New Nexus Mods design launched

[ScrollTron1c]

Alright i do agree with some of the criticism being posted here, though i will have to let some of the features sink in a bit before writing about a dozen different things in detail.

There definitely are many good improvements and they probably outnumber the drawbacks.

I think the main issue currently is, that if viewing the page on a 1080p monitor - which is probably still the standard for 90%+ of PC users - then the vertical dimension seems to be quite difficult to look through.

 

Here is a little feedback on how mod pages are displayed, and how they could possibly be made a bit easier on the eyes:

 

 

 

 

 

Green = These elements can be properly distinguished and read on first glance

 

Red = These elements are missing some kind of spacing between, like frames or borders as the other elements have it - this distracts the eyes too much and increases the impression of clutter

 

Yellow = These elements should probably moved somewhere else on the page. The tags could also be below the author's mod description. And the "about this mod" summary only used to show up in the hotfiles and mod search results. Both are further blocking what a mod author wants to show, namely the mod description text.

 

 

PS - i also left the banner in the image, to show how much combined space all this is taking up. In the old version, with the banner aligned on top of the screen you already had half the page showing the mod description.

 

Perhaps the banner could be shrunk vertically to similar dimensions like the old site, like 5:1 or something? Also the black gradient background is just objectively worse than the old sharply defined background.

Edited October 24, 2017 by ScrollTron1c

[HomicidalGrouse]

In response to post #54662473.

rosvitacousland wrote: Well, I prefer the old version. Frankly spoken, I hate the new design.

I fastly clicked on "back" to get the old version again, which worked.

I hope, that it will be possible to keep the old design in use, isn't it?

No.

[fore]

In response to post #54660448. #54660493, #54661078, #54661098, #54662668, #54662753, #54662853, #54663353, #54663538, #54663713, #54664098, #54664203, #54664293, #54664338, #54665443, #54666088 are all replies on the same post.

Crimsomrider wrote: I personally will be clutching onto the old design until the moment it dies because I really am not a fan of this new one. And it's not about me clinging onto the old one because I hate changes or something, I welcome changes when I think they're an improvement, but this is honestly not an improvement in my eyes. It's simply the fact that the compact look of the old design was traded for this plain ugly "modern" design which involves big images and fonts, too much scrolling down, too much eye-movement along with information being scattered all over the place. What's up with all the depressing colors of dark gray, light gray and occasionally white ? Did someone run out of color when designing this place ? Is the "modern" design too afraid of colors ? Am I in 50 Shades Of Gray ?

And then there's other things, some of which I mentioned in the forum post.

My honest opinion is that this is a downgrade rather than an upgrade, because of reasons I stated in the forum post. Such a shame that this is now turning into Bethesda.net 2.0 design... only more uglier and effort requiring.

If anything should have been changed, then it was the forums section because it felt so disconnected from the main site in terms of designs and bringing it up to the Nexus design would have been amazing.

I will remain on the old design until hopefully some changes are made to the new design that make it at least somewhat visually pleasing and convenient.

I said it once and I'll say it again. Old design was compact, displayed important information when required, was easier to navigate and much more viewable.

The new design is too big, too flashy with images and fonts. Absolutely no colors. Information is scattered all over the place. A lot of scrolling and looking around. The biggest sin of all however is that it forces the user to SEARCH for IMPORTANT information, instead of handing the important information to them. Just look at the mod pages for example and see the first 5 lines when you open a mod page.

This new design would be a great design for a phone, not a PC.

Just my opinion.

Jokerine wrote: It took me a while to figure out how to reply, but I gotta say I agree. Having a lot of trouble with this.

OlivierDoorenbos wrote: agreed! old is better.

Jeir wrote: Definitely agree. I think the issue is that the new site's design was primarily made for mobiles. On desktop everything is just too big, with huge images, bigger text/text area, and images where they do nothing but take up space. I don't need a banner image that takes up 50% of the page. I don't need images (or game/author/category/log info) in the tracking centre or download history. I'd rather be able to see 15-20 mods without scrolling.

At least they brought back the 'New Recently' section; it was missing the last time I saw the new site, although it's now 'Recent Activity'; and while the text still takes up too much space (current site: 13 links for today and 10 of yesterday's visible without scrolling. New site: only today's visible without scrolling, and it's missing the icons indicating what got updated), hopefully they wont 'improve' it by adding pointless thumbnails to all the links.

I'm going to need a new mouse with all this extra scrolling I'm going to have to do.

Oh, and seems the drop-down link to 'Manage files/Mods I have access to' is missing. I check those a lot more than I do my own mods. Yeah, I know I can just click once more once I select 'Manage My Mods', but my mouse is already going to be worn out without the extra clicking. =P

Hoamaii wrote: Entirely agreed with Crimsonrider and Jokerine. I only took a quick look at it because I have absolutely no time to work on my mods nor my mods pages layouts right now: too big, very important infos scattered, too much scrolling, no "quick view of all that matters" in one glance, to which I'd add a terrible use of overlays - why are all the mods images grayed out with an overlay?
Most mod authors carefully pick up their description images to stand out and best describe their mods. In the new layout, all my images appear blended under a thick gray layer, none stand out - and the worst of it: author's images display only beneath users, you need to scroll down to get to them?!.. Why? Hasn't it always been obvious that we should always be careful to strongly encourage users to pay attention to what the authors has to say about the use of his mod, whether it's in description, images, read-me's, etc.?..

