Please take a step back and look at the site these days

use quick links...it takes like 2 seconds for the extra clicks anyways....


but yeah the search button is a little funny haha, i could make it in photo shop in like a minute.


and yeah get a border or something on those banners they look shitty.

Please explain how the quick links can get you from not on NS to ski gabber (or any other forum) any faster.

That banner at the top is ridiculous...

I agree about the top of the page.

a.) Doug told us they are making the search bar smaller (thank god)

b.) The top of the page looks so ugly now with the addition of the adds. Its not clean at all. Looks like an 8th grader photoshop job.

Although everyone (myself included) must recognize that it is going to take time for all of these changes to take place. The top of the site looks like a completely cluttered mess. We do't need "site clothing|gearswap|stickers" buttons up there. I'm sure we could find a better place for it. All I can say is to be patient and hopefully doug, cko & paul will see that something seriously needs to be done about it. I'm not worried, I have 100% faith in these guys. Its just not going to happen overnight.

Yeah, I'm with you that they'll get it eventually. Just trying to point out what needs to be gotten (imho). Seems like we're in agreement that the top of the site hurts pretty bad at the moment.

deffinetly, im not trying to shut you down about the navigation i just dont think its a huge deal. this is good feedback i think, keep it up...even if its bad they need to know. but for the most part i am liking the new changes a lot, hopefully the name changes will settle down in a week or two though.

i guess its dependant on what you go to first on NS. personally i always go to my threads first to check if any of the threads i posted in are current. and from their the quick links let you go to ski gabber, etc.

ya I agree. I think navigation on the site is pretty legit, but thats just me.

im so used to the navigation that if it were to change it would take more time because noone would remember it

I don't think the navigation is too bad but the top of the site is redick now, something really needs to be done to integrate the top banner. maybe by getting rid of the photo at the top of the page and replacing it with a plain background or a gradient or something

Hey guys, we share your concerns. We fully plan to change the navigation and header around to work smoother.

I like the idea of putting the mosed used forums in the quick links at all times too.

~Paul

I think the site is very hard to navigate and quite ugly in its current form.

For everything that is added, nothing is taken away. There are way too many things that clutter up the site and navigation. The top bar takes up about 40% of viewing space on my widescreen apple laptop. It's terrible. So many of the options are classified without any rhyme or reason. There are so many options that I forget what is actually selectable by menu. I was looking for SIA information yesterday and had no clue it was accessible by the drop down menus. I think there should be a forums menu at the very least. How often are people going to ski gabber? How often are they going to Podcasts? Why does ski gabber take so much longer to access than podcasts? A serious facelift is needed.

What do YOU think members of Newschoolers?

How can we improve the site navigation? How can we make the site a bit more... appealing? What would you change?

hahahan yaaaayyy Im glad I'm not the only mod that agrees!!! Word Maximum!

One thing you guys could look at is hit counters/page views. See what top level pages (i.e. not individual pics, vids, or comments) are getting hit the most, and use that to make the heaviest looked at the easiest to get to.

Personally I have no more difficulty now accessing what I need to get to than I ever have. I don't think it looks horrendously ugly, and I don't give a flying fuck if the search button has a click animation. Paul is busy overhauling the actual SITE functions (cult system, karma system or whatever that ends up being), and aesthetic concerns matter not at all in comparison. If it gets done eventually, great. It shouldn't be, and isn't, a top priority. If corkwormturn really wants to help out by providing a solution to the problems he's identified and doing some of the work involved, since he apparently knows how, I'm sure everyone would appreciate that...

I meant to post this before, but comcast decided to go down for a while.

I also think it's really worth taking a look at the layout, and reevaluating the usefulness of things. Right now there's 165 members online right now, all listed on the left in one big column. At the bottom of that it tells you the member/guest count. Wouldn't it make more sense for the count (being 1 piece of information) to be ABOVE the member list, so you don't have to scroll through the whole thing to see it?

But for that matter, how useful is the member list? It takes up a lot of screen real estate. Now, people do obviously care when people they know are on, but the friends list could be used for that, and it wouldn't be nearly as big.

You could also do something such as making it smaller, but scrollable.

Another example is the quick links. Do you even need it there? You could easily enough add the quick links to the drop down menu bar, and they'd still be just as quick.

