[Pardalote]

#1285950

Hello all

Now that we have had a few months to bed in this new site (and give our hard working volunteer admin people time to breathe and spend a moment or two with their families) it is about time we had a look at the user friendliness of the forum. In retrospect we were probably pretty spoiled with the old version, but, thanks to generous donations from lots of you and some judicious advertising revenues our funds are sufficient to afford some work to make changes. Ian and I have come up with a list of changes we would like, in no particular order:

Being able to quote from previous posts;

sending private messages to other forummers;

putting pictures on our profiles (the fact that almost nobody has an avatar pic on the new version shows how problematic it is to do);

‘you are here’ function at the top of each page;

a page where ALL of the posts are placed in order of freshness, not just the latest post in each category. It would be better if we had that as the default forum page, and then we also had a menu with all the different categories that you could click on to go to that category;

staying logged in has been a complaint of some people, presumably with mobile devices.

What others have you got?

It’s possible that some of these issues are device-sensitive (and that we dinosaurs who still use desktops are not getting the same views as the majority of you who use mobiles) so, when you give us your perspectives please indicate the type of device you use, as that might make it easier for the web designer.

I will give it a week for as many of you as possible to put your views, and then we will go to web designer and get a quote, so there are no promises that we can afford to make all of the changes that you request, but we will try.

Thanks

Pardalote
Netball Scoop Chair

[JR]

#1285955

Glad the ‘stay log in’ is now working.

Would like the list of page numbers at the top and the bottom so don’t need to scroll down to move on to another page.

Would prefer the ‘go to’ below the huge header, like ‘search’ as it’s heaps more scrolling to get above that HUGE header.

I wanted to Message Ian the other day and couldn’t work out how to do it. I clicked on his name but couldn’t find the Message option – I am sure it’s there, I did look carefully, but couldn’t find it!

Thanks for asking.

[JR]

#1285956

Oh, I’ve just seen that I can click on Forums above search using the string feature…..hadn’t noticed that before….

[TrentA]

#1285957

Parda,
Your list is everything I have found frustrating about the new site. Add in emoji’s….

If you can sort all of that I’m sure it will make a lot of people happy.

I guess I expected that the new site would simply be an update of the old one with everything simply transferred across. When I found it didn’t have a lot of the old features and I had to keep trying to find stuff I simply gave up and stopped looking.

So, I am really pleased that you are pro-actively looking to add those items on your list. And appreciate the work that you and the Committee do to allow us all to be a part of this.

I mainly use a desktop, occasionally a tablet and rarely my phone (hate the screen size – old eyes)

• This reply was modified 4 years, 12 months ago by TrentA.

[JR]

#1285959

Oh, I am a dinosaur and look at the Forum on my laptop (Windows). I also look at it on my ipad. I’m a real dinosaur, I don’t have a smart phone – if I am out and about I have my ipad connected to the internet-thing-a-ma-jig; I don’t need to spend more $$$ on data for my phone….

[Cake]

#1285965

Totally appreciate all the work and effort that goes into this website, it’s amazing what you guys do, but I have been disappointed since the change. The site is a bit prettier but frustrating to use after being used to the old features.

The main things I’ve been missing are the posts by freshness page as you’ve mentioned, and the ability to click straight to the last post you viewed in a thread. Would be nice for page numbers to be at the top of the page too, like JR has suggested.

I use both desktop and smartphone to view the site.

[Maryann]

#1285969

Your list is pretty much what I would have. I still struggle with staying logged in on my laptop but today I have posted this without having to re log in again. I rarely use my phone, I use a MAC.

My only other issues I think are of my own doing 🙂

Really appreciate everyones efforts on this site. Thank you all.

[boogieya]

#1285970

User Friendly….

It’s like wearing a fashionable pair of stunning high heels…
Looks good but after a few moments of ‘wobbling’ around I
want to kick them off & revert to my comfy well worn friendly trainers…

I do really appreciate Netball Scoop & all the hard work that goes on behind the scenes but find I’m using it less & less wearing my ‘high heels’ rather than more & more when I was in my ‘trainers’.

So the list someone has posted pretty much is how I feel and would help.
The old site had a nice friendly ‘part of a family’ feel to it, whereas the new one is just hardwork to navigate through.

⚪️⚫️Fan
🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🌹supporter

Oh yes Smart phone & Tablet user.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 12 months ago by boogieya.

[caribou]

#1285972

Good list Parda
My top two priorities would be
a page where ALL of the posts are placed in order of freshness; and
staying logged in Both on my iPad and my laptop.

I’m reading the site much less, and very seldom commenting because doing so means having to login and the find my way back to where I was reading every time. I presume the reduced number of posts, except from the unstoppable Ian, means that others have the same issue.

I really appreciate all the effort that the committee put into running and improving the site, and the reporting of netball in general, but the new site, although prettier (and more importantly, more stable) makes accessing the content harder. And it’s the content that we come here for.

How much do you need to raise to get these upgrades done?

[netballmum]

#1285977

I am probably just going to echo everyone else.
Topics by freshness would be my number one ‘want’, as I find it frustrating to have to navigate through the forums page the whole time.

I really appreciate the efforts of the committee to undertake the upgrade & now to be looking at ways to improve what we’ve got.

I mainly use my iPad ( & my phone when at games), but since the upgrade am coming in only sporadically (weekly or fortnightly rather than the at least daily previously) to catch up and find commenting to be a really hassle due to the log in issues.

[jabes]

#1286001

Yeah, I have to say I have basically stopped reading NS since the upgrade because of the lack of user friendliness.

A freshness page is a must. As is a button to take you to the latest unread post. Otherwise it is just too difficult to navigate through all the forums and threads trying to work out what I had and hadn’t read based on the time.

[Nettylife]

#1286002

Thankyou Parda for asking.
My comments are really the same as everyone elses.
Topics by freshness and staying logged in are the big one for me. I use my phone and iPad mostly and have to admit to finding it all a bit too hard. Even when I find out that I’m not logged in, the message that tells me that doesn’t even have a link to login.

[nuts4netty]

#1286003

Jabes above has summed up my feelings and wish list perfectly.

I now visit approx twice a week instead of daily due to difficulty in navigating.

Will happily make further donations to get these features back. I love this forum and have missed the traffic. Would love to see it back to it’s best!

[mcleod]

#1286005

I much prefered the old sit, I wasn’t on here for a while, couldn’t log in. I’m on a certain FB page everyday.
If you can make this more like the old one, I’ll be back more often. But at the moment no.

[jaybee]

#1286008

Sorry to say I’ve hardly visited the site since the “latest posts” function was disabled – clicking through each category looking for something to read is too slow and irritating. My suggestion would be to have only two headings: “netball” and “non-netball” and just have the topics ordered by freshness, that’s what people were choosing to do when they clicked on “latest” on the old website, and it makes a manageable list to peruse.

The other thing I find really irritating is having multiple matches in one thread, a perfect example being the Nations Cup that’s on at the moment which now has 4 games in one thread. I’m sure people would be much more likely to comment and have conversations if each game had its own thread.

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