I'm not diminishing the amount of work or skills which have been put into this, I respect it, but it truly feels it's been designed by people who are not mod authors nor are used to dealing with users who report false bugs when indeed they never read the description.

And as a general opinion, I'm afraid the new layout entirely eclipses the Nexus personality and uniqueness in a copy-cat attempt to look more like other mods websites. I'll never understand that, why this need to blend in and look like all the rest? That's not what the Nexus is, that's not who we are. We are different - we are not an aspiring litlle brother of Steam or Bethesda.net!..

Robin, I'll just say this: as an old pro who's been working in communication and design for many years: when you have a distinct personality - and the Nexus definitely has one! - stick to it, magnify it, stand out and be proud, don't try to put on a camouflage suit that'll make you look like every other penguin in your league or you'll just get lost in the crowd.

Lord1 wrote: I definitely hope the kind of subtle but effective indicator of what exactly was updated comes back to New Recently/Recent Activity. Being able to see less entries without scrolling is an annoyance, not having anything to indicate if it was files updated or not without checking the mod directly is outright functionality-breaking (the entire purpose of Recent Activity is to get a quick overview of recent activity, after all).

SaiyanHeretic wrote: I'm jumping on the hate train too. Crimsomrider nails it; the new design is far too clunky. The reason you see so many websites coming out with this design aesthetic is to be more mobile friendly, but who the hell is surfing Nexus Mods on a smartphone? Until Bethesda ports Skyrim to Android (and I'm sure it's coming), there's literally no reason for this.

kn1ghtfall wrote: Completely agreed. When the option to use the old design will be removed, I'll just bookmark the tracked mods page and skip the rest of the site.

TiraBlue wrote: I have to say I agree. This new site to me feels chunky, clunky and bulky.

Zaayl wrote: This thread about sums it all up, everything is ginormous, linked videos are 4 times the size than they are in the standard youtube browser, every individual element takes up the entire screen, elements that could be placed at the bottom of the page (or off to the sides with a non-mobile layout in mind) as more or less "additional information" are taking up massive chunks of space right at the top.

The text boxes are too wide, it feels weird to read (Its like I'm reading from both pages of a encyclopedia at the same time.) And my monitor is relatively small compared to many.

This definitely seems like a mobile design, for a site that has no practical reason to be browsed mobile. (I mean, maybe some people look up mods on mobile to download when they get home, but the site shouldn't be catered to that.)

Also as a side note, with the new designs for buttons, the fallout 4 bright green with white text inside them, is really hard on the eyes to read.

ScrollTron1c wrote: Agree on text being more difficult to read in the wide boxes. I guess this has something to do with the ratio of font size : width of the box.

Interestingly if you un-maximize your browser window and make it a small column, everything shrinks with line breaks to a more readable format like in a book.
Though this also reverts the biggest improvement of the new design, which is the increased overall width of the page. The old format had practically 50% of horizontal space wasted on a 1080p monitor.

Maybe there could be a new column added on the right side of the text box, with things like "latest files" on the front page and other mod-related items (showcase images?) on mod pages?

gromulos wrote:

In response to post #54660448. #54660493, #54661078, #54661098, #54662668, #54662753, #54662853, #54663293, #54663353, #54663538, #54663713, #54664098 are all replies on the same post.

Crimsomrider wrote: I personally will be clutching onto the old design until the moment it dies because I really am not a fan of this new one. And it's not about me clinging onto the old one because I hate changes or something, I welcome changes when I think they're an improvement, but this is honestly not an improvement in my eyes. It's simply the fact that the compact look of the old design was traded for this plain ugly "modern" design which involves big images and fonts, too much scrolling down, too much eye-movement along with information being scattered all over the place. What's up with all the depressing colors of dark gray, light gray and occasionally white ? Did someone run out of color when designing this place ? Is the "modern" design too afraid of colors ? Am I in 50 Shades Of Gray ?

And then there's other things, some of which I mentioned in the forum post.

My honest opinion is that this is a downgrade rather than an upgrade, because of reasons I stated in the forum post. Such a shame that this is now turning into Bethesda.net 2.0 design... only more uglier and effort requiring.

If anything should have been changed, then it was the forums section because it felt so disconnected from the main site in terms of designs and bringing it up to the Nexus design would have been amazing.

I will remain on the old design until hopefully some changes are made to the new design that make it at least somewhat visually pleasing and convenient.

I said it once and I'll say it again. Old design was compact, displayed important information when required, was easier to navigate and much more viewable.

The new design is too big, too flashy with images and fonts. Absolutely no colors. Information is scattered all over the place. A lot of scrolling and looking around. The biggest sin of all however is that it forces the user to SEARCH for IMPORTANT information, instead of handing the important information to them. Just look at the mod pages for example and see the first 5 lines when you open a mod page.

This new design would be a great design for a phone, not a PC.

