you click on a group it used to list the topics and ask you to click on one, now it doesn't it goes to the other page, the one you get for groups you haven't joined. This is no bloody use if you have to click on a topic you don't want just to gain access to the list to find the topic you do want. It's the same trying to 'chat' with your contacts. You have to now click on the contact, get their  profile and then click "chat with..." WHY?

• It's getting worse not better. See what happens when the septics take over!!!!

03:58 AM (48 minute ago)

This is becoming so cumbersome and cluttered and uncomfortable, I can honestly say the only reason I am still in here at all. is because I am already in.

If I were new or fairly new to Tangler I (personally) really wouldn't bother. I actually feel like giving up with it right now. It's that annoying.

• If I want to add something in General Conversation I click the icon. You used to get the topic list, now (since today) you don't.

• If I made major changes of similar ilk, and mucked it up so badly I'd get sued. More probably jailed. Did no one think this through?

Not to be rude John, but you sound like a baby. Maybe if you made your comments with less whining and more constructive criticisms they might take more heed of them.

He may be whinning, but I actually agree with most of it... To put it in a more diplomatic way:

• See my post above about 'why' I don't like the Home page change
• "Why have you removed the "Available/Busy/Offline" tags from the contact icons??" - I agree, this was very helpful, useful.
  
  Plus when wanting to talk to a user in private we have to go through the user profile page, as apposed to the old method of clicking on the 'chat' link.
  
  1 rule of thumb for interface design: The more click a user has to go through to get to the information they want, the less likely they are to do so.Research suggests that users on average do not go past 3 clicks.

• "If I want to add something in General Conversation I click the icon. You used to get the topic list, now (since today) you don't." - I agree, the list when clicking the group was more convenient, and subscribes to the 'less clicks' principal. I only really actualy look at the group info, the first time I access a group and join or not.

on a congratulatory note though... I do like the named topic URL. very good guys.

@chapel

My comments are, as I stated above them, out of context and I should point to the fact you are not privvy to any of my other conversations on this subject. My comments  may very well be whining (and thanks for that, I'll bear it in mind),  but they are no less valid. I was going to expound further on the principle of "the squeaky wheel" but I'm sure you will understand my point from this statement.

I too don't wish to be rude but, your only contribution to this topic is to rebuke me?

Please tell me, are you happy with the changes?

I would like to add my voice to the appreciation of the named URL.

I never saw JR's comments as whining - more as an indication of the frustration he is feeling.

And I share those too. I agree that taking the hovers away is counter-productive.

Not sure cos I haven't talked to the devs yet, but the groups opening on to the About page might be a bug

A message from the devs:

Groups opening on the about page was not intended and is a bug.  In terms of the other UI changes the team will get together and have a serious talk about this and what would be the best way forward.  We are open to all comments and suggestions about tangler, and we don't see them as whining, more helping improve the system

It's a validator.

It checks if the code comply with standards and therefore would work with all browsers. 

It deserves to be said that you can have valid code that doesn't render the same way in all browsers, and invalid code that that renders nearly the same in all major browsers.

I appreciate the latest changes (beside the bug in group navigation). Improved group urls are great. I also very much like the new home page. It might have some layout issues but putting the focus on latest activity is great - if you do not have any you get empty space. Quite natural.

Constructive feedback:

• Tangler avatars are great but in some contexts they might be to large. Maybe introduce a second smaller version and take some cues from IM programms. Simple buddy list with online / offline indicator.
• Give the groups an indicator of activity (e.g. unread / new posts) so it becomes more meaningful. Show more of my groups (which might work with the buddy list from above)
• With tangler being social I think it might be interesting for the dashboard (that is what home is) to indicate what my contacts engage in. E.g groups my contacts are active in, recent postings by my contacts, etc
• Give the search an indicator what is being searched (or better yet add a select box: my groups, all groups, users, etc)
• Drop the last message date in the recent activity read out.. it adds more cutter than value imho
• Rename "show welcome info" into "Looking for an introduction?" or something like it. Give it some nicer styling. Looks very much under construction
• Add more visual grouping to the sections on the home page, right now things are a bit hard to process.
• On a users page limit the maximum number of groups listed (270 mick?)
• Add more value to a user page by showing recent activity for that user so one can see what the user is into (groups do that - but then you often end up in groups you might be less then active in)

That is plenty. Further up someone said change for the sake of change is bad. I think change is almost always good. Change often and change quickly - as long as you are prepared to make amends and listen only good things can come from it. At least in the early stage of the web app business

Kudos Tangler crew.

Wow! Excellent list Alex

A lot of very interesting points there

ps> As a designer I think one needs to read what users request (and accept that many will disapprove of changes - we are all set in our ways). But better then just catering to that, the tricky designer's task is to understand why they are asking for this or that. Remove suggestions of implementation and try to understand the intention. I hope someone will do that to my list above

Wow.. feels like I started my Sunday working. (Cheers dekrazee1!)

Good insight Alex

I am, strangely, glad to see the group navigation problem is a bug and not deliberate.

@Alex(ander)

Great posts. Lot's of really good suggestions I wish I'd thought of.

