UI experience : greatly reduce navigation on the site

[annadaa]

For a while, the sites could be full of colors, lots of menus, lots of different sections. This posed no problem for Internet users.

This is over today. Internet users no longer have the time and want direct access to what they need.

If a page is too heavy, too many widgets, too bulky, and you get lost between the categories, that scares people away and doesn't make you want to stay and read

IPS is FORUMS, ECOMMERCE, CMS, FILE SHARING, CALENDARS, GALLERIES, BLOGS and CLUBS

Do you think that today Internet users (with the distractions of social networks and others) find the mental strength to navigate between all this?

Will you tell me, that in part there are notifications, no need to navigate to know the news, but that makes the site heavy and scares people.

It is a subject which deserves I think a long work of reflection to know how one will easily offer a quality article (which is sought after today) with at hand what goes with it as a downloadable file uploder on downloads, available and associated directly in the article, the same for the discussion, etc.

Another example here:

 

You have to click on additional information, then on support topic to finally find yourself in the discussion.

Is it not easier to make the discussion topic directly visible in the tab.

we can no longer afford to want to force the member to go to the forum to access the discussion of the file.

I hope that one day, it will be easily possible to associate an article, with a file on downloads, a discussion on a forum, a physical article sold on ecommerce without having to complicate the task with lots of widgets etc.

as said that surely requires a work of thought to find the best thing to do, but nothing that to see under the title for example of the clickable links of all that is associated would be good:

1 discussion - 1 image - 1 product ....

There to do something like that, we play a long time with the tags, or a widget to go to the article, another to the discussion etc.

When you are the creator of the site everything is easy, simple to understand, to navigate, but take the advice of potential newcomers

I'm almost certain that there will be a lot more reading, downloading, contributing by avoiding navigating the site if things are linked together

 

[kmk]

4 hours ago, annadaa said:

surely requires a work of thought

That is why we need pay for the continue updates and hope we are part of "technology innovation". 

[FabioPaz]

Sorry, @annadaa, but you will be talking to the wall about this in here.

After 10-12 years using IPB, the focus of the app is still the same.

All I can think about this is that:

1. The staff behind the development might be the same from 10+ years ago and are stuck in the 2000s, or...
2. IPB is a niche product to attract a certain profile of community owners, that like the "forum style from 2000s" to compete with other similar options in the same market.

It's 2021, while plataforms like reddit (open-source by the way), have a simple UI with a app that works, IPB have.... clubs, calendar...

It's like IPB exists in a separate world where wordpress, social media, file sharing like google drive don't exist, so they invest in stuff like cms, pages, file sharing system, blogs, etc...

A lot - if not all - of that features worked very well in 2007-2014, because the options were very limited.

Just for example: TODAY, I would never, in a million years, pay U$100 for ipb ecommerce or blog (U$175 for both), with wordpress and woocommerce being free, with a bigger community and, actually, better. If you don't like wordpress, there's a lot of other free options that fit the category as well, this is just an example.

By the way, I use several different apps in my projects. Can you bet which is the only one of them that have problems with performance and needs a lot of server side tweaks or/and will crash my server/generate downtime in almost every new major upgrade? Tip: ipb

I'm an unhappy costumer and, as of right now, I feel stuck with IPB.

I already tried changing plataforms in the past, but it was a SEO disaster. Right now, I'm learning django and flutter, to make my own solution (just for my own projects, not to sell for others).

I simply can't see myself still using IPB in the future.

The only good thing I notice was an improvement in support. Five (or so) years ago, even paying for updates, staff would treat you as if they were doing a favor (in several occasions my hosting company support at the time fixed problems caused by IPB major upgrades). Now IPB support is MUCH better.

Please, I'm not trying to win any arguments, this is my experience with IPB in respect with my particular needs, just that...
 

Edited January 3, 2021 by FabioPaz
corrections (still wrong; english is not my native language)

[stoo2000]

On 1/1/2021 at 6:23 PM, annadaa said:

Another example here:

 

You have to click on additional information, then on support topic to finally find yourself in the discussion.

Is it not easier to make the discussion topic directly visible in the tab.

we can no longer afford to want to force the member to go to the forum to access the discussion of the file.

That is specific to the addon author, with the 4.5 marketplace change we were given an entire page to put any additional information such as install guides etc. It doesn't look like many people are using it as intended though. Support topics are not really an 'official' thing or required, it's up to the author if they want to create one and link to it.

Here's what I have and I'll continue to add items to the FAQ if they come up.

 

[Davyc]

I don't believe that today's users don't have the time - they have as much time now as they did in 2000.  The differences between then and now are threefold; 1) Most users now rely on mobile phones for Internet access, this makes it difficult to enjoy the full-on effect of a forum platform. 2) The Internet is dominated by the likes of Facebook and Twitter which are wholly mobile phone friendly.  3) People are lazier today and want instant gratification and can't be bothered (not that they don't have the time) to work through a system of menus.

IPS is never going to be able to fully compete with FB and Twitter et-al, when their system is not really suited to mobile phone use - it is useable, but people are lazy and lack the motives to use the menu systems - which are very easy to use when it all comes down to it.  It's sad, because the very people that IPS customers want to attract are missing out on so much because they can't be bothered to navigate a menu system.  So, the question is whether it's IPS or people that are at fault.  My money is on people.  Sure, there is more than can be done to streamline 'some' areas, but it is what it is, and you can't make a square peg fit into a round hole (unless you take to brute force lol).

This is really a circular argument because there is no quantifiable answer to the people problem.  In order for IPS to mitigate the people problem, they would have to completely redesign their software and it would no longer be a community suite, rather it would be more of a FB or Twitter clone and another like that would be one too many.

