Mod Browsing Overhaul Discussion

[WndMll]

Just now, jmharris said:

Is that what was said though?

It was actually: 40% of our users browse Nexus Mods on a mobile device, you're not the only user we are catering for. Whilst we always keep desktop users our focus (as modding happens on a desktop), we have to cater for everyone.

You "follow" the "majority".

40% are "mobile users".

You "cater" to "all"?

"Desktop users our focus" ^ Which one?

Website was clearly made to cater to mobile users, You say you cater to all, then say you're catering to desktop, then make a website design that is blatantly a made for mobile first design, most of the nice things said about it are from people that decide to check out the design on mobile. 

Search mobile in the topic. It's very obviously a mobile first and foremost design and there is hypocrisy in your quoted statement regarding catering and focus, which are the same thing.

[MrSkeleton04]

14 minutes ago, jmharris said:

Is that what was said though?

It was actually: 40% of our users browse Nexus Mods on a mobile device, you're not the only user we are catering for. Whilst we always keep desktop users our focus (as modding happens on a desktop), we have to cater for everyone.

Then let the mobile users have their own UI and the Desktop users (who actually download and use this site) have the original UI.

[jmharris]

1 minute ago, Synthlight said:

I still fail to see how that argument means replacing the UI for DESKTOP users.

Sure, that's a different debate. I was only attempting to clear up the "40% "majority" as stated previously" declaration was a misrepresentation of previous discussion.

We are getting into xkcd 386 territory though. 

[LordRegal]

2 hours ago, WndMll said:

We're getting some decent answers from the Community managers on Discord so I wanted to relay that with you guys here because I don't know when/if they will.

Community Managers state they have been reading everything; they will pass the complaints further on.

Though they have been ignoring Reddit.

Well, if they're ignoring Reddit, let me paste the constructive feedback I wrote there in response to the CM that asked for actionable feedback when I poked my head in there this morning:

A landing page for a single game's mods refusing to use half the width of a monitor is a problem when the individual mod boxes are three times their old size. If the goal was to make each mod have more dedicated layout space, then the entire screen needs to be utilized to not make the same information from before take up three times the space.

Clicking on "view more mods" and then needing to scroll past the same 16 mods because the new search mechanic assumes you're wanting everything (when the old one started at the next mod in the list) is backwards progress. Page 1 of "more results" only has four more results than the landing page, making it 80% useless.

Collections being between the hot mods and the newest mods is a poor space for it - below the new mods but before the posts about the game would be a better location as new mods are more likely immediately relevant to a user than a complete collection.

The landing page being so much more spaced out makes it much less readable than before. Used to be you could see the hot mods and some of the new mods before you had to scroll. Now, depending on which machine I'm on, I either can only see the hot mods, or can see that and the top half of collections. This cannot be fixed by zooming out or in, meaning the only option is to scroll. It feels like a way to force more interaction with the site rather than anything user-friendly.

I could go on but I figure that's plenty of "actionable feedback" for the moment.

[Stikza]

Please bring back the old UI, this new UI aint it at all

[Anonoymous]

28 minutes ago, Synthlight said:

I still fail to see how that argument means replacing the UI for DESKTOP users.

Mobile can, and rightfully should, have it's own UI/UX, designed specifically for it. Not some singular UI made for both. That just winds up being s#*! for everyone.
So if mobile is being used as an excuse for the redesign on desktop.... that's just the wrong way of designing for mobile. (And I say this as a mobile (Android) dev.)

Edit:

And to elaborate, many of the design changes on DESKTOP seem to be mobile focused:
- Bigger UI elements, less mods visible, each one is larger, etc.
- Lots and lots more padding between the elements, almost like you're trying to make it easier to tap or something.
- Very vertically oriented designed for scrolling on a portrait screen, not a landscape one.

All very much signs the DESKTOP UI has be mobilified in a bad way. (Since all of those are generally a net negative for DESKTOP users.)

Alienating 60% of your user base who actually use your site for the purpose for which it is meant is worth it in the face of the remaining 40% of traffic that can't actually use your platform for that purpose. No, the UI needs to be "responsive". /s if that wasn't clear enough.

No, you do not have to cater to everyone and everything. Hypothetically if I were to start a fledgling website, I wouldn't cater it to the innumerable data and domain scrapers and other such bots. IF you ARE going to cater to EVERYONE, then you have to cater the experience to their individual platforms, lest you risk ALIENATING them; This is true the more complex your website is, and is less important for something simple like a forum. This is apparently an ethereal concept for modern web devs to grasp, which is not surprising considering modern web development literature and schooling is primarily focused on mobile, given that is the vast majority of web users these days; However, that goes out the window when you get into something as niche and secular as game/hardware modding, the majority of which takes place on desktop, even when modding things like phones and game consoles. The opposite is true of less specifically PC focused hobbies; Nobody is going to get mad if you streamline their automotive hobby forum for mobile.

Consider your audience and the intended use of your website properly before making vast sweeping changes that alienate the majority of your user base. The least that could have been done was to make sure everything was working and equivalent before the changes were rolled out. As it is now, I can't sort by date range. Terrible.

Edited 9 hours ago by Anonoymous

[LordGeneralCheese]

This new redesign is very uncomfortable on the eyes, speaking as someone who has an astigmatism.

[dogearmy353]

I don’t even care too much about the general appearance of this UI, though, it is a downgrade in my opinion. It actually gives me a small headache to look at. I’m not sure why, and apparently I’m not the only one.

 

getting a headache while trying to browse mods isn’t fun.

 

if you have data saying someone out there actually likes this, that’s cool, good on you, make it a toggle, like it was while it was in beta. That worked great for me, and I’m sure it worked for the people who like it. Dont force change for the sake of change while the old UI is still perfectly functional and preferable for many.

[DuncanWasHere]

I almost never post on the forums, but yeah this change is just shockingly terrible enough that I had to say something, and what frustrates me most is that I get the feeling that this is the kind of change that companies just steamroll through, never roll back, and the community just learns to accept that their input means nothing for anything of actual importance. It's especially sad to see because Nexus has been relatively good about respecting their users/creators and not enshittifying the platform, aside from when they came out with collections. I noticed when the forums were changed, and I thought it was terrible, but I didn't really care because I didn't use the forums. When user profiles were changed it was more concerning, but at least there wasn't a lot to screw up there. But jeez this is just awful now. Really bad.

 

I don't know what options they realistically have here, but for whatever it means to them, this change is going to make me use the site less. I think it is obviously going to have that effect on a lot of people. I remember reading that the reason for the changes was because they had to update to a new site API for security reasons. Which is totally fair. But I don't know how that prevents them from fixing at least half of the issue, which is just the terrible, oppressively minimalist CSS.

[tinchek]

1 hour ago, jmharris said:

https://forums.nexusmods.com/topic/13507498-mod-browsing-overhaul-discussion/page/119/#comment-130498579

What about the rest of my comment/suggestion?