User Profile and Direct Messaging Improvements Beta

[NexBeth]

I think it is esthetically professional to pick an easy on the eyes color and stick with it throughout Nexus.  We now have the medium gray (including on the forum profiles), we should have the same cohesive look for the Mods pages.  Making the two site areas look different just has the look of 2 disconnected webpages.

[Karna5]

I wasn't going to say anything, but since there seems to be a lot of disfavor for the larger mod tiles in the new beta view, I'd like to mention I love the larger tiles. And I love the black black rather than dark gray.

As many of you know, I'm extremely visually impaired (I have at most 8% of my optic nerves left, have massive retina damage and aphakia, and when I'm outside my house I walk with a blind cane. I use a 55" monitor and lots of zoom, and larger tiles are easier for me to figure out, and more contrast between letters and background are likewise easier.

I absolutely love the current version of beta.

I do respect that others, probably those with good vision, want things to be smaller and less harsh, but with respect and appreciation, I dissent

[HollownessDevoured]

@Karna5

As a user you can always zoom in/out via browser, however, adding a 5th tile requires overall site/dev side size reduction to add the fifth tile. You cannot zoom out to 5 just with your browser alone.

This isn't about denying people a preference size, it is allowing a 5th tile feature (which many people are still not happy about losing) that can only be achieved by site/dev side editing, all other zooming via browser should accommodate those visually impaired or simply have other preferences.

edit: as for the high contrast, my eyes will actually bleed/go blood shot over such strain (I edit articles/mod pages for long periods of time), and I will have to stop being on the site (not as an ultimatum but because of the discomfort). I can handle the forums dark mode*/reddit dark mode/chrome dark mode/etc. but not the beta dark mode on the "about me" tab which I figure is going to be how mod pages/articles will look.

edit, edit: and don't think I am just touting my own agenda. I am using the classic as just a standard/baseline. My actual preference would be reducing the beta by overall 20% but I can do that with zoom, which I do already in classic but by 10%. However, I cannot think of any other way to add a fifth tile which people seem to still want back. Hence the suggestion. However, I don't even size my window large enough in classic for five tiles, I like 3 but that is me. I am simply trying to think of how to accommodate new and old in a reasonable way that both addresses the issues and still shouldn't take away what people are liking about the beta.

Colour theme, as long as it doesn't hurt my eyes. I can do forum dark mode or classic greyscale or anything in between.

* Forum updated colour theme today it is a higher contrast now, and it is not as easy on the eyes anymore.

Edited March 27 by HollownessDevoured
grammar fixes

[RhaevynHart]

On 2/28/2024 at 2:36 PM, Jenya66 said:

I don't know if it was asked already but where do I find my favourite games now? It was a feature I used constantly. Also would "Friends" tab return in the feature?

Exactly this!

[PrincessRosaria]

Genuine worsening. Less is visible, so there's more scrolling.

[shazdeh2]

Please add a light/dark toggle switch. Not just for the sake of preference,  but accessibility. For me bright text on dark background is physically painful to read.

[mfPixel]

Hey @HollownessDevoured

I'm the design lead at Nexus Mods. Thank you for all the feedback, we appreciate that big changes can take time to bed in. We're always take feedback onboard, but product design is a complex process of balancing various user needs and it's not always possible to design for everyone's preferences.

That said, I can address a few of your concerns:

The larger tile size is a result of improving the hierarchy and legibility of the tiles. The old designs contained a dense amount of small text, which is difficult to read. The new designs with the improved contrast and structure make this more accessible to browse. We feel 4 tiles per row is fine for the majority of people.

As for the colour changes, again this is aimed at improving contrast and readability for visually impaired users. We don’t use #000000 or #FFFFFF anywhere on the site for the reasons you mentioned, but the new design will help users who struggled with the previous theme’s shades of grey, which was difficult to read for a lot of people.

We’re also looking to improve how we handle tile images, it’s worth noting that the previous design cropped images to make them fit which would impact how users intended them to be seen. We have a change coming to make them sit better on the tile.

I hope this explains some of the decision making rationale.

[Qrsr]

14 hours ago, HollownessDevoured said:

Long story short, you may be over worrying about accommodating mobile viewers who may get pretty much the same results; no matter what we custom tweaks get done for the full view/PC view of the site. I mean I can be wrong, but just from what I have experiences in other sites, this seems to be the case.

+1

This is a major problem today. People focus on the consumer ... yet there is no plan how to manage the needs for the workers. Supporting workers is far more important, accessability, maintainablity, etc. If workers will leave, the entire concept, to make everything super duper nice and tidy for the consumer will collapse. The consumer in turn should focus on the workers first and accept the needs of workers in every aspect. Well the consumer wouldnt even notice most if consuming works, and consuming works only if the workers are motivated. Its a pretty simple concept, at least from the perspective of a worker, creator, maker, whatever you call it.