Thanks for the 'dashboard' illumination.

It was I who made the comment "change for change sake isn't good" You argue that it "is almost always good. Change often and change quickly - as long as you are prepared to make amends..." and that would be fair if those amends were quickly forthcoming when something has gone wrong. However I was lead to understand that this might not be the case. Hence my comment about not thinking it through.

It might have some layout issues but putting the focus on latest activity is great - if you do not have any you get empty space.

Even when you do have activity you get empty space (about half the page). This is plainly unavoidable not all topic headers can fill the whole half of the page. My point was that shifting them to the right, and groups and contacts to the left, left me feeling that it looks cramped on the left and this perception is caused or exaggerated by the  empty space on the right, leaving the whole page a little uncomfortable to look at. As pseudyx pointed out in the first post, the eye tends to scan the page top-left to bottom-right at first glance, and running into empty space is psychologically uncomfortable for most people. This is the principle of the aesthetics of the "golden rectangle" on display screens (Monitors, TVs, Cinema), but the principle only works positively if the screen is "book ended" or "completed"  on the right hand side.

I do hope that better expresses my concerns on the layout subject.

I think change itself is neutral.  What is good or bad is the approach towards or movement away from a goal.

As for this topic: I am doing very well with the Recent Activity drop down.  The only thing that I would like to see on top of that is an aggregate left-side topic list (instead of just one per group).

@Alex, I really like your posts, especially when you say "Remove suggestions of implementation and try to understand the intention." - This is exactly why I added the 'Why?" part of my original post, to give more insight into my personal opinion based on my opinion juxtaposed with industry standards/research.

You as a designer would of cause understand the principles of the golden rectangle, as John Robie suggests, which is considered to be naturally aesthetically pleasing.

Your suggestions above tend to agree with the overall feeling of the dashboard.

• "Tangler avatars are great but in some contexts they might be to large." - This backs up the original suggestion of having the avatars on the right hand side or larger portion of the screen would make the avatars appear less cramped together
  
  
• "Drop the last message date in the recent activity read out.. it adds more cutter than value imho". - When on the left side or small portion of the screen, this information fitted together nicely. And I actually use that info, because I generally have a lot of active group participation, there are many 'last post' activities on my dashboard, having the date and time lets me know when the last message was posted and how fats/often people are responding to posts.
  
  
• "Add more visual grouping to the sections on the home page, right now things are a bit hard to process." - I totally agree, it is hard to process. When the avatars where on the right hand side, they were easier to process, ie: Groups, friends, explore.
  
  
• "It might have some layout issues but putting the focus on latest activity is great - if you do not have any you get empty space" - I agree, the empty space in 'recent activity' is a bit of an issue. If you have little recent activity then you do get big open spaces of nothing... This was not an issue when the textual information was on the left portion of the screen... This information is well suited for the smaller portion.As you say "putting the focus on latest activity is great", is true... but I would suggest that being on the right portion of the screen, its not the first thing the eye sees, and therefor not the biggest focus. When on the left portion, the eye focuses first on the changed textual information 'recent activity', then moves over to the group and user avatars.
  

I agree with everything you have suggested, simply because it also highlights that which everyone else is saying about the dashboard.

"change is almost always good. Change often and change quickly - as long as you are prepared to make amends and listen only good things can come from it." - I would disagree with half of this. Being a Multimedia Design Project Manager, I have seen many projects fail, both large scale and small, because of changes implemented that were more adverse than good. "Change often and change quickly", can be a major issue. I agree that change is good, as it keeps your audience captivated, however, changes should be thought out and implemented based on project goals/aims, not just for the sake of change.

The opposite can also be true, if you do not implement any change you can lose your target audience or lose new comers and be left with only the originals or 'hard core' users. Look at myspace and facebook, or similar social networking sites, myspace had a steady growth, which is now in decline due to a lack of change, and those networking site picking up the leavers are facebook and others, who make changes based on user research.

Here is an example of all the empty space, after checking all topics that I am active in, and adding 1 new friend.

Very cramped on the left, and very vacant on the right... This is not an issue when the items are on the opposite sides.

Thanks for your feedback guys, I appreciate your honesty. I'll certainly have a look over all your points in the next couple of days. Designing the interface to something like Tangler can be tricky as you need to cater for a lot of different user needs ranging from beginners to intermediate to  heavy users, and also for users progressing between those phases. When pursuing the right user interface mix, you'll make some mistakes along the way, as designs that seem to work well in discussions and mock-ups may not work well when deployed in real life and used everyday. Plus you tend to hear about what doesn't work quicker than you do for things that do work

true that.. Well the custom URL works very well... and so does the (initial) CSS usage for custom skins. -> My play around <- And as you know, Tangler as a whole is brilliant, otherwise I wouldn't have made this thread.

