New Forum Look - Line-Length Difficult to Read

Ecquillii wrote on 9/4/2009, 1:30 PM

I am ambivalent about the changes to the look of the forum in general, but one aspect is causing me distress: the line-length for a posting is now about 170 letters (before it wraps), which is far too long for the eye to scan comfortably. Long lines also impede comprehension. A shorter line-length, say 70 letters, would be both easier and faster to read, and much easier to understand. Having to maximize a window (or scroll side-to-side) before I can read it is also aggravating.

In a related manner, the new width of the first column on the forum postings page separates the information in the other columns by an unnecessary degree making it difficult to take in the other columns at a glance.

These changes do not aid intelligibility. I would hope that good design sense will prevail, and that we will see the return of a readable page.

Tim Robertson

Comments

TheHappyFriar wrote on 9/4/2009, 1:58 PM

I'd say the new color scheme, along with Vegas 9's default, suck, but looks like we're stuck with all the sucky things that someone thought was better. :/

John_Cline wrote on 9/4/2009, 3:56 PM

Just go to "Forum Settings" > "Preferences" and set the font size to "Large." This will result in fewer characters per line.

JJKizak wrote on 9/4/2009, 4:16 PM

It looks just fine to me with the exception of the blue text on black background which is just awful.
I use 768 x 1360 on 32" monitors.
JJK

DGrob wrote on 9/5/2009, 11:50 AM

Speaking as an AARPV9b user, I like it.

Maybe has to do with my specs (eyeball specs that is).

Darryl

Ros wrote on 9/5/2009, 1:10 PM

I think it looks great!! Even the new V9 UI looks great!

Not as bright on the eyes, nice layout and design.

Also, the home page looks so good, whoever designed it, congratulations!!!!

If you want to get some users to migrate towards Sony Creative Software, I believe it is important that this site and UI be nicely designed.

Some people buy a car because it looks good, not because it is good. I always look under the hood, same with Vegas. I love what's under the hood even if the UI didn't look as professionnal as all other editing software. Now it looks great inside and outside!

Rob

Ecquillii wrote on 9/6/2009, 4:51 PM

As a workaround, John's suggestion to set the font-size to large improves the situation for me, for which I am thankful. But I still miss the compact, density-rich, quickly-scanable lines of the recent past.

Tim

John_Cline wrote on 9/6/2009, 5:04 PM

Each topic on the main page has a grid and the backgrounds alternate between white and light gray to differentiate between the different topics. I personally don't see that much of a difference between the new display and old forum display, maybe I'm just not as sensitive to change. The story about the princess and the pea comes to mind.

Harold Brown wrote on 9/6/2009, 6:05 PM

I like the new look. I did bump up the font size, but that's because I am old and somebody mentioned it and I thought "good idea, less eye strain".

alltheseworlds wrote on 9/6/2009, 6:25 PM

Ultra-wide lines of text are ridiculous. There's a good reason why this is so rarely used on mainstream sites: it's hard to read and breaks basic usability wisdom.

Ecquillii wrote on 9/6/2009, 6:53 PM

Usually the princess gets a lot of bad press, dismissed as an out-of-touch complainer (especially in our egalitarian times), but in that old story she is hooked into reality, and is profoundly able to discern the merest fragments of existence: real things that have real effects no matter how the grossest aspects of our enculturalization may lay them over.

Well, what is at issue, for me, with the new forum look is direct readability. A short line will always be able to impart its information with ease (which is one of the reasons that newspapers use multiple columns across the page which the eye can zip down--imagine if you had to read a page-width line in a newspaper--it would take forever--and finding the start of the next line would be like wandering in a maze).

And I should say (in case my intentions might be mistaken here), in the spirit of my Buddhist friend Gloria, that I practice being at ease with conditions as they are! My inner-Princess has a smile in her heart.