Just my opinion.

Jokerine wrote: It took me a while to figure out how to reply, but I gotta say I agree. Having a lot of trouble with this.

OlivierDoorenbos wrote: agreed! old is better.

Jeir wrote: Definitely agree. I think the issue is that the new site's design was primarily made for mobiles. On desktop everything is just too big, with huge images, bigger text/text area, and images where they do nothing but take up space. I don't need a banner image that takes up 50% of the page. I don't need images (or game/author/category/log info) in the tracking centre or download history. I'd rather be able to see 15-20 mods without scrolling.

At least they brought back the 'New Recently' section; it was missing the last time I saw the new site, although it's now 'Recent Activity'; and while the text still takes up too much space (current site: 13 links for today and 10 of yesterday's visible without scrolling. New site: only today's visible without scrolling, and it's missing the icons indicating what got updated), hopefully they wont 'improve' it by adding pointless thumbnails to all the links.

I'm going to need a new mouse with all this extra scrolling I'm going to have to do.

Oh, and seems the drop-down link to 'Manage files/Mods I have access to' is missing. I check those a lot more than I do my own mods. Yeah, I know I can just click once more once I select 'Manage My Mods', but my mouse is already going to be worn out without the extra clicking. =P

Hoamaii wrote: Entirely agreed with Crimsonrider and Jokerine. I only took a quick look at it because I have absolutely no time to work on my mods nor my mods pages layouts right now: too big, very important infos scattered, too much scrolling, no "quick view of all that matters" in one glance, to which I'd add a terrible use of overlays - why are all the mods images grayed out with an overlay?
Most mod authors carefully pick up their description images to stand out and best describe their mods. In the new layout, all my images appear blended under a thick gray layer, none stand out - and the worst of it: author's images display only beneath users, you need to scroll down to get to them?!.. Why? Hasn't it always been obvious that we should always be careful to strongly encourage users to pay attention to what the authors has to say about the use of his mod, whether it's in description, images, read-me's, etc.?..

I'm not diminishing the amount of work or skills which have been put into this, I respect it, but it truly feels it's been designed by people who are not mod authors nor are used to dealing with users who report false bugs when indeed they never read the description.

And as a general opinion, I'm afraid the new layout entirely eclipses the Nexus personality and uniqueness in a copy-cat attempt to look more like other mods websites. I'll never understand that, why this need to blend in and look like all the rest? That's not what the Nexus is, that's not who we are. We are different - we are not an aspiring litlle brother of Steam or Bethesda.net!..

Robin, I'll just say this: as an old pro who's been working in communication and design for many years: when you have a distinct personality - and the Nexus definitely has one! - stick to it, magnify it, stand out and be proud, don't try to put on a camouflage suit that'll make you look like every other penguin in your league or you'll just get lost in the crowd.

Lord1 wrote: I definitely hope the kind of subtle but effective indicator of what exactly was updated comes back to New Recently/Recent Activity. Being able to see less entries without scrolling is an annoyance, not having anything to indicate if it was files updated or not without checking the mod directly is outright functionality-breaking (the entire purpose of Recent Activity is to get a quick overview of recent activity, after all).

SaiyanHeretic wrote: I'm jumping on the hate train too. Crimsomrider nails it; the new design is far too clunky. The reason you see so many websites coming out with this design aesthetic is to be more mobile friendly, but who the hell is surfing Nexus Mods on a smartphone? Until Bethesda ports Skyrim to Android (and I'm sure it's coming), there's literally no reason for this.

fore wrote: Totally agree with Crimsonrider and the others.

If you have to support a mod like FNIS, with a lot of description and sticky posts, and many posts every day, this layout is really horror. Just go to FNIS and see what it takes to simply scroll down the instructions, or get past the sticky posts.

And when I a read a lengthy post, my eyes get tired when having to go from far left to far right for every single line.

Please NEVER EVER switch of this old format.

kn1ghtfall wrote: Completely agreed. When the option to use the old design will be removed, I'll just bookmark the tracked mods page and skip the rest of the site.

TiraBlue wrote: I have to say I agree. This new site to me feels chunky, clunky and bulky.

Zaayl wrote: This thread about sums it all up, everything is ginormous, linked videos are 4 times the size than they are in the standard youtube browser, every individual element takes up the entire screen, elements that could be placed at the bottom of the page (or off to the sides with a non-mobile layout in mind) as more or less "additional information" are taking up massive chunks of space right at the top.

The text boxes are too wide, it feels weird to read (Its like I'm reading from both pages of a encyclopedia at the same time.) And my monitor is relatively small compared to many.

This definitely seems like a mobile design, for a site that has no practical reason to be browsed mobile. (I mean, maybe some people look up mods on mobile to download when they get home, but the site shouldn't be catered to that.)

Also as a side note, with the new designs for buttons, the fallout 4 bright green with white text inside them, is really hard on the eyes to read.

ScrollTron1c wrote: Agree on text being more difficult to read in the wide boxes. I guess this has something to do with the ratio of font size : width of the box.

