Discussion Visual Refresh
April 2nd, 2006
I've been working on redoing the layout of forum discussion pages over the last few days (topic pages in classic forum lingo). At the moment, discussions look something like this:
The main reasons for a new layout was the fact that I wanted to get rid of titles for comments (nobody uses them so we repeat the discussion title a few hundred times), and to try and put a greater focus on the content itself.
This is what I'm up to:
This new layout should use less space so less scrolling should be required and there is more of a focus on the actual content. There are also a direct link to delete comments and space for a user avatar.
If all goes to plan, I hope to roll this new discussion page look to Evolution Forums soon and probably adapt the layout for blog comments.
Comments are welcomed!
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Very impressive. Hopefully everyone else will like it and will stop moaning.
I like the mini toolbar at the top, as it makes the whole aspect of the object pleasing and easy to look at.
I'm not sure how much anone will eally feel the benifit of shorter scroll lengths.
We're mostly used to a lot of vertical scrolling online. So unless searching for a specific part of a page or post heights/gaps between posts are excessive. I'm not sure it will be noticed as a benifit. It certainly can't hurt though.
Topic titles are useless though, something I alllways liked the idea of but almost never used. In fact in many years messing around on message boards I only remember one person that regularly used post titles.
For me though I would prefer a larger font size in the post headings I think. Or maybe just a larger poster name.
Well, the reduced vertical space comes from the fact that essentially three lines have been condensed and merged into one line. The poster, date/time and edit/delete/etc. links are all on one line at the top and the headers have disappeared.
The font size also got reduced to put more emphasis on content (and make it fit onto one line on 800×600). The user's name is shown in bold to try and emphasise it a bit more and the avatar should provide another form of being able to quickly identify the author of the post.
Thanks for the comments! :)