Mod Browsing Overhaul Discussion

[WndMll]

Just now, jmharris said:

That does sound bizarre. If it's reproducible for you, can you share the steps?

Sort by date published on any mod page, no extra steps needed. I see it too.

Edited 11 hours ago by WndMll

[jmharris]

8 minutes ago, HollownessDevoured said:

I specifically told devs over a year ago, the high contrast causes me actual eye pain, headaches and eye bleed. I was dismissed.

I accept that you feel a compromise was not all considered. That generally isn't what I see from the discussions my colleagues have and the work they do. I get that might not assuage your feeling here, but perhaps it's something.

We are trying (really!) to be clear on our mission here- from post 1 in this thread: "Improved Accessibility", "We believe modding should be for everyone", "Visually accessible colours"- so your requests are consistent with our goals.

Clearly we aren't meeting your expectations here. We'll keep trying.

[m661]

29 minutes ago, jmharris said:

I must admit that I have never asked the design team directly whether they thought the interface might make people ill. That's not quite my wheelhouse. I do know for certain that they will be digesting this feedback! I cannot currently state what action will be taken in regard to that.

Might I suggest that the team takes a look at Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG2.1)
https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG22/quickref/?versions=2.1&showtechniques=141#principle1

There are industry guidelines for a reason and while getting all marks is virtually impossible there are pointers that can help with the majority of the accessibility cases.
These things can not be a afterthought. For us European businesses this is becoming mandatory to a degree in June 2025 under the European Accessibility Act (EAA)
https://accessible-eu-centre.ec.europa.eu/content-corner/digital-library/en-3015492021-accessibility-requirements-ict-products-and-services_en

And this will also apply to some business not in the EU but servicing EU customers ass well as Canadian and Australia under EN 301 549
Whether this service falls under it I can not say you will have to hire a consultant, lawyer to look into if England and Wales where the company is registered are subject to the same requirements.
Knowing how previous laws where setup I am going to guess it will be. All I know for certain businesses are exempt if  If you have fewer than 10 employees and annual revenue below two million Euros.

[DefenestratedKoala]

11 minutes ago, jmharris said:

That does sound bizarre. If it's reproducible for you, can you share the steps?

Go to any game, choose mods, then sort by date published. It's very obvious on Skyrim, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, and Starfield.

[kat1004]

2 minutes ago, jmharris said:

I accept that you feel a compromise was not all considered. That generally isn't what I see from the discussions my colleagues have and the work they do. I get that might not assuage your feeling here, but perhaps it's something.

We are trying (really!) to be clear on our mission here- from post 1 in this thread: "Improved Accessibility", "We believe modding should be for everyone", "Visually accessible colours"- so your requests are consistent with our goals.

Clearly we aren't meeting your expectations here. We'll keep trying.

The fact that the site is now high-contrast is a serious issue. There's a reason high-contrast has always been a client-side option built into operating systems - it's not accessible in the slightest for the majority of people due to eye strain. If people need high-contrast, they don't just need it for one site. They need it for the majority of their computer-using experience. Which is why it's specifically built into the operating system as an accessibility option.

Building high-contrast directly into a website causes more issues than it cures. Improving accessibility would be reverting the color scheme to the previous layout's color scheme, which was relatively decent. Neither too dark nor too light, and even if it was still ugly, it didn't cause migraines. It didn't cause eye strain. It wasn't inaccessible to people with health issues.

[jmharris]

2 minutes ago, m661 said:

Might I suggest that the team takes a look at Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG2.1)

Per post 1 in the thread: "By following standards like WCAG we’re creating a site that isn’t just inclusive but also easier and more enjoyable for everyone."

So if we're not, it's a bug (or at least a problem!) and we would expect to address that (in due course, based on prioritisation and capacity).

[jmharris]

5 minutes ago, DefenestratedKoala said:

Go to any game, choose mods, then sort by date published. It's very obvious on Skyrim, Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, and Starfield.

Ok thanks, I can see that. The mod tile now shows the latest known value, but the search index clearly hasn't been updated promptly as is expected. (One could argue whether the mod tile should show the search index value or the latest value.. )

My expectation is that this will be a high priority to resolve ASAP.

[HollownessDevoured]

8 minutes ago, jmharris said:

I accept that you feel a compromise was not all considered. That generally isn't what I see from the discussions my colleagues have and the work they do. I get that might not assuage your feeling here, but perhaps it's something.

We are trying (really!) to be clear on our mission here- from post 1 in this thread: "Improved Accessibility", "We believe modding should be for everyone", "Visually accessible colours"- so your requests are consistent with our goals.

Clearly we aren't meeting your expectations here. We'll keep trying.

As said here, mfPixel said that accessibility was chosen for colour theme, and when I confronted why... one accessibility group to see better was priority... over another group that it causes discomfort/pain for—it wasn't addressed. They had a year to mull that over, and as you mentioned that in this post only the accessibility group to see better was priority is still only considered... and not the group that the high contrast causes discomfort/pain for. So IMHO this still means it is still not in consideration... even a year later.

[DuncanWasHere]

I'm not convinced that Nexus staff actually believe in the efficacy of this redesign, nor am I hopeful that the overwhelmingly negative reception to it will result in a decent compromise for us. Because obviously it's outrageously bad to the point of being comical, and I'll give the staff the benefit of the doubt that they aren't genuinely all on a different wavelength from the rest of the population, it's just their job to defend the brand image. So based on the time spans surrounding this project, it reeks of corporate mismanagement and sunk-cost fallacy to me. So, I get it, it's being forced through to production because it *has* to be, even though no one is really happy about it, or maybe it actually is more economical for the company despite the visceral reaction it triggers in active users, because somehow all the BF Skinner magic works out.

For the record, I feel bad for the staff for having to deal with this mess. I know it's soul-sucking either way.

[zloybelka]

40 minutes ago, DefenestratedKoala said:

It even randomly sorts new mods... I like to browse by latest, but it's literally putting it in a random order. Worst I saw was "2 hours ago" next to "1 week ago" next to "3 days ago" next to "1 hour ago". This is a bad change. Please give us options.

Haha, thought so too once, on the new user profiles, BUT that's just the NEW COOL UPDATE "DATE" indicator. So very cool and convenient (not).