New UI - Accessibility feedback

[perchik71]

In the new theme, there are a lot of cool shades (there is a lot of blue channel). This somewhat worsens the quality of life when reading text, as the white text becomes very corrosive to the eyes. 

For example: Discord RGB(49, 51, 56) not so much blue and not so dark. 

[Lollia]

It feels like some sort of drastic switch was flipped. I have chronic migraines, so websites offering a Dark Mode are always a plus, but whatever the new update introduced is more like an ULTRA Dark Mode. Before it was this nice balance of gray; not too bright and not unbearably dark.

I was hoping that returning with some extra sleep and an aspirin on board might improve the experience (not that taking an aspirin just to utilize a website should be necessary), but the contrast issues are still too strong. Tried running the site on two other devices, and the experience is the same. I have been attempting to find a word to describe what the font appears to be doing... Swimming, perhaps? To my eyes, the dark contrast of the site is giving the font a ghastly bloom effect--the very sort of thing I use mods to get rid of when it shows up in games.

[Faelrin]

As a long time user and mod author on nexus mods, I've wanted to chime in with my thoughts on the new design, now that I'm getting over the sudden shock of the switch. I hope I posted this in the right place. Wanted this to be its own thread to get more eyes on this, and not lost in a sea of comments in another thread, as this mainly pertains to accommodating/accessibility concerns.

Overall I've found the new design much more visually over stimulating (I'm autistic, hence the above), and not only that it causes me a great deal of eye strain (I have a bad eye, and my good eye takes the brunt of the visual load) when compared to the former design. While I realize this website isn't designed for me in specific, it would be greatly appreciated if some changes were made to make it more accommodating for people like me with autism and eye issues. For what it is worth, nexus mods has always been my primary website for searching, downloading, and hosting mods. I would like to keep it that way, but as the current design stands, I'll have to limit my time/use it far less for my needs.

I've tried to identify and break down what I would like to see changed and/or options for. Everything below is with the Skyrim Special Edition Nexus as an example, but I imagine it applies to other game pages as well. On PC with Firefox. Have not tried it on mobile, because I use this website most of the time on PC.

Overall:
Like with the forum's new design and removal of the white/light theme (unless it has been brought back, I rarely visit the forums here anymore since the change), the now darker backgrounds with the white/light text overlying them leads to my eyes being strained pretty quickly. In fact I've been typing my comment here up in a text file first, with white background and black text, to make it easier for me to read and edit as needed, before copying and pasting it. This is problematic for the mod pages which have valuable information in the description and comments. The previous design had a lighter grey color for the background, which I found much less jarring/significantly less straining on my eyes. Obviously this impacts the home page, and mod search as well, not just the mod pages.

Here's the previous design on various pages for comparison:
https://web.archive.org/web/20241206011013/https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/12604
https://web.archive.org/web/20241211213750/https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition/mods/categories/42/
https://web.archive.org/web/20241211183437/https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrimspecialedition

In fact could that lighter grey color please be brought back as the main background color for the mod pages, search, etc? That would go a long way to helping reduce, if not eliminate the eye strain I've been encountering with the new design.

Mod search:
Right off the bat I've noticed that List View for the Default Search View in Site preferences no longer does anything despite being available as an option there still. I would like to see this feature/option return, as list view was way more accommodating to use (not as visually over stimulating in compared to the current tile view).

While this isn't an accessibility thing, I would also like to see the return of being able to search within a custom time frame. I have seen this mentioned elsewhere, but it is worth reiterating I suppose. I used this quite a bit when searching for mods I would return to a game that I haven't played for some time, especially after several years. Otherwise I think the sidebar's additions are good to have though, although I have to yet to test it out. In fact I wonder why it isn't present to begin with?

Home page:
I feel like the top two trending files look way too large, and waste valuable screen space (and my browser is full screen 1920x1080). The previous home page (and I believe all former designs) showed all the trending or hot files at once, but now you need to scroll to see more then two, or alternatively shrink the page (which is probably not the best idea when what's already present is contributing to my eye strain). Could it be changed to have all of those files present at once like on all the previous site designs? Though I think that might also be in part due to the redundant large game title above it. It's redundant because you have it there again above it, but in smaller font (example: Home > Skyrim Special Edition).

I also don't know how to describe this next thing, but I liked when everything felt more contained and/or separated into little sections. It feels a little jarring now in comparison. Like I said hard for me to describe, but if you compare it to the waybackmachine links I've left, you might know what I'm getting at. I do see some very faint lines present on the new design, which might have that intended purpose, but perhaps they should be brighter, and larger to make it more clear. As of now, things almost blend together.

[daywalker03]

I'm honestly glad I'm not the only person that's finding the current site appearance extremely unpleasant, though even the more mild versions for the site could do so if viewed for long enough.

[andrewhahalee]

I'm trying to go to Page 2 of updated mods.

It used to be I just open the page, click Updated mods, page 2, done in 5 seconds.

Now I need to scroll half the page, click Updated mods, click more updated mods, only to realize it loads Page 1 of the updated mods twice, then click Page 2 of Updated Mods > More Updated Mods. Not sure why is it a design choice to add more steps to repeat the previous step in order to go past the extended repeated step. It's almost as if developers only develop for the sake of developing an aesthetic, rather than to actually use the webpage to find things.

[tm2006]

I need light to see, please give us a light mode, this is unusable for me

[wxlfbrains]

Thank goodness I'm not the only one who thinks that the new design is quite literally an eyesore.
I thought that maybe my eyesight had gotten worse or something, found myself squinting and getting closer to the screen just to be able to read.

Truly hope there will be some tweaking, or an option to choose a "light mode" maybe?

[Happybara]

We are currently moving different bits of feedback into separate threads. This is so that we can better group your suggestions by theme, which will be more useful to us than one ever-expanding mega-thread. As always, we appreciate your continued feedback. Please keep your comments as civil and constructive as possible.

This section is for feedback related to issues with accessibility for those experiencing pain or other issues with the new UI pages.

[Kohsaka]

Wish I wouldn't have to do the extra step of doing a search by keyword to get to the search by found in description. People sometimes give their mods crazy names so searching for keywords rarely gives me a list of mods that I am actually searching for.

 

Also I don't want to search anything else besides mods almost 100% of the time, so make it that I can set a preference so I don't have to do the extra clicks to get to the list of mods.

[Firestorm962]

Being a mod site, mods should be the default in your search UI.