Oh, and for the web dorks: sooo many spots where a little AJAX love could improve things.

I'd actually love to help on the site. I used to do work as a web developer, and exchanged a few emails with Paul about doing some work, possibly a rewrite from php to rails. That was way before he was planning on starting on anything though, so we got out of touch.

These are great ideas. Strip out the members list and keep the friends list. Quicklinks could be added to another drop down bar and they could change depending on what top level you're in, as they do now, but not have to take up so much room.

There are some great ideas here, and great solutions to some of the problems.

I don't think the site needs a lot of new options at the moment, I think what we have now should be improved.

Hey guys, one thing I REALLY want to point out, and I would like you to remember for the next few months:

We made a concious decision back in May when all of these changes were being planned to release them slowly and get feedback from you guys to make sure that everything ends up where we all want it together. So yeah, the top of the site looks funky because we just slammed a banner spot in there with zero re-design to everything around it. However, we wanted to show you the ONLY place we found that ad would fit, as we did deliberate about it for weeks. So now that we've found that spot, we want to work around it. Instead of just doing it all and then bam releasing it on you and being like "Here's how its going to look bitches" we decided to do things one step at a time and involve you guys all the way along. So the comments are good, but before you post "this looks like shit" remember that we already know that. Think more in the mindset of "This is where that is going, now what can we do to work around it to make it perfect?"

Hating is in NS' nature, but it doesn't have to be that way. Don't hate what isn't set in stone, rather discuss what could work to make it perfect!

The member list is something we've talked about a lot, and at this time plan to leave it as is. After long discussions I think I convinced myself that I actually kind of like seeing who is online currently... I dunno defeintly throw in suggestions about that one.

I use the quicklinks a lot, and when you look at our google analytics so do you guys. Navbar at the top needs changing, which is exactly what is happening.

Paul is in the process of hiring an AJAX coder. (as a matter of fact I think we're going to have 3 or 4 coders in total working on the site now)

Oh, and one final topic that I think continuously gets misrepresented is when people say that any information below the google ads is useless... look at where we are right now>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Humans read left to right, so when you're in a forum thread that goes this low, which happens on NS all the time, as you finish the sentence you may notice something interesting elsewhere on the site instead of just going to the forums and whatever is listed above the fold.

Please keep comments flowing, as your comments can have an effect on how things turn out in the end. Just try to keep the "I hate this" to a minimum, especially if we all know something sucks but just need to figure out how to fix it!

Hah, crap. Of all the times to forget to use angle brackets for italics and not regular ones. Edit feature? ; )

That's a long post...

Sorry, the repost on a comment this long is kind of annoying, but I think it'll be a lot easier to read this way. If a mod could delete the one where I messed up the italics, that'd be great.

We made a concious decision back in May when all of these changes were being planned to release them slowly and get feedback from you guys to make sure that everything ends up where we all want it together. So yeah, the top of the site looks funky because we just slammed a banner spot in there with zero re-design to everything around it. However, we wanted to show you the ONLY place we found that ad would fit, as we did deliberate about it for weeks.

(This is just going to sound harsh, but..)If you deliberated about it for weeks, why did you end up just "slamming" the banner spot in with no redesign?

So now that we've found that spot, we want to work around it. Instead of just doing it all and then bam releasing it on you and being like "Here's how its going to look bitches" we decided to do things one step at a time and involve you guys all the way along. So the comments are good, but before you post "this looks like shit" remember that we already know that. Think more in the mindset of "This is where that is going, now what can we do to work around it to make it perfect?"

Hating is in NS' nature, but it doesn't have to be that way. Don't hate what isn't set in stone, rather discuss what could work to make it perfect!

I think that saying "it looks like ass right now" is that feedback. It's the "rollerblading/no poles/etc" is for fags kind of hate, it's just that, as you said, you just slammed it in, and the result was not good. I think more constructive comments for fine tuning could have come if you had debuted it with more of a legit attempt at fitting it in.

The member list is something we've talked about a lot, and at this time plan to leave it as is. After long discussions I think I convinced myself that I actually kind of like seeing who is online currently... I dunno defeintly throw in suggestions about that one.

