I loved the old forum design where I could see 5-8 very active topics under each forum (finance, hot deals, deal discussion, etc.). This new design doesn't have any of that -- ugh that's horrible.
Thanks for letting us know what you miss. I'm sure you're not alone looking for a nice presentation of what's most popular, so we'll keep it in mind as features and adjustments are planned.
jben05
Happy Member
posted: Oct. 2, 2009 @ 4:56p
I completely agree with TedMetro. Whoever selected the 5-8 most active / most interesting topics did a great job.
SilverII said: where is the "last page" where it takes you to the last post?
You can click the username/timestamp in the rightmost column to go to the last post. OR, if you're logged in and have visited the topic already, you can click the "X unread" link to go directly to the first unread message. (my favorite feature)
Previous view of www.fatwallet.com/forums was a single pager where one would get a good summary of the main things. Please revert back to original page.
angelika76
New Member
posted: Oct. 3, 2009 @ 8:16a
dont like the new design. Everything looks so foreign. I come here to save time and money and dont see myself wasting my precious time trying to figure out how your new website operates. LOVE LOVE LOVE the old design, please switch back
i too like the old design particularly front page hot deals and finance forum, i visited FW several times a day just to track the finance topics and see what's sizzling in hot deals, now with those gone, i am too lazy to search myself, i am going to another popular hot deal site, sorry FW, i hope you guys heed the "back by popular demand" advice
New design is being shown to 10% right now... soon to be expanded.
AmiableAlien
Happy Member
posted: Oct. 13, 2009 @ 10:03a
I will also chime in with the majority of the folks here. The new layout does not show the most viewed posts on the summary page (http://www.fatwallet.com/forums/). You need to click on various sub-categories or search. I browse FW daily and most of time just quickly want to first see if there is a post of my interest. The new design does a very poor job of doing this. I agree "nobody likes the changes", but if you just go by this theory alone you will not be able to find what your users want. If most of the users complain after a major UI change, at the very least IMHO you should support option to get the old interface. Remember if there are only 50 users complaining, it's not because only 50 of them don't like the interface. It's because 50 of the users reported it. I am seeing this change for close to 2 weeks now, but found out my workaround and never complained, until today. I am sure there are tons of other users like me with the similar feedback.
For fellow FWers who really don't like this new layout, here is what my workaround is: if you remove all your FW cookies than you will not be recognized and will be treated as an unrecognized FW member. Based on my experience, FW is not showing this new layout to unrecognized members. However, that also means you will not be able to rate any thread, post a message or look up at your favorite threads until you login (and thereby get the new style cookies) again. For now, I am living with this until (hopefully) FW provides an option to support the old layout or I spend some time to find out the offending cookie and override it myself.
Mods, a clarifying question, when you say the new design is being shown to 10%, is it 10% of the (recognized) customers or 10% of sessions? I believe it is recognized customers since you would want to have sticky session and show the same interface to the user on a repeat visit. I believe in this case the % of users (instead of recognized users) where this is being shown is actually less than 10%. I am sure FW analytics dept has already done all the estimates to take this into account, but if not please do so.
I'm not sure on specifics of test parameters, but here's the basics: Initially we tested with 10% of UN-recognized, then 10% of members, then another 10% to test Forums page with most viewed posts. It' on beta if you'd like to take a look. We have responded to member suggestions to allow the forums pages to stretch horizontally, and are testing the Forums page with most viewed topics. A couple other suggestions are being explored now before we move new designs to all (we are listening and responding).
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