FrankT opened this issue on Aug 17, 2015 ยท 90 posts
ptousig posted Tue, 18 August 2015 at 4:57 AM
My feedback here is focused on the marketplace.
I have to say, like most responders here, I'm also not a fan of this site redesign. This is not simple dislike of all change; there are specific changes here that I do feel are for the worse. Specific feedback follows.
The large headers and footers are taking up too much space. The very top, dark bar of the header, with the search box, general links and dropdowns isn't bad, because those things are arguably worth having on-screen full-time. Here in the forums, the white bar directly underneath the dark one is quite wasteful, as it contains information that I don't think anyone needs to see full time. On the marketplace, the links in the white bar are useful. However, each of these two parts of the header is too tall. Each section of the header could stand to be close to half its current height. Reducing the height (thickness) of these headers would yield back useful viewing space to the product pages.
The footer with nothing but social media links is something incredibly wasteful of vertical space. These things simply should not be on screen full time. Really, get rid of that. Put them in a static, non-floating element on pages, or revert back to them being simple icons tucked into another element. (The previous site had these on the same non-floating header bar as the account links, meaning they took no extra vertical space.) You have empty space on the left side of the pages - while I find such things on other sites annoying, if you really want these links to stay on screen, make them a vertical bar of icons and let them float over there.
The vertical sidebar on the right side of marketplace product pages is very large and busy. I don't think the info there is bad. Having the product price near the top of the product page is nice, for example. However, the sidebar is much too wide. Comparing it with saved versions of marketplace pages, it's around 1.3 times as wide as the static sidebar was on the previous version of the site. It is also positioned further to the left, with larger margin on the right-hand side compared to the old site. Again, both changes here take away product viewing space.
As an aside, you seem to have lost a lot of promotional content in the new sidebar. Current sale items, "what's hot", etc. were all links that I frequently clicked on, and I don't see equivalents in the current site. If those aren't coming back, I think you're missing out on cross-sell opportunities the old site gave you.
In summary, users come to the marketplace to look at the product images and descriptions, and these things need to be more dominant than the current site design permits. We do need the info in the right-hand sidebar, but it doesn't need to be so large and prominent. We do not need to be constantly provided with social media links. The site navigation links at the top are nice to have floating, but are too tall.