Interestingly if you un-maximize your browser window and make it a small column, everything shrinks with line breaks to a more readable format like in a book.
Though this also reverts the biggest improvement of the new design, which is the increased overall width of the page. The old format had practically 50% of horizontal space wasted on a 1080p monitor.

Maybe there could be a new column added on the right side of the text box, with things like "latest files" on the front page and other mod-related items (showcase images?) on mod pages?

 

 

 

I agree with what Crimsonrider stated 100 % on everything he / she stated, and for me that's rare because I can usually find some fault some where.

7StringSamurai wrote: Completely agree. Would much rather keep the old design. The new design makes me think of a phone app. Way to much scrolling.

Xazomn wrote: i share the same feelings, it doesn't feel like Nexus but more confusing. It feels to huge "again app" like design that fit much better to a i pad then a big monitor. Realy happy i can still use the old one, small, handy, quickly overvieuw from all it's assets. It is a clear website were it feels like a real community.

The new feels wat to much App and it will loose the closeness that the old design gives


it's a sad day....

Technous285 wrote: As a user of the site more than a poster or modder, I have to agree the new UI is too damn big, too damn clunky and too damn data heavy for my usage.

The old/current UI works just fine on my 27" 2560x1440 monitors and fits all the important information just fine whilst taking 1, *maybe* 2 seconds at the worst to load the main page with the old UI.

Swapping to the new UI it took 10-15 seconds to load all the cruft code just to see what the hell was changed before I almost instantly hit the "return to old interface" button to save my eyes from the messy hell and save my limited data cap from being abused just loading the main page.

A good UI for a well-worn site like this shouldn't take 10-15 seconds on barely 8mbps ADSL (or 800KB/sec) to load the one main page. The fact it even takes the 10-15 second on the new UI means you're wasting at least 8 megabytes of data caps (yes they still exists such as here in Australia) on useless code for "fancy" (code-word for "really bloody ugly") looks that are useless on a desktop system like most gaming rigs or even laptops (what with their 1366x768 monitors normally, unless you shelled out for a 1080p screen).

pjutle0109 wrote:
OOOOOkay i have A LOT to say... and from the perspective of some one who designs websites and taken classes to do so... here we go first off I've had both sites open and comparing them with everything said... for a while... a lot of what is said is false either from ignorance or from straight lying.

first the fonts are the same size from the title of mods to descriptions and comments, the only difference is the headers, footers, and menus... WHICH SHOULD BE LARGER FOR ANY SITE. pictures are yes bigger so that is a valid argument if you do not enjoy that. now for the "old was more compact" argument... your lying or you didn't pay attention let me start with displaying mods. first off every screen (as long as zoom is at 100%) on both new and old can hold up to 15 mods per full screen, though new cuts the description off the bottom row a bit (the old is 3x5 mods per screen) (the new is 5x3 mods per screen) its just horizontal instead of vertical now... the opposite that a "phone site" would use!!!!! phone sites are designed to be thin horizontally as to fit the screens... LIKE THE OLD SITE how it was thin but tall, though yes phone sites do use bigger pictures... but back on topic though old can hold more mods per page compared to the new (as default) though new can be adjusted to show more mods per page. next is menusssss... new is better like so much better the old had so few bloody drop boxes and they were just scattered all over the place in the middle of the home screen page on the side on the bottom WTF... new has one large menu on the top and additional menus for new sections on each subject of that page AND ITS ON THE TOP OF THAT SUBJECT AND NOT THE BOTTOM THAT THE OLD DID ALL THE TIME. the new also never uses the sides of the page for menus AS IT SHOULD BE. now i would prefer if the side would hold things such as the old search box (that i want to follow as you scroll) which the old did have minus the scrolling follow... next to all the menus...

now for the amount you need to "scroll" is more... only on the home page that's it and its because it hold more subjects now, when you compare (which i think very few did in this post...) you end up scrolling more on the bloody old design (granted by not that much and only on few pages...) BUT YOUR COMPLAINING ABOUT SCROLLING you have a bloody scroll wheel for this... use it.

and now the complaint about the addition of descriptions to mod boxes along with the pictures... honestly how is this bad yes both old and new give you a description but the old you had to put you mouse over the box to read it and not remove it from that box, now you can scroll away reading descriptions without holding your mouse on them, a small but a good change.

now for the issues with new (even though its not even done being made yet...) so yes many buttons are missing most notably 'Manage My Mods' but this can be reached with an extra button press though so i find this more of a lazy issue than omg its missing... now for a real issue not having anything to indicate if files were updated or not without checking the mod directly... this is a HUGE GAME BREAKING ISSUE so shut the f*#@ up about boohoo i need to click one extra time, THIS is no good at all. though i do hope for an update to fix this soon.

back to people whining how its more slow here's a lesson on how websites work, they have servers that do all the s#*!, they now have 2 websites and the same number of servers (however many that may be) and now have to split its power between the 2 and obviously they gave most of the power to the old site since its used more still. that is why the new site is slower.

people whining about missing colors btw... neither new or old had much... its just the new now doesn't use orange for mod titles keeps the same pallet.

honestly this looks like the ramblings or cult users who's been on this site for years and now its change and they have to get used to it... stop making excuses and bring REAL ISSUES foreword like the game breaking ones that actually are an issue instead of oh boohoo my scroll wheel... honestly... its a huge improvement from the 90s style they had like way better way more accessible to new comers like honestly if anyone has any real issues please bring them up with me cause from my comparisons and knowledge of websites... this is how it should be and should have been 7 years ago. oh btw UPDATE THE FORUMS THAT'S THE WORST OF THESE SITES AND YOU KEPT IT ON THE NEW SITE LIKE WTF.