I use the quicklinks a lot, and when you look at our google analytics so do you guys. Navbar at the top needs changing, which is exactly what is happening.

I think that's kind of bad logic about the quicklinks getting used a lot. It's currently getting used a lot because hey, it's right there. That doesn't really prove it couldn't be better somewhere else, or in a different form.

Sorry Dave, I know I just sound critical, but it seems as if your deliberations were based around the fact that you didn't want to change anything. When you said the current banner location is the "ONLY" place it would fit, you mean that's the only place it would fit if the site stays pretty much as it is. My original point was that I just think that NS is getting dated, layout wise, compared to a lot of other places on the web. I realize that you guys all have lives, and skiing, and do this somewhat as a favor to the community (I really don't know to what extent you guys are, or aren't, getting paid), and so you only have so much you can get done. I'm just trying to give some input on what I think could be done to make things better.


Paul is in the process of hiring an AJAX coder. (as a matter of fact I think we're going to have 3 or 4 coders in total working on the site now)

Oh, and one final topic that I think continuously gets misrepresented is when people say that any information below the google ads is useless... look at where we are right now>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

You're right on the money for long threads, however many parts of the site don't extend that far down, and it makes the layout look a little weird when the main content is dwarfed by the mile high side bars.

Lastly, I'm just focusing on the things I think could be improved. That's not to say there haven't been a lot of improvements, and overall the site is great and offers a lot. I could spend a whole post about the good parts of NS, but that's another subject. Don't think the upgrades are taken for granted.

I'm posting way too much here. But re-reading the thread title, I really shouldn't have worded it that way.

^^^^ That just makes the thread longer... wow.

I think hes trying to say, basically, that the site is in Beta mode right now. You guys are getting a sneak peek at what the site is about to become, a fully interactive beast. I think by putting the ads up there, they are just trying to get everyone used to the idea of seeing ad space at the top of the page. I'm just assuming though as I have no part in the re-design.

(This is just going to sound harsh, but..)If you deliberated about it for weeks, why did you end up just "slamming" the banner spot in with no redesign?

To get it in there and then work around it? I dunno maybe it was a bad idea but at this point it is what it is. Plus its way easier to have things release over time so that we don't blow the release date. I guess I don't have a perfect answer for this one, I really supported doing it this way, and perhaps I'm paying for a bad call now. Bah... live and learn right?

Hating is in NS' nature, but it doesn't have to be that way. Don't hate what isn't set in stone, rather discuss what could work to make it perfect!

I think that saying "it looks like ass right now" is that feedback. It's the "rollerblading/no poles/etc" is for fags kind of hate, it's just that, as you said, you just slammed it in, and the result was not good. I think more constructive comments for fine tuning could have come if you had debuted it with more of a legit attempt at fitting it in.

Yeah but we know it looks like ass is what I was mostly trying to say. The whole point here is to bring you guys in at an early stage of the development and do this thing as a community. I mean traffic around the site is basically dead right now, so its just the hardcore NS motherfuckers that are around and this way we get to do the header together. After doing all the design work for making it fit in well, then we'd be finished the design and much less able to change. This way before its even designed, there can be discussion looking at the actual ad and really thinking about how you use the site. If we put so much effort into making it look great, and then asked you guys it would be too late to change it.

I think that's kind of bad logic about the quicklinks getting used a lot. It's currently getting used a lot because hey, it's right there. That doesn't really prove it couldn't be better somewhere else, or in a different form.

True, but is it not bad logic as well to say that something that is one of the highest clicked things on many pages of NS should be changed? In my mind that is much more of a silly piece of logic than thinking to leave what is working. I think the quicklinks are getting tweaked anyways...

Sorry Dave, I know I just sound critical, but it seems as if your deliberations were based around the fact that you didn't want to change anything. When you said the current banner location is the "ONLY" place it would fit, you mean that's the only place it would fit if the site stays pretty much as it is. My original point was that I just think that NS is getting dated, layout wise, compared to a lot of other places on the web. I realize that you guys all have lives, and skiing, and do this somewhat as a favor to the community (I really don't know to what extent you guys are, or aren't, getting paid), and so you only have so much you can get done. I'm just trying to give some input on what I think could be done to make things better.