The simple answer would be not to use IPS if it doesn't fulfill your needs.

🙂

 

[annadaa]

Thank you for your contribution

I find that Word press does not reach the level of IPS at all in user profiles, user management, quality of admin panel, ease of use etc. The IPS top is much further ahead

Word press exceeds IPS in the number of applications, the value of certain (less risk of abandonment because they are the largest companies behind) but does not exceed I find in the quality and the precise contribution to specific users, I speak in any case of my needs. I find them quite poor in functionality, and not very attractive.

 

a lot of things can only be done from a not very attractive admin panel

 

On word press, I believe that we are also faced with concerns when the apps are not updated, interference between them ...

I thought about going to word press but the quality and the greatest maneuver to manage specific users and groups, it is especially here that I will find it.

(if you want to write articles and only that without the need for user monitoring, then yes word press will surely be better)

But in choosing IPS, the basis is that you choose to bring things to specific users or groups.

What interests me about IPS is its strength in user management with its groups, and ease of use.

Even though, as I mentioned, some things need to be improved, it is possible to do some very good things. I still believe in it, I don't find them behind on everything.

I must say that I am a little behind in my knowledge of some new web applications like (slack, reddit etc) but I believe that these are two totally different uses and therefore incomparable with IPS

[kmk]

2 hours ago, FabioPaz said:

All I can think about this is that:

1. The staff behind the development are the same from 10+ years ago and are stuck in the 2000s.

I have the same feeling.

I think ips can go with their own business strategies, but some basic goals are same for FB, Twitter and others social platforms... The UI and UX. If ipb has to learn something of these big companies, why not? These companies spend so money and effort to get the best result. Flarum is a good example to get better result of UX and UI

[Dean_]

50 minutes ago, kmk said:

Flarum is a good example to get better result of UX and UI

I've never heard of them, so I checked it out. And now I see why I never liked the GiffGaff forums... 😆 While it does actually look nice, and I see a forum vibe. But, it still misses that 'traditional forum layout/function' which we are all so used to. Interesting though.

[Davyc]

If the IPS software is not fulfilling your needs then you need to explore elsewhere - IPS is a community suite, it's not FB or Twitter and heaven forbid it ever turns into that, we don't need any more clones; there are clones out there so if IPS is not a good fit for you try them, just do a Google search for FB/Twitter clones.

I doubt that the development team for IPS will move closer to the likes of FB and Twitter and become another version of them.  I do believe that the IPS team have their finger on the pulse, as it were, but they can only do so much to leverage a closeness to FB/Twitter and they have done so quite succinctly over the last few upgrades.

The instant gratification that people crave is not in articles; I would quickly lose interest in an article if I had to read it on a mobile phone.  Likes, thumbs up/down, smiley's and the like are all they want.  Serious users will use forums or other such websites where reading on a larger screen is much more comfortable.

What I do, in order to reduce clicks/taps, is to send a link to a post/article to Twitter (I don't use FB and never will) and that will take users to that specific point with no further clicks and when they get there the post is short enough to hold their attention span 🙂

 

[FabioPaz]

2 hours ago, Davyc said:

The instant gratification that people crave is not in articles; I would quickly lose interest in an article if I had to read it on a mobile phone.  Likes, thumbs up/down, smiley's and the like are all they want.  Serious users will use forums or other such websites where reading on a larger screen is much more comfortable.

 

 

75% of sessions on my forum are from non serious users.

Damn kids with those new things called smartphones, right?

Reading text using a small screen?? ABSURD! 

Believe me, It wont take long until they start reading books that aren't made from paper. What kindle of world is that?

 

[Fast Lane!]

42 minutes ago, FabioPaz said:

 

 

75% of sessions on my forum are from non serious users.

Damn kids with those new things called smartphones, right?

Reading text using a small screen?? ABSURD! 

Believe me, It wont take long until they start reading books that aren't made from paper. What kindle of world is that?

 

Yeah I agree.  The trend is obvious that mobile is becoming the majority of users.  Like it or not.  Google even has "mobile first" indexing that prioritizes that as a factor.  They saw the trend years ago.  Some legacy power users may be desktop only but there is a HUGE # of mobile power users that exist too...

Bottom line... I LOVE desktop for all the "stuff" I can see at once.  It's faster.  It's better at displaying content.  BUT... It's not how the large MAJORITY of people consume information anymore.  We must adapt.

[TheWorldNewsMedia.org]

7 hours ago, Davyc said:

The simple answer would be not to use IPS if it doesn't fulfill your needs.

Sad. But true. 

The final days of a once good idea. 

I would have rather seen it and my site (community) grow and thrive.

[Davyc]

37 minutes ago, Fast Lane! said:

Bottom line... I LOVE desktop for all the "stuff" I can see at once.  It's faster.  It's better at displaying content.  BUT... It's not how the large MAJORITY of people consume information anymore.  We must adapt.

I don't believe it's a question of adapting, rather one of acceptance.  The only way to adapt is to rebuild the software from the bottom up aimed at mobile users, it then becomes something likened to other SM outlets aimed at those who prefer and use mobiles.  I would hang my hat on wanting to use something other than IPS if my target audience was mobile users - the IPS software is useable on mobiles, but it's not the software that is in question, rather it's the content and how it's displayed. It often makes it unwieldy for mobile users and a generation that's not really interested in learning something new or understanding concepts beyond the puerile.  It's a shame, but that's the world we live in now.

[ahc]

I don't know... Facebook is one of the most used websites in the world and is also one of the most cluttered websites in the world when it comes to links and features which are added to almost weekly it seems, yet people seem to manage just fine.

I think you can have a lot of things if you do so in a way that doesn't make it frustrating trying to find something.