Totally agree with Crimsonrider and the others.

If you have to support a mod like FNIS, with a lot of description and sticky posts, and many posts every day, this layout is really horror. Just go to FNIS and see what it takes to simply scroll down the instructions, or get past the sticky posts.

And when I a read a lengthy post, my eyes get tired when having to go from far left to far right for every single line.

Please NEVER EVER switch off this old format. Edited October 24, 2017 by fore

[EleiMiShill]

The new design is amazing, but it's more difficult to keep track of updated files. The idea of a "new files" section is good, still checking the upgrades of old files can also be important, and the fact that you don't have a reference image is a big minus in my opinion. I still like better the fact that the default view is for recent modified files and not just new files.

[kn1ghtfall]

In response to post #54660448. #54660493, #54661078, #54661098, #54662668, #54662753, #54662853, #54663293 are all replies on the same post.

Crimsomrider wrote: I personally will be clutching onto the old design until the moment it dies because I really am not a fan of this new one. And it's not about me clinging on to the old one because I hate changes or something, I welcome changes when I think they're an improvement, but this is honestly not an improvement in my eyes. It's simply the fact that the compact look of the old design was traded for this plain ugly "modern" design which involves big images and fonts, too much scrolling down, too much eye-movement along with information being scattered all over the place. What's up with all the depressing colors of dark gray, light gray and occasionally white ? Did someone run out of color when designing this place ? Is the "modern" design too afraid of colors ? Am I in 50 Shades Of Gray ?

And then there's other things, some of which I mentioned in the forum post.

My honest opinion is that this is a downgrade rather than an upgrade, because of reasons I stated in the forum post. Such a shame that this is now turning into Bethesda.net 2.0 design... only more uglier and effort requiring.

If anything should have been changed, then it was the forums section because it felt so disconnected from the main site in terms of designs and bringing it up to the Nexus design would have been amazing.

I will remain on the old design until hopefully some changes are made to the new design that make it at least somewhat visually pleasing and convenient.

I said it once and I'll say it again. Old design was compact, displayed important information when required, was easier to navigate and much more viewable.

The new design is too big, too flashy with images and fonts. Absolutely no colors. Information is scattered all over the place. A lot of scrolling and looking around. The biggest sin of all however is that it forces the user to SEARCH for IMPORTANT information, instead of handing the important information to them. Just look at the mod pages for example and see the first 5 lines when you open a mod page.

This new design would be a great design for a phone, not a PC.

Just my opinion.

Jokerine wrote: It took me a while to figure out how to reply, but I gotta say I agree. Having a lot of trouble with this.

OlivierDoorenbos wrote: agreed! old is better.

Jeir wrote: Definitely agree. I think the issue is that the new site's design was primarily made for mobiles. On desktop everything is just too big, with huge images, bigger text/text area, and images where they do nothing but take up space. I don't need a banner image that takes up 50% of the page. I don't need images (or game/author/category/log info) in the tracking centre or download history. I'd rather be able to see 15-20 mods without scrolling.

At least they brought back the 'New Recently' section; it was missing the last time I saw the new site, although it's now 'Recent Activity'; and while the text still takes up too much space (current site: 13 links for today and 10 of yesterday's visible without scrolling. New site: only today's visible without scrolling, and it's missing the icons indicating what got updated), hopefully they wont 'improve' it by adding pointless thumbnails to all the links.

I'm going to need a new mouse with all this extra scrolling I'm going to have to do.

Oh, and seems the drop-down link to 'Manage files/Mods I have access to' is missing. I check those a lot more than I do my own mods. Yeah, I know I can just click once more once I select 'Manage My Mods', but my mouse is already going to be worn out without the extra clicking. =P

Hoamaii wrote: Entirely agreed with Crimsonrider and Jokerine. I only took a quick look at it because I have absolutely no time to work on my mods nor my mods pages layouts right now: too big, very important infos scattered, too much scrolling, no "quick view of all that matters" in one glance, to which I'd add a terrible use of overlays - why are all the mods images grayed out with an overlay?
Most mod authors carefully pick up their description images to stand out and best describe their mods. In the new layout, all my images appear blended under a thick gray layer, none stand out - and the worst of it: author's images display only beneath users, you need to scroll down to get to them?!.. Why? Hasn't it always been obvious that we should always be careful to strongly encourage users to pay attention to what the authors has to say about the use of his mod, whether it's in description, images, read-me's, etc.?..

I'm not diminishing the amount of work or skills which have been put into this, I respect it, but it truly feels it's been designed by people who are not mod authors nor are used to dealing with users who report false bugs when indeed they never read the description.

