Mod Browsing Overhaul Discussion

[zloybelka]

21 minutes ago, NexBeth said:

Plenty of opportunity for everyone to get their feedback in was given though.

As if "venting" back then (because all I could say would still be "Ugh, it's awful, pls, revert back/make it look like old UI on your new framework or whatchamacallit") would have been soo much better and more productive

[m661]

5 hours ago, NexBeth said:

HadToRegister, I haven't tracked anybody's participation in the Beta, including you.  I was responding more generally to people who are after-the-fact posting some pretty scathing complaints in what is now a closed Beta, acknowledging that they didn't participate in the Beta.  

What's the point, other than venting?  Heck, maybe Nexus is still reading and considering; maybe not.  Plenty of opportunity for everyone to get their feedback in was given though.

I can't say the reason for others and it would not be appropriate either but mine is simple selfish and honest. I am not getting paid.

This is a company not a charity I paid for a service I use the service that is the relationship I have with this company and all I ever want it to be. When I am at my work and I need to use software for the company then I get heavily involved in development projects because it impacts the company. Privately I just want to relax and not worry about stuff I am normally getting paid for just use a product not think about it and enjoy my off time. It is selfish and I am happy to admit it.

I am also genuinely happy that others enjoy the community all the great features and I wish them to have many more things added for there enjoyment to come. That is exactly why I am not the target audience for this site when it comes to testing new features because I will not use 90% of it ever in its lifetime. What I do care about is that things that are changed are delivered with quality on par with the rest of the delivered product if I do use it. And if someone as a project lead give the greenlight on a update to be released you better make sure it is ready for production or you will know it the minute it is released by your end users. I sadly deal with that every single day of the month in some form or another.

And when that quality level does not happen and I get inconvenienced as one of those end users I will say my piece about it. Because I paid for the product. I will take my time with the feedback I will try to be helpful and I will keep it respectful but I am also not going to sugar coat things either. I have been 20+years involved in software, webhosting I know when things should not be called for production ready. This is not production ready it has functional limitations and bugs that should have been caught day one. Not by users, but by the design team. 

And if feedback does not get picked up that is fine to.
The truth is I don't browse a service how a company ever envisioned it 
This is how I view nexus. https://go.screenpal.com/watch/cTeo0hn1W5I

I will gut everything out that I do not need from sites that I visit more often than once a month. I will code and inject things myself if features are annoying me if I find it worth the effort in the long run. And so if this keyboard thing stays half finished I probably will with a little guidance of our company A.I service build a private browser extension to fix it myself like redirecting the output of / and escape while this site is open and in focus to another key that makes sense to me. Or I might not bother with it time will tell.

But I hope that all the feedback does help and the product gets improved for those that do require others to deliver or repair it.

[Kiwa]

6 hours ago, NexBeth said:

Lots of people with expansive critiques were involved in the BETA and Nexus was responsive to many complaints.  Don't think there was much fake "LOVE IT" feedback. There was a good deal of feedback from many users.  The Beta was quite obviously visible for many months to everyone who signed into Nexus.  If you choose not to participate and get your concerns in, that's not really Nexus's fault.

I've been using this site for like...seventeen years? I probably did the math wrong. This is, quite literally, the second time I've even touched these forums. I'd say that's a pretty solid representation of a good chunk of the userbase: people are here for mods for their favorite games, not a greater social media experience. I had no clue there was a beta or an overhaul for the website in progress. I only log in to get a mod then I close my tab. I, daily, have like 30+ notifications from this site no matter how often I clear them that have nothing to do with anything I'm interested in so I'm not going to sift through them because I don't care about games I've never heard of and never will play, or who won what contest I didn't know happened or what's popular right now. I never thought the search needed to show other categories of media because this is a mod site. I use it for mods. I've literally never had issues with the old search. Unless you are, very explicitly, the kind of person who wants to treat this site like a social media platform and thus are already the kind of person primed to sign up for and engage with any betas it might have: it's simply not going to reach the majority of the userbase. And then because a handful of power users think it's fine, it gets foisted on everyone else because once they finish that beta they're not course correcting when everyone else has a taste and thinks it blows - a scenario that's played out across the internet pretty consistently these past few years, from youtube to reddit and beyond.

[showler]

1 hour ago, Kiwa said:

I had no clue there was a beta or an overhaul for the website in progress. I only log in to get a mod then I close my tab.

There was a blue banner across the top of every single page on the site asking if you wanted to try out the beta.  You didn't need to go to the forums or check your notifications.

[NexBeth]

Nexus is about modding, which includes videos and pictures about mods, and mod collections for those who don't want to do their own load order; it's about mods and provides a medium of communication within the community.  The site can't possibly cater to each individual's wants who signs up here.  I've been here 10 yrs, and it has never just been a download site for mods--thankfully.

