At least we'll always have Frank

[rahaeli]

I've seen a lot of people wondering about recent changes or proposed changes to LiveJournal's navigation and user interface, and asking why they're necessary. We've talked about our individual goals for some of the changes in the lj_design community, but we haven't talked about why we're working on the project overall, and I wanted to take a minute and

Comments

[sephirothgal]

Sounds like you guys have the same problems as another site I go to.

[scsi]

Thats right, you'll always have me.. <3

[arie]

I was wondering how long it would take you to say that. ;)

[etherlad]

I love stumbling across someone using one of my avatars. Thank you.

[scsi]

I think you pointed me to a bunch you made a long time ago.
If you dont want me to use it lemme know.

[bandicoot]

True - the ui was ad hoc from day one. I'm glad you're addressing the problem in a comprehensive way, even if I may end up hating the results. As long as it doesn't end up looking like myspace, I can probably learn to cope.

speaking of Frank...He hasn't posted since May!!!

[crimmson]

ditto--Myspace=bad...I've been on LJ since 2002...and I'm computer illiterate...I had no real problems with figuring out the basics then...I still dont have a clue how to do anything on myspace...talk about a mess...

I love being able to switch between plain text and rich text during posting...It made my life much easier since I always forget the cut codes etc. but other changes (ie.navigation bar) I did have to retrain myself to use properly.

[kenboy]

There's stuff that I don't personally care for, but that at the same time I think they can make the site more useful -- like the blasted nav strip, which CAN be handy at times, and wouldn't have been such a problem if it wasn't turned on for all the people who didn't want it turned on, but instead was displayed or not displayed based on the viewer's preference, not the journal owner's...

...but then there are the changes that seem to be there just to drive us nuts, like changing the font used to display comment pages. What was wrong with the old one? I think it was actually more readable! I really wish there was less of that sort of thing, because even if there is a good reason for it, it ends up looking to users as change for change's sake.

[trishtrash]

As a rule of thumb, I think people prefer changes to be opt-in rather than opt-out to start with. For instance, a visually impaired friend on LJ was irritated by having to figure out how to remove the bar using the tiny text... had you *offered* the change, he would have been aware of it's existence without the inconvenience. Personally, I don't even notice the thing - I have peculiar focus/attention issues that allow me to tune out much of what's not expected. One day it'll get me run over, but in the meantime, what navigation bar? ;)

[ems]

I forgot about the nav bar. Man, that thing's ugly. If it were more customisable, it might be better. The basic concept is good, but I personally want it on the side, the same colour scheme as my journal and with whatever links I want to have on it. Until then, I'll just use my sidebar. ;)

[christine]

Try this? http://legomymalfoy.livejournal.com/448587.html

It's not exactly point-and-click, but you can make the colors pretty to match at least your journal :)

[ems]

Ooh, that does look much better, thank you!