And as a general opinion, I'm afraid the new layout entirely eclipses the Nexus personality and uniqueness in a copy-cat attempt to look more like other mods websites. I'll never understand that, why this need to blend in and look like all the rest? That's not what the Nexus is, that's not who we are. We are different - we are not an aspiring litlle brother of Steam or Bethesda.net!..

Robin, I'll just say this: as an old pro who's been working in communication and design for many years: when you have a distinct personality - and the Nexus definitely has one! - stick to it, magnify it, stand out and be proud, don't try to put on a camouflage suit that'll make you look like every other penguin in your league or you'll just get lost in the crowd.

Lord1 wrote: I definitely hope the kind of subtle but effective indicator of what exactly was updated comes back to New Recently/Recent Activity. Being able to see less entries without scrolling is an annoyance, not having anything to indicate if it was files updated or not without checking the mod directly is outright functionality-breaking (the entire purpose of Recent Activity is to get a quick overview of recent activity, after all).

SaiyanHeretic wrote: I'm jumping on the hate train too. Crimsomrider nails it; the new design is far too clunky. The reason you see so many websites coming out with this design aesthetic is to be more mobile friendly, but who the hell is surfing Nexus Mods on a smartphone? Until Bethesda ports Skyrim to Android (and I'm sure it's coming), there's literally no reason for this.

fore wrote: Totally agree with Crimsonrider and the others.

If you have to support a mod like FNIS, with a lot of description and sticky posts, and many posts every day, this layout is really horror. Just go to FNIS and see what it takes to simply scroll down the instructions, or get past the sticky posts.

And when I a read a lengthy post, my eyes get tired when having to go from far left to far right for every single line.

Please NEVER EVER switch of this old format.

Completely agreed. When the option to use the old design will be removed, I'll just bookmark the tracked mods page and skip the rest of the site.

[HomicidalGrouse]

In response to post #54663043.

ScrollTron1c wrote: Alright i do agree with some of the criticism being posted here, though i will have to let some of the features sink in a bit before writing about a dozen different things in detail.
There definitely are many good improvements and they probably outnumber the drawbacks.
I think the main issue currently is, that if viewing the page on a 1080p monitor - which is probably still the standard for 90%+ of PC users - then the vertical dimension seems to be quite difficult to look through.

Here is a little feedback on how mod pages are displayed, and how they could possibly be made a bit easier on the eyes:

Green = These elements can be properly distinguished and read on first glance

Red = These elements are missing some kind of spacing between, like frames or borders as the other elements have it

Yellow = The tags could also be below the author's mod description. And the "about this mod" summary only used to show up in the hotfiles and mod search results. Both are further blocking what a mod author wants to show, namely the mod description text.

I agree on the issue of tags and the mod summary. I'm not a fan of either of them being 'above the fold'.

[TiraBlue]

In response to post #54660448. #54660493, #54661078, #54661098, #54662668, #54662753, #54662853, #54663293, #54663353 are all replies on the same post.

Crimsomrider wrote: I personally will be clutching onto the old design until the moment it dies because I really am not a fan of this new one. And it's not about me clinging onto the old one because I hate changes or something, I welcome changes when I think they're an improvement, but this is honestly not an improvement in my eyes. It's simply the fact that the compact look of the old design was traded for this plain ugly "modern" design which involves big images and fonts, too much scrolling down, too much eye-movement along with information being scattered all over the place. What's up with all the depressing colors of dark gray, light gray and occasionally white ? Did someone run out of color when designing this place ? Is the "modern" design too afraid of colors ? Am I in 50 Shades Of Gray ?

And then there's other things, some of which I mentioned in the forum post.

My honest opinion is that this is a downgrade rather than an upgrade, because of reasons I stated in the forum post. Such a shame that this is now turning into Bethesda.net 2.0 design... only more uglier and effort requiring.

If anything should have been changed, then it was the forums section because it felt so disconnected from the main site in terms of designs and bringing it up to the Nexus design would have been amazing.

I will remain on the old design until hopefully some changes are made to the new design that make it at least somewhat visually pleasing and convenient.

I said it once and I'll say it again. Old design was compact, displayed important information when required, was easier to navigate and much more viewable.

The new design is too big, too flashy with images and fonts. Absolutely no colors. Information is scattered all over the place. A lot of scrolling and looking around. The biggest sin of all however is that it forces the user to SEARCH for IMPORTANT information, instead of handing the important information to them. Just look at the mod pages for example and see the first 5 lines when you open a mod page.

This new design would be a great design for a phone, not a PC.

Just my opinion.

Jokerine wrote: It took me a while to figure out how to reply, but I gotta say I agree. Having a lot of trouble with this.

OlivierDoorenbos wrote: agreed! old is better.

Jeir wrote: Definitely agree. I think the issue is that the new site's design was primarily made for mobiles. On desktop everything is just too big, with huge images, bigger text/text area, and images where they do nothing but take up space. I don't need a banner image that takes up 50% of the page. I don't need images (or game/author/category/log info) in the tracking centre or download history. I'd rather be able to see 15-20 mods without scrolling.