Tim

Harold Brown wrote on 9/6/2009, 6:56 PM

I like to think my brain can handle it. Lots of training when I was a kid reading books I guess. Ever read The Third Reich? Man that was a lot of words. Today the training is in texting. Text messages look pretty lengthy on the phone screen.

alltheseworlds wrote on 9/6/2009, 9:29 PM

When the main replies to a website upgrade or change are either "hate it" or "I suppose I can live with it", then I mark the project as a giant F-A-I-L

erikd wrote on 9/6/2009, 10:31 PM

John's suggestion to set the font-size to large improves the situation for me

I go to Preferences change the font size but...

I can't find anywhere on the page to save the preferences so I haven't been able to change the font size. Obviously, no one else is having this problem but how do you save your changes like font size?

Erik

John_Cline wrote on 9/6/2009, 11:09 PM

Hit the "Submit" button at the bottom of the screen. It's under the "E-mail Preferences" section.

John_Cline wrote on 9/6/2009, 11:12 PM

"Well, what is at issue, for me, with the new forum look is direct readability."

Well, instead of setting the font size to LARGE, then set the font size to LARGER or LARGEST.

erikd wrote on 9/7/2009, 3:14 AM

Hit the "Submit" button at the bottom of the screen. It's under the "E-mail Preferences" section.

This Submit button is on a different page (Forum Settings) than the font adjustments which are on the preferences page. I need a submit button on the preferences page because my changes to the font size are not kept. I'm using Firefox. I wonder if this is a browser issue?

John_Cline wrote on 9/7/2009, 3:22 AM

Could be a browser issue, there is a "Submit" button on the Preferences page in my browser.

megabit wrote on 9/7/2009, 4:03 AM

Even though John's advice is sound, let's get real - with today's monitor resolutions, the line length used in this new forum setting is way too high - and SCS should be made aware of this.

The most pleasing and legible way of displaying text is small font, short lines. Period.

farss wrote on 9/7/2009, 4:22 AM

Is what's being asked for that easily done though.
When the page was narrower long threads became difficult to read, making the page wider addresses that issue but creates another.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 9/7/2009, 4:57 AM

When the page was narrower long threads became difficult to read

Well, don't quite agree, Bob - I find scrolling down much easier than scrolling right-down-left :)

But that's just me,

Piotr

farss wrote on 9/7/2009, 5:38 AM

Sorry, I've not explained that too well :)

If there's 100s of posts in a thread then in threaded view the post links get scrunched up against the right hand side of the page and it becomes impossible to read the topic and the date / time.

Bob.

megabit wrote on 9/7/2009, 5:45 AM

Oh, OK - I don't use the threaded view:)

Piotr

PS Just tried it - not bad!

MarkWWWW wrote on 9/7/2009, 6:07 AM

I don't really dislike this new look, but one thing is bugging me: Why did they choose to make the thing you want to read the lowest contrast thing on the screen?

Things you don't really need to read (tiles, headers, etc) appear in high contrast as black on a white or light-grey background, but the bit you do want to read appears in low contrast as black on a (blueish?) mid-grey background. It would surely be better for readability to swap the areas with white backgrounds for the areas with mid-grey backgrounds.

Or is just my aging eyes that find it annoying?

Mark

Ecquillii wrote on 9/7/2009, 7:23 AM

"Well, instead of setting the font size to LARGE, then set the font size to LARGER or LARGEST."

Well, in fact, that is what I did do right from the start. This strategy did mitigate the originating problem of too many letters per line, but only marginally (font size: normal--170 letters per line; large--160; larger--150; largest--145). Understand, please, that I am not complaining. My interest is in good design and maximum readability. I have no problems reading small type, and I am entirely capable of reading a line-length of 170 letters. But even the "largest" setting produces double the number of letters that can be read comfortably and efficiently.

The "Preferences" work-around also introduces its own reading negatives: the large type-size reduces the density of information on the screen. It is not as easy to scan and take in blocks of information all at once (as it was with the previous forum design) because the eye has to move farther and more often.

These are small matters. Again, my interest is good design and maximum readability. Books are a good example because they use design principles that have evolved over centuries. You won’t find a book with such egregious line-lengths. If books had lines with 170 letters one would quickly tire of reading them. In this regard, a web page is no different.

Tim