[Alundra]

33 minutes ago, NexBeth said:

Nexus is about modding, which includes videos and pictures about mods, and mod collections for those who don't want to do their own load order; it's about mods and provides a medium of communication within the community.  The site can't possibly cater to each individual's wants who signs up here.  I've been here 10 yrs, and it has never just been a download site for mods--thankfully.

Yeah but the focus was on the mods themselves. You can't make a collection of nothing. They need to make mods the main focus on the front page and add collections in a non destructive way. For example they can have a row for it under mods, and display an icon on mods in a collection and a little collections drop down (like requirements) on mods. They already have a really awesome collections section, the media section desperately needs an update but it's there also.

Having one row of mods on the front page of a website people primarily come to for mods is really awful usability and SEO. If they really wanted this they could make customisable front pages and ask you in your profile to drag and drop sections around like other apps do, and give you the option to set the section to full display (several rows) or just a slider (one row). Then no one would complain cause if you're here for screenies or collections there they are where you wanted them, as much of them as you wanted :D.

[showler]

2 hours ago, Alundra said:

Having one row of mods on the front page of a website people primarily come to for mods is really awful usability and SEO. 

Okay, seriously, are you all looking at a different website or something?

First of all, what do you mean by "the front page of the website"?  Because "www.nexusmods.com" has two rows of games,  five rows of "news updates" and four rows of mods showing on it.  Is that not what you are seeing?

Or do you mean the "home page" for specific games.  Because that's a bit dynamic.  Open the Fallout 4 or Skyrim SE pages and you get the "hot mods" panel, a banner linking to the Collections section for each game, four rows of mods, five rows of images and five rows of "news updates".  The mods and images are all from the "new today" tab because that's what I've got set up in my Site Preferences page.

Now, if you go to the Fallout 3 homepage, on the other hand, there's one row of "mods", one row of "images" and the five rows of "news updates" and the tabs are "new this week" for the "mods", "new today" for the "images" and "all news" for the "news updates".  The reason why it's different is blatantly obvious because there are no Fallout 3 mods newly released today so it jumped to the "new this week" tab and only took up one row because there's only five mods released this week.  For "images" there was one image released today so it stayed on the default tab.

Nowhere can I find a place that has a single row of mods and has Collections and media getting in the way of seeing the mods in any way.

[Battlestar1965]

10 hours ago, showler said:

There was a blue banner across the top of every single page on the site asking if you wanted to try out the beta.  You didn't need to go to the forums or check your notifications.

That was the first time i heard about the planned change of the webpage design. And i think i clicked on the banner pretty early (not on the first or second day...maybe not even during the first week) in the process. I didn't read about it in the formus, because, like may others, i simply don't use them very often. I tuned off notifications, because usually it's just about updated mods. So, like many others, i heared about these terrible plans pretty late, BUT since i was aware about this, i forwarded my complains, and , of course, it didn't do much. They are still just makeing everything worse. I'm Nexus user since 2009 and this poop happens not for the first time....

[RomanR]

As parts of new desing are slowly pouring into main web page, I must agree with @HadToRegister  and @Battlestar1965 and I feel rather disappointed too. For some reason UI parts are looking uglier than before and overaly all these changes are rather cosmetic (like a little change of font here and there, little different look of buttons etc.). And also quick search in its separate window doesn't feel like quick search somewhat anymore). There are also small mistakes on UI parts - like bright white backgroung on tags (stealing focus on more important things in my opinion), some buttons don't highlight like others (for example Report Abuse, Share buttons), using yellow numbers against dark grey background only (for some reason I find it harder to read).

It's propably time to hire some capable UI designer and good graphician, not centered around mobiles and this ugly flat era UI only. I really dislike such UIs and hope to be rid of them someday.

[NexBeth]

10 hours ago, showler said:

Okay, seriously, are you all looking at a different website or something?

I'm starting to feel the same way.  It is like I'm seeing one thing, but others are seeing entirely different things.

The front game pages are covered with access to mods and rows and rows of more mods.   

There are things I don't like about the site either.  Like everything to the right of a forum discussion taking up a 3rd of the page and to left avatars taking up 20% space.  It is a waste of forum discussion space for what I think is unimportant clutter.  But it is a better format for phones.  And Nexus made the decision to keep it.  That was hugely discussed during the Beta and apparently reverting back to the classic style is a no-go for Nexus.

I prefer a light background.  Also discussed during Beta.  There was a change made to make the reading/writing areas less black, but I still don't get to have what I personally want-a light background.

I guess what I'm saying is the Beta is over and if you want to just vent here, ok.  But you're late to the discussion if you think these changes that have already been mulled over during the Beta is going to now effect change.  At this point, it is probably just down to reporting bugs and problem areas if you still want to take part in fixing broken things on the new website.  Just my 2cents.