At least they brought back the 'New Recently' section; it was missing the last time I saw the new site, although it's now 'Recent Activity'; and while the text still takes up too much space (current site: 13 links for today and 10 of yesterday's visible without scrolling. New site: only today's visible without scrolling, and it's missing the icons indicating what got updated), hopefully they wont 'improve' it by adding pointless thumbnails to all the links.

I'm going to need a new mouse with all this extra scrolling I'm going to have to do.

Oh, and seems the drop-down link to 'Manage files/Mods I have access to' is missing. I check those a lot more than I do my own mods. Yeah, I know I can just click once more once I select 'Manage My Mods', but my mouse is already going to be worn out without the extra clicking. =P

Hoamaii wrote: Entirely agreed with Crimsonrider and Jokerine. I only took a quick look at it because I have absolutely no time to work on my mods nor my mods pages layouts right now: too big, very important infos scattered, too much scrolling, no "quick view of all that matters" in one glance, to which I'd add a terrible use of overlays - why are all the mods images grayed out with an overlay?
Most mod authors carefully pick up their description images to stand out and best describe their mods. In the new layout, all my images appear blended under a thick gray layer, none stand out - and the worst of it: author's images display only beneath users, you need to scroll down to get to them?!.. Why? Hasn't it always been obvious that we should always be careful to strongly encourage users to pay attention to what the authors has to say about the use of his mod, whether it's in description, images, read-me's, etc.?..

I'm not diminishing the amount of work or skills which have been put into this, I respect it, but it truly feels it's been designed by people who are not mod authors nor are used to dealing with users who report false bugs when indeed they never read the description.

And as a general opinion, I'm afraid the new layout entirely eclipses the Nexus personality and uniqueness in a copy-cat attempt to look more like other mods websites. I'll never understand that, why this need to blend in and look like all the rest? That's not what the Nexus is, that's not who we are. We are different - we are not an aspiring litlle brother of Steam or Bethesda.net!..

Robin, I'll just say this: as an old pro who's been working in communication and design for many years: when you have a distinct personality - and the Nexus definitely has one! - stick to it, magnify it, stand out and be proud, don't try to put on a camouflage suit that'll make you look like every other penguin in your league or you'll just get lost in the crowd.

Lord1 wrote: I definitely hope the kind of subtle but effective indicator of what exactly was updated comes back to New Recently/Recent Activity. Being able to see less entries without scrolling is an annoyance, not having anything to indicate if it was files updated or not without checking the mod directly is outright functionality-breaking (the entire purpose of Recent Activity is to get a quick overview of recent activity, after all).

SaiyanHeretic wrote: I'm jumping on the hate train too. Crimsomrider nails it; the new design is far too clunky. The reason you see so many websites coming out with this design aesthetic is to be more mobile friendly, but who the hell is surfing Nexus Mods on a smartphone? Until Bethesda ports Skyrim to Android (and I'm sure it's coming), there's literally no reason for this.

fore wrote: Totally agree with Crimsonrider and the others.

If you have to support a mod like FNIS, with a lot of description and sticky posts, and many posts every day, this layout is really horror. Just go to FNIS and see what it takes to simply scroll down the instructions, or get past the sticky posts.

And when I a read a lengthy post, my eyes get tired when having to go from far left to far right for every single line.

Please NEVER EVER switch of this old format.

kn1ghtfall wrote: Completely agreed. When the option to use the old design will be removed, I'll just bookmark the tracked mods page and skip the rest of the site.

I have to say I agree. This new site to me feels chunky, clunky and bulky.

[Darnexx]

Nooo DX I don't like it!

[Zaayl]

In response to post #54660448. #54660493, #54661078, #54661098, #54662668, #54662753, #54662853, #54663293, #54663353, #54663538 are all replies on the same post.

Crimsomrider wrote: I personally will be clutching onto the old design until the moment it dies because I really am not a fan of this new one. And it's not about me clinging onto the old one because I hate changes or something, I welcome changes when I think they're an improvement, but this is honestly not an improvement in my eyes. It's simply the fact that the compact look of the old design was traded for this plain ugly "modern" design which involves big images and fonts, too much scrolling down, too much eye-movement along with information being scattered all over the place. What's up with all the depressing colors of dark gray, light gray and occasionally white ? Did someone run out of color when designing this place ? Is the "modern" design too afraid of colors ? Am I in 50 Shades Of Gray ?

And then there's other things, some of which I mentioned in the forum post.

My honest opinion is that this is a downgrade rather than an upgrade, because of reasons I stated in the forum post. Such a shame that this is now turning into Bethesda.net 2.0 design... only more uglier and effort requiring.

If anything should have been changed, then it was the forums section because it felt so disconnected from the main site in terms of designs and bringing it up to the Nexus design would have been amazing.

I will remain on the old design until hopefully some changes are made to the new design that make it at least somewhat visually pleasing and convenient.

I said it once and I'll say it again. Old design was compact, displayed important information when required, was easier to navigate and much more viewable.

The new design is too big, too flashy with images and fonts. Absolutely no colors. Information is scattered all over the place. A lot of scrolling and looking around. The biggest sin of all however is that it forces the user to SEARCH for IMPORTANT information, instead of handing the important information to them. Just look at the mod pages for example and see the first 5 lines when you open a mod page.