Edited March 27 by Qrsr
typo

[JustThatKing]

Updated:

27/03/2024:

• Many improvements to sorting options. This will now filter by "Date Published" by default or whatever you have changed you settings to in Site Preferences. 
• You can now report User Profiles for violating the Terms of Service. 
• The Donate button will now display a modal popup when donating to a user via PayPal, to let you know how the system works.

 

20/03/2024:

• The game filtering dropdown for Mods, Collections and Media has been implemented. The game order in the dropdown is in descending order of number of mods/media per game. 
• Fixed a bug with the 'Media' section that's causing videos not to display.

 

13/03/2024:

The page has been redesigned to show more content, especially on the Mods, Collections and Media tabs. All profile details and "user actions" (track, message, etc) are now at the top of the page. 

Below is some of the feedback we have received and our responses to those concerns. We hope the new user profile design improves these things for you.

• Avatar size being stretched from 100x100 to 180x180, due to this they're super blurry.
  • We've reduced the size to 100x100 for now.
• Specific dates are preferred on mod tiles (e.g. 29/01/2024)
  • We've changed the 'Uploaded' date to be more specific. The 'Last Updated' date still displays as "2 Days Ago" as we think that's easier to read.
• Some mod tiles have lots of empty space between the Mod name and the details. Category, author name, etc is bound to the bottom of the mod card instead of the top, which is how it was done before and is done on most sites. 
  • Mod tile content is now bound to the top of the tile, reducing empty space.
• Usernames on mod tiles are upper case, but they should be case sensitive.
  • We've fixed this.
• Mods are too big now and instead of showing 5 mod tiles per line we're down to 3 tiles per line.
  • Mod tiles are now smaller and we're showing 4 per row. 
• The authors column takes up too much space (which could be used to display more mods, collections or media) and shouldn't scroll down with content.
  • The authors column has been removed and any content it contained is now in the header/top part of the page.
• Longer usernames are being pushed onto two lines.
  • This is no longer a problem with the updated design.
• Page "doesn't scale well" to various "extreme" ends of display resolution. Either too much content is removed for scaling or too much "negative space" left on high res displays.
  • The new page design addresses this and more content is now show on larger displays.

 

Additional changes:

• The page will no longer automatically scroll when changing tabs

 

11/03/2024:

• Mod Tile summaries will no longer incorrectly display HTML from mod page descriptions. 
• '"Last Active" and "Activity" sections will now respect your user settings. These settings can be found here. 
• All staff and moderator roles should now display on User Profiles, ensuring there is no confusion as to who is Nexus Mods staff and who is not. 
• Collections success ratings are no longer cut-off.

 

07/03/2024:

• Profile URLs now use Username rather than userID to help with search engine discoverability. E.g. https://next.nexusmods.com/profile/JustThatKing/about-me instead of https://next.nexusmods.com/users/3194960 
• We improved the page data for search results/social links
• Fixed the problem with iOS/Safari, where mods didn't display properly
• Improved 'Last Active' formatting by replacing "at" with "on" and adding an on-hover timestamp. 

Upcoming Changes:

We have committed to making changes to account for many pieces of feedback that have been put forward in this thread. Here is a taster of what is still to come:

• Mod Tile status indicators (Downloaded, Update Available, etc) will be returning
• Images moved to the Supporter Image share aren't updating correctly in the Media tab. This will be fixed.
• We will be updating the on-hover timestamp tooltips to display date and time, with the same design implementation.
• Improve the display of mod tile images where the image doesn't fit the space well, without stretching smaller images.
• Ensure that deleted/hidden/removed content does not display in the 'Activity Feed'.
• The revamped Activity Feed will be returning. It will/will not be shown based on your existing preferences. 
• UI changes to display more content on the content tabs. We will be reducing the size of the avatar, sidebar and banner as part of this change. 
• Last remaining bits of HTML in "Mod Tile" sections will be automatically removed. 
• Many of the removed sorting options will be returning. In addition to this, the default sort for Mods and Media will be reverted to "Recently Added", however this will respect any changed user preferences you have made. 
• Fixing a bug with the 'Media' section that's causing videos not to display.
• As we have said before, the game dropdown filter will be returning. 
• The report button will be returning, with the ability to report Profiles for rule breaking avatars or "About Me" sections.

Any previously "Upcoming" changes that have been deployed to the beta will be marked as changed.

[IsharaMeradin]

Why the wasted real estate at the top to the right of the profile picture?  Is something planed for there that has not yet been shared?  If not, couldn't the endorsements given, profile views and kudos be stacked vertically to the right of the profile picture?  It would bring the rest of the content a little closer to the top as well.

I know the space isn't for ads as I logged out to see how the layout would be with ads present.  The content gets pushed down with ad space between the profile and the NexusMods dropdown ribbon. Also a banner pops up over the content in the center bottom.  Effectively blocking the initial view of what bits of content can be seen.

It should be noted that I zoom in at 125% so that I do not need to switch glasses and move my head about in order to read through a small portion of my progressive lenses.  So that may play a factor in some of the appearance.