MY NAME IS DOUG!

The deliberations were absolutely not based around us not wanting to change anything. The deliberations were based around the fact that we wanted to change many things, but have to do so intelligently. The reason it was "the only place it would fit" is that before the banners could not use flash. Flash fucked with the menus, and the best way we found to solve this was to simply put the ads above the dropdowns. Boom thats it, then we figure out the rest starting now.

Also, NS is not just something we do for the community (though we do love you guys and always everything is for you) it is also our full-time jobs. We work on this site 100% of our working hours in our lives, and having a life happens outside of business hours. There is much less of a limit on what we can get done now than before, as we are actually being compensated for our time like normal people of our age. That and we can hire outside help to assist in things, which we are doing.

Paul is in the process of hiring an AJAX coder. (as a matter of fact I think we're going to have 3 or 4 coders in total working on the site now)

You're right on the money for long threads, however many parts of the site don't extend that far down, and it makes the layout look a little weird when the main content is dwarfed by the mile high side bars.

Why? If the content ends why bother keeping scroll down? I moreso think that when you get way down, as does happen on MANY parts of the site and you see these gaping empty spots on either side of the site I just think about the amazing amount of content space that could be there. If anything, I think we should put MORE in the right sidebar, because yeah sure people aren't down there all the time, but they are down that far quite a bit. Just adds content, because none of you ever go anywhere below the fold or to subpages, and so many things get lost.

Lastly, I'm just focusing on the things I think could be improved. That's not to say there haven't been a lot of improvements, and overall the site is great and offers a lot. I could spend a whole post about the good parts of NS, but that's another subject. Don't think the upgrades are taken for granted.

Thanks man! We do appreciate the feedback as well, and we really appreciate you guys sticking with us through things you like and things you don't like. The key to always remember is that NS' strength is our community, and nobody wants to take that away from us. The people at our new parent company tell us all the time that they don't want to do anything to adversly effect the community, as that just loses everything that makes NS a good business. Hell even the corporate sales guy or the people at Pepsi wouldn't want that, as they can't do anything with a community that hates the site its supposed to love.

Ouch. Really i did know that (how could you read ns and not?) So much egg on my face there.

so, I did as you said,  I stepped back and looked at the site.  it looks the same!  I am so confused.

doug, leave the members list. its really useful. same with the quick links. i only dont like the top, but as you said, its not done yet and this was just a "prototype". i love this site ans forum because its not like any other site, the forum is mad organized, no emoticons and shit like that. so dnt change anything that makes this site unique.

One thing Paul and I were just talking about is adding the ability to customize quick links... he's looking into the feasability of it.

I like seeing the full member list as well as my friends.

that would be really cool

Yes! That is a great idea!

yes that would be amazing
official steeze
ladies men
non mod
ask a girl
NSG
SG
site discussion
so sick

If the online list were to disappear, I wouldn't miss it at all, personally.

agreed.....the top look like shit.

embed the ad by giving it a border (might help with visual appeal)

links to the right of the pic look like shit, i can't even read one because the bg of the pic is the same color as the font.

the drop down menus don't even stretch all the way to the right of this white box.

search bar is HUGE, i know what i'm typing there, make it the same size as the font of the page, or the headers of the drop down menues.

the search button text is not vertically centered. this annoys me everytime i see it.

on this middle white section. there are black borders on the sides and bottom, yet not one on the top. the blue of the drop down menus needs to continue that black border, simple change.

i agreed with the frustration about the drop down menus...too many clicks. make sub menus pop out for the forums so i can go to non-ski gabber directly. isn't that the point of a drop down menu? besides the forum page is so bare and ugly, if anything throw a million ads on the page.

on reply pages: make the subtext above the reply button, below the reply button.

and finally, my page loads the right column ads below the reply button, everytime....i dunno if its just my comp. but my pages are really long cuz of it.

duuude read the posts. they said they know it looks like shit.

Hahahahaha. They actually added a clicking animation to the search button. Way to go, you made a difference right away.

hahahahahaha thats hilarious. I can't believe Paul actually did it.

did the banners at the top used to be a bit smaller a couple days ago or is that just me? and the search button animation makes me laugh every time.

hah, nice touch

hahaha SAME