This new design would be a great design for a phone, not a PC.

Just my opinion.

Jokerine wrote: It took me a while to figure out how to reply, but I gotta say I agree. Having a lot of trouble with this.

OlivierDoorenbos wrote: agreed! old is better.

Jeir wrote: Definitely agree. I think the issue is that the new site's design was primarily made for mobiles. On desktop everything is just too big, with huge images, bigger text/text area, and images where they do nothing but take up space. I don't need a banner image that takes up 50% of the page. I don't need images (or game/author/category/log info) in the tracking centre or download history. I'd rather be able to see 15-20 mods without scrolling.

At least they brought back the 'New Recently' section; it was missing the last time I saw the new site, although it's now 'Recent Activity'; and while the text still takes up too much space (current site: 13 links for today and 10 of yesterday's visible without scrolling. New site: only today's visible without scrolling, and it's missing the icons indicating what got updated), hopefully they wont 'improve' it by adding pointless thumbnails to all the links.

I'm going to need a new mouse with all this extra scrolling I'm going to have to do.

Oh, and seems the drop-down link to 'Manage files/Mods I have access to' is missing. I check those a lot more than I do my own mods. Yeah, I know I can just click once more once I select 'Manage My Mods', but my mouse is already going to be worn out without the extra clicking. =P

Hoamaii wrote: Entirely agreed with Crimsonrider and Jokerine. I only took a quick look at it because I have absolutely no time to work on my mods nor my mods pages layouts right now: too big, very important infos scattered, too much scrolling, no "quick view of all that matters" in one glance, to which I'd add a terrible use of overlays - why are all the mods images grayed out with an overlay?
Most mod authors carefully pick up their description images to stand out and best describe their mods. In the new layout, all my images appear blended under a thick gray layer, none stand out - and the worst of it: author's images display only beneath users, you need to scroll down to get to them?!.. Why? Hasn't it always been obvious that we should always be careful to strongly encourage users to pay attention to what the authors has to say about the use of his mod, whether it's in description, images, read-me's, etc.?..

I'm not diminishing the amount of work or skills which have been put into this, I respect it, but it truly feels it's been designed by people who are not mod authors nor are used to dealing with users who report false bugs when indeed they never read the description.

And as a general opinion, I'm afraid the new layout entirely eclipses the Nexus personality and uniqueness in a copy-cat attempt to look more like other mods websites. I'll never understand that, why this need to blend in and look like all the rest? That's not what the Nexus is, that's not who we are. We are different - we are not an aspiring litlle brother of Steam or Bethesda.net!..

Robin, I'll just say this: as an old pro who's been working in communication and design for many years: when you have a distinct personality - and the Nexus definitely has one! - stick to it, magnify it, stand out and be proud, don't try to put on a camouflage suit that'll make you look like every other penguin in your league or you'll just get lost in the crowd.

Lord1 wrote: I definitely hope the kind of subtle but effective indicator of what exactly was updated comes back to New Recently/Recent Activity. Being able to see less entries without scrolling is an annoyance, not having anything to indicate if it was files updated or not without checking the mod directly is outright functionality-breaking (the entire purpose of Recent Activity is to get a quick overview of recent activity, after all).

SaiyanHeretic wrote: I'm jumping on the hate train too. Crimsomrider nails it; the new design is far too clunky. The reason you see so many websites coming out with this design aesthetic is to be more mobile friendly, but who the hell is surfing Nexus Mods on a smartphone? Until Bethesda ports Skyrim to Android (and I'm sure it's coming), there's literally no reason for this.

fore wrote: Totally agree with Crimsonrider and the others.

If you have to support a mod like FNIS, with a lot of description and sticky posts, and many posts every day, this layout is really horror. Just go to FNIS and see what it takes to simply scroll down the instructions, or get past the sticky posts.

And when I a read a lengthy post, my eyes get tired when having to go from far left to far right for every single line.

Please NEVER EVER switch of this old format.

kn1ghtfall wrote: Completely agreed. When the option to use the old design will be removed, I'll just bookmark the tracked mods page and skip the rest of the site.

TiraBlue wrote: I have to say I agree. This new site to me feels chunky, clunky and bulky.

This thread about sums it all up, everything is ginormous, linked videos are 4 times the size than they are in the standard youtube browser, every individual element takes up the entire screen, elements that could be placed at the bottom of the page (or off to the sides with a non-mobile layout in mind) as more or less "additional information" are taking up massive chunks of space right at the top.

The text boxes are too wide, it feels weird to read (Its like I'm reading from both pages of a encyclopedia at the same time.) And my monitor is relatively small compared to many.

This definitely seems like a mobile design, for a site that has no practical reason to be browsed mobile. (I mean, maybe some people look up mods on mobile to download when they get home, but the site shouldn't be catered to that.)

Also as a side note, with the new designs for buttons, the fallout 4 bright green with white text inside them, is really hard on the eyes to read.

[thatwilldo]

Please allow those who like the old design, be able to keep it.

Let the people choose the one they like best.

I'll keep the old.

Please....