MPGH Forum Upgrade - New Skin Preview

[[MPGH]Flengo]

Here's a little sneak peak preview of the new theme for the site after the forum upgrade. As you may already know, we're working on upgrading the forum software for MPGH currently. For the upgrade, here's what the new forum design is going to look like. We wanted to go for something clean and minimal.

 

[[MPGH]meme]

finally, been way to long in the making

[Silent]

Honestly, few things I dislike about it... I know its a preview, not final by any means but hopefully can give some sense of help.

1) The buttons I quite dislike. I can see how they are mobile friendly, but the most important thing on the page is the users messages, title, names and profile pictures. That IMO should be the main priority of things to display. But I find the buttons, bring far more attention than the messages themselves.

2) I don't wanna go on all about the buttons, and this isn't strictly about the buttons. But well, the UX feels slightly off. When you read a post, the first thing you do is... read it, in the preview the first thing you see is the buttons. I feel like from a UX perspective, they should go after the post, or below the post.

3) more butttons.... Up the top the navbar feels a bit unorganized. I think I see a settings, a trending, groups, tags, recent posts, messages, and thats about it. I had to really think about what those buttons were. You shouldn't in my opinion, have to think about what buttons do what. You should be able to look at it and be like, oh okay. So maybe some sort of way to move those buttons. Mauybe add a drop down menu at the users profile, allowing him to go to settings, or messages. I believe it would simplify things somewhat. They are less used than the other things.

4) 1 out of 5... is this pages? again, i dont wanna sound like im being a dick towards everything in the UI, but navigating pages should be at the bottom of the page. The first thing you do when you view a page, is not navigate to another page. You navigate to anotehr page once you reach the bottom of the page. I should also ask, is the navbar sticky?

5) Browsing forums, looking at threads i honestly really like. I think it looks good. Simple, shows everything that needs to be shown. I may suggest adding the users name, for who started it and who recently replied. I see a profile picture on DaveBB thread, that I think should be rounded or have some sort of borders on the profile picture preview. It loooks a bit out of place.

Honestly, for a preview it isn't bad. I certainly would change a few things with it, but it is at the very least, a start. I look forward to seeing future iterations. I don't mean to sound like I am shitting on this preview either, I really am just trying to offer perspective from someone who isn't a developer. I know what it can be like, being a developer and making things around your taste. You're the developer and understand it, it makes sense to you. Getting outside perspective helps

[Matthew]

I don't like it but an upgrade is an upgrade. I will always prefer old MPGH but glad some sort of change is coming. It really looks 'plain' to me

[Yikes]

I mean its different. Not my style but atleast it new!

[Vicarious]

Can we still use the 'old' theme? It's great to see some changes but I don't like the minimal style and I already miss my animated User Title

[[MPGH]Mayion]

I think the posts above^ are referring to how MPGH's theme is quite different from all the other forums, which gives it 'that' feel of not being just another vb board, like the color contrasts (white, blue, orange) bringing out each element individually, along with the buttons being integrated into the forms they belong to and not having a different color (black in this case) altogether.

To me personally, I love the work put in it and think that it will look nice once finished. Goodjob.

[ZoomSE]

Looks clean, has it's own feeling to it(original). Most importantly though, It's not just a copy of every other myBB forum. I like it
But yeah, the animated user title is one thing I'd like to keep for sure.

[[MPGH]Austin]

A brief deconstruction of what I'm seeing and my thoughts:



The risk of clean and minimal is bland and generic. I see zero brand recognition between the current styling and that one apart from a paler blue gradient.


It also has a MASSIVE 'mobile version' aesthetic. It's just way too empty. Grayed text on the soft blue gradient makes it look dirty, too much top-bottom padding for the header as well - too much space for such tiny and bland icons - everything about it just screams 'mobile version' to me.


The icons are cool but nothing about the header seems intuitive, if you're gonna have icons you need to have text accompanying it.


A background gradient or image for the body is definitely going to be needed to help fill in the space and make it seem less bland... or different shades of white/gray for the post background on the body background.


Forum buttons are too big/thick compared to the outlining of the posts, and the boldness of the buttons distract from everything else on the page - it's jarring, the colour scheme of black button on white background gives too much contrast with blue accents for the headers. The current orange styling for posts/accents looks great and should be continued in the redesign - that would help with some legacy brand recognition.


Main/Marketplace icons are way too fucking big to be of any practical use and are way too generic looking.



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Overall there's too much space with too little emphasis on the content. Too little attention to brand recognition. Nothing about it encourages user engagement and retention . It looks like you're designing a mobile app for browser use.


It is a nice start though.

[Future]

Are you kidding me? This? You are working for how long and this? Looooool
I mean I respect gfx team for doing it, mpgh needs a new design but I thought it will look much much better

[[MPGH]meme]

Are you kidding me? This? You are working for how long and this? Looooool
I mean I respect gfx team for doing it, mpgh needs a new design but I thought it will look much much better

i can not believe I accidentally gave this a thanks

gotta be the stupidest post in the history of mpgh, you must be blind or something dude

seriously lost all respect

[[MPGH]Ahl]

User text title looks yikes especially for GM.

Design looks nice for mobile but not really a design I'd go for when viewing from a computer. Lots of empty space and way too simplistic compared to the current site.

[Vicarious]

Are you kidding me? This? You are working for how long and this? Looooool
I mean I respect gfx team for doing it, mpgh needs a new design but I thought it will look much much better

The fuck is this post. You can like it or dislike it but don't talk shit about other peoples effort ffs

[Ticherhaz]

Finally something worth for 2020

[monch0]

Looking good!!
when is the beta available?