Experimental community homepage - feedback requested!

[Paul]

Hi, we're experimenting with the idea of a new style of community homepage which will incorporate a wider set of the features on the community than the existing forums index page. 

Please take a look and let me know what you think - the design and specifics of it can be changed, and your views on those will be taken on board, as they will be in terms of whether we go ahead with this approach or not.

https://www.netweather.tv/forum/home/

Should we go with it, the forums index/front page as it is now will still be available, so it's not a case of needing to decide between the 2, more a case of whether this additional whole community homepage will add to your experience, maybe highlight content from other parts of the community such as the gallery, learning & research area etc better. 

Thanks
Paul

[Methuselah]

Looks okay to me...a little different, but okay.

[Mapantz]

[Paul]

14 hours ago, Mapantz said:

Should be better now?

[Mapantz]

19 minutes ago, Paul said:

Should be better now?

Yep. That looks nice.

[Dorsetbred]

Interestingly different, looks fine on a laptop and if connected to wifi then the content download is OK. But what about on mobile, it seems to have a lot of graphics to scroll before you might reach the place you want to be. As I pay for my data (I know one of the few) does this content consume a fair degree for a page update( date wise)?

[Paul]

Thanks for taking a look @Dorsetbred. Good point about the size of the page, looking at it just now, it just under 1mb larger than the forum index - it's about 3mb in total inc images, so not huge. The images, css, js etc all cache as well, so that'd only be on the first load, subsequent loads would likely be <1mb.

[The PIT]

I'm viewing it on a 4k screen and it's far to big. Mobile version the same but worse as you spend to much time scrolling and the huge annoying ad right at the top which doesn't reflect the site content so in this case a passer by would think it's sports forum and simply move on.

The ad needs moving the bottom of the page and also needs to reflect the site content or made much smaller.

[Paul]

The max size of the ad at the top on mobile is 320x100 pixels but more often than not it's 320x50 pixels, so is actually quite small. On desktop it's 728x90 pixels, again not that big in page real estate terms. Most advertising needs to be above the fold on web pages, particularly if you only have 1 ad a page.

I don't have a 4k monitor to test on, so if you could screen shot that, it would be really helpful, thanks. 

 

[The PIT]

Hi Paul attached. I've cropped out my second screen.

To be honest the present looks a lot better but that's my humble opinion.

[The PIT]

Whoops the screen show was taken at 80% of the size.

[Paul]

Thanks. Whatever happens (and the new design will change ahead of making any final decisions on it), the current forum index screen will still available.