After reading through the comments and challenging some of my initial design choices, here are some replies:

Overall layout:
My main reason for trialling out this layout change (with the 'What's New' content on the right hand side) was to see the effect of positioning the main content in a similar way the 'Discuss' section for groups (topic list / messages) is positioned, and have the 'What's New' stuff  on the right just like the messages in a topic are positioned. Though this seemed to work in some mock-ups and discussion, it clearly doesn't work well in execution. I agree it doesn't feel right after using it over time. One factor is the groups and contacts section takes  a little too much space (width wise) and pushes past the nice Golden Proportion ratio. The avatars also compete more than I expected with textual content in the 'What's New' stuff, which further reduces the focus on that information. All in all, I'll switch it back to the original layout and space it out a little more.

Mouseover Chat links:
I didn't realise this was used that often, especially since only a handful of contacts are displayed. If you wanted to chat to someone that didn't appear in the list (if you had more than 5 contacts), you'd still have to click through to the full contacts page. But I guess I can see the extra convenience of not having to go to the full page if they appear on the dashboard. My question is would it be better to simply go to the chat page when clicking on the user avatar on the dashboard rather than the profile page? This would remove the need to even have the mouseover. How many of you want to visit their profile page anyway (in this context)?

'Available / Busy / Offline' indicators:
Just like the previous point, I didn't realise this was used that much. Again, this was a result of removing one too many bits of information in the pursuit of simplifying the interface. I can easily put this back.

Avatar sizes:
In which contexts are they too large?

Contact Activity List :
One point brought up by Alex(ander) was providing information on what your contacts are up to. That's something we've been discussing for a while now and envisaged adding to the 'What's New' section on the dashboard page. So for example if a contact posts a message in a topic, you'd see an entry for it, if they created a new group, you'd see an entry for it, etc. May need some extra controls around this though so you can manage who's activity you'd like to be notified of.

"Show Welcome Info" section:
Overall this probably needs further work to provide an even better introduction for first time users, and know when best to reduce it's footprint

As always, I'm happy to discuss this further and welcome any other suggestions you may have.

Mouseover Chat links: & Available / Busy / Offline' indicators:

A small point on this. In my experience at least, the latter helps in quickly knowing who is on line, I appreciate it's only handful of contacts, but some are better than none.

And the former, again in my experience at least, you are more likely to chat with someone if they are on-line than if they are not. If they are, the contact avatar and the chat link make this easier. However if you absolutely must leave a message for a contact who is not on line, then it's not such an "inconvenience"  making the extra clicks necessary.

awesome rhands... its great to have an inside perspective as to why choices were made... and all in all its great discussing the aftermath.

Mouseover Chat links:

Yeah, I actually used it all the time... because of the convenient feature of contacts changing order in the list on the dashboard due to activity, it makes it more convenient for contacting individuals for private messages... And even though I only have a few contacts (but more than fit on the dashboard) I am more likely to chat with them when they are online and/or actively posting.

As an multimedia designer myself I always try to keep to the 3 click rule, essentially: 'The less clicks to get to the required information the better'. "Any more than 3 clicks is too much".

"My question is would it be better to simply go to the chat page when clicking on the user avatar on the dashboard rather than the profile page?" - I like going to the users profile to see what groups they are a member of, and get the extra info (if they bother to fill it out). But I would rather spend the extra effort getting to this page, than when I want to chat with them.

Available / Busy / Offline' indicators:

Again like above... This was a commonly used feature.. to see who is online at a glance without having to click into info.

Avatar sizes:

I actually think they are the perfect size.

Contact Activity List :

I think this would be a great addition, but I would agree that some level of control would be required to specify who and what is displayed.

I've just started using Tangler & find the interface simple & intuitive. I love the features on personalised group url & the mouse-over for Unsubscribe/Subsribe groups & more......

I think the Tangler Feedback Group is an excellent way of gathering feedback from the enthusiatic users. I got almost immediate replies to the questions I raised in the Group. I've not come across any other Web application development being so responsive to their users. Well done!

Thanks grace

For those of you who are interested, we've just deployed a patch version containing some of the changes discussed in this topic, namely:

• User home page back to it's original layout (with recent activity on the left hand side)
• Mouse over links for chat and profile for contacts
• Available / Busy / Offline indicators for contacts
• More white space in the right hand column around groups, contacts, etc

thanks rhands, thats awesome. Lets see how it goes down with all the new people who joined after the changes were made last time, and don't know what it was like... see if they like it or not... could be a similar situation

yeah.. um... Its the same thing layout wise but swapped sides and with the same issues as last time... you need to decrease the column width of the 'Whats new' and increase the column size of the groups and contacts.

That way you create more 'room' for the icons, and there is less empty space in the whats new section.

and you don't cut anything off, when viewing the popular discussion default window...

That way the icons don't feel cramped into one side. The discussion was never really on what side they are on, but the fact that they are cramped together... the original interface, had less space for the "What's New" and more space for the icons.

Thanks pseudyx, looks like this one will be a work in progress The layout was primarily aimed to provide good spacing at lower resolutions (e.g. 1024 x 768), but since it's a fully fluid layout, free space allocation can become a little tricky at higher resolutions, especially when you're trying to keep things simple. Having said that, I may play around with a more restrictive fluid layout and set a min and max width, and be fluid in between.

Thanks again for the feedback and for pushing us to improve.

Sounds good rhands... I know what its like. No problem.