Wow, can't wait to see the big surprise you guys have in store.

At 26 minutes ago, Rawnern wrote: Is it true that the site speed has improved?

The html of this design is actually lighter, but it has heavier graphics, so I don't know the perfect scientific answer to that. I feel like it's been browsing faster for me (I'm using Chrome). There are also little things that are just designed better, like going through and replying to PMs is a faster process for me now.

At 1 hour ago, TomFulp wrote: Early next week you can expect us to unveil new content formatting, based on the discsussion in this thread. The plan is that thumbnails will have a visible title and author on the front page while author and score will be visible on all other pages. Rollover info will include description, genre and content rating.

Sounds good i'm sure that will help bring people closer to viewing it and getting their interest.

We have another surprise coming later next week so you'll have to stick around and see what it is! Actually two surprises if you count the new featured game next Friday.

Sounds good can't wait!

The NG buglist is LONG and the gang has been working their way through it. We are also cranking out mockups for improvements and other tweaks around the site.

Yeah there is a few bugs i've come across but probably nothing anybody else has brought to your attention,best of luck to you and the staff on fixing up all the bugs. :)

There are a few things I'm curious about:

1) Do you find yourself ignoring the big content showcase box here on the front page? I've been told it doesn't make enough of a "call to action" and while looking pretty, people aren't being as enticed to click it as they should be.

I do have to admit while the bigger icons looks better i liked how it gave a title & brief description of the game/video on the front page before it was simple,efficient and got the job done rather than just giving a picture of the game/video people are not too sure what it is or what it can be hence they may pass it up but i think your solution up at the top will fix that for the most part.

2) Have you explored the content genre browsing? I feel like this is a really powerful system that a lot of people are overlooking; some have even complained that we removed genres. Go to the games page and scan the categories in the left column. Click around and start exploring. The categories get really in-depth and you can sort by all sorts of criteria. Right now we default to sort by date, which was an attempt to put the spotlight on new submissions but may have been a mistake. Instead we should probably default to sorting by score but maybe set the range to "Year" instead of "All" so there's more movement in the space.

It looks good to me and a lot more organized to say the least,i have no problems with the way it is now.

This also makes me wonder if the games front page should be different. Right now we showcase the latest games, popular games from this week, highest scoring games of the month, highest scoring of the year and highest scoring of all time. Popular games tend to just mirror the front page. Best games of all time feels pretty static (instead maybe it could have a random selection from the top 200). But instead of all of that, I'm wondering if we should return to something like the old site, where we have a per-genre showcase. For example, the first box under "Brand Spankin' New Games" could be "Best New Action Games" and list the latest four action games with scores greater than 3.3 (number is based on some personal observations but not set in stone). The showcase would continue with "Best New Adventure Games", etc. I'm thinking it would better highlight the genre categories and might give people more direct access to stuff they like.

3) Have you been making use of the feed button (the star next to logout) in the header? It lists new submissions by artists you have favorited, something that was only available via email in the past. We intend to merge all favorites into one list of people you follow, so that you can easily add them from their user page and not have to add them in the context of a piece of content. Our current system (where you favorite artists based on content categories) is really old and has some charm but it feels like overkill nowadays.

That new feature helps me a lot to keep current with the newest games & movies being released by my favorite artists rather than having to check my email about it i can now just stay on Newgrounds and find out right here,one of the better new features here for the redesign.

4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout?

I have found myself playing a lot more Medal games but by far i have been lurking a lot in the Audio & Art Portal they have progressed a lot and i think are on par with the Games & Movies catagories (at least close) the fact that i can view,vote & review Audio & Art on my phone is truly a blessing and awesome as hell,thanks a lot for that new feature. :)

At 1 hour ago, Luis wrote: Right now it feels like scrolling string of promos, not necessarily anything i can interact(click) with.

I agree with luis. I don't really feel like I can click it. Just feels like a featured box.

Also, the "Featured Content" at the bottom of every page kind of merges with the add down there. At least at first glance I don't really pay attention to/notice it all that much. That might just be me though.

At 1 hour ago, TomFulp wrote: Early next week you can expect us to unveil new content formatting, based on the discsussion in this thread. The plan is that thumbnails will have a visible title and author on the front page while author and score will be visible on all other pages. Rollover info will include description, genre and content rating.

I am very excited to hear that this information will be far easier to access! To be honest I've loved the new design completely except for that!! Everything looks amazing, but I was reluctant to get to familiar because of what a nuisance it was to find out titles, authors and scores which should be showcased front and center. Glad to hear it's happening :D

1) Do you find yourself ignoring the big content showcase box here on the front page? I've been told it doesn't make enough of a "call to action" and while looking pretty, people aren't being as enticed to click it as they should be.

I do make sure to check out the showcase, as it is an excellent feature to have! Sometimes I skip over it because I'm not sure how often it is changed. Maybe for the first 3 days or so of being showcased it should be marked as somehow "NEW!"
I think the biggest contrast between how well the showcase worked before and now is that it almost looks too flashy. I'm not sure how I can clarify this point very well. Maybe it should have a header box saying "Showcase" like the other "Featured Movies" and such. Right now at a glance it might almost look like an advertisement. The design of it sort of separates itself from the rest of the format, and I think people might ignore it, thinking it's an ad for something out of Newgrounds.

2) Have you explored the content genre browsing?

I really haven't as of yet. But to be honest I've been browsing the portal a lot less lately. I think once the new formatting kicks in and we can see the info more readily then I'll be using this genre browsing very regularly! It really is an excellent feature :)

This also makes me wonder if the games front page should be different.

Reformatting what is displayed on the games page is probably a good idea. Having a section that randomly picks from the top 200 or so is a good idea. But maybe that could specifically be filtered to look within a range of time? For example, having it search for the best games of 2008 if you were so inclined.
I think people need to get used to the genre browsing. Having the different boxes displaying the top in each genre will just stop people from getting used to browsing on their own.

BUT. When someone does click on "action" in the browsing, then there should be a box that comes up displaying the top action games of the month/year as well as latest content.

3) Have you been making use of the feed button (the star next to logout) in the header?

More than anything so far I am loving this new feature! It is the easiest way to keep tabs on people. Rather than looking to see if an author has any new content just when I think of it, I have something that will tell me as soon as I log in. I didn't even realize how badly I wanted a feature like this until it was here!
I now have more incentive to favorite authors, and keep up to date with what they are doing. I love it :)

The only addition I wish it had, is to have a little "x" number of missed notifications like the inbox has.

What about notices of new reviews for something you've submitted?
I don't know if this has already been asked, but nonetheless is there any chance we could possibly have the "new reviews" notification system back, possibly improved or substituted with a better one?
Thanks,
KKS

I'll just comment about the notifications button since that's what I'm using the most.

It's a really good idea and I use it quite a lot. Here are my suggestions for improvement;

1.) Like Goat-Man said, a number for the notifications box indicating the notifications you haven't seen yet would be great.

2.) You could also add a date which pops up in MM/DD/YYYY format near each notification when you hover on it. Nothing important but it'd be cool to have.

3.) The addition of different types of notifications like Jin mentioned (new reviews, new newspost comments, new posts quoting you, new review replies).

4.) If you implement the suggestion above this one, I'd highly suggest adding a setting in your account options allowing you to mark which notifications you want to receive. For example, if I'm a very popular audio artist and I get tonnes of reviews on my audio, I'll have notifications for new reviews on my audio submissions cluttering up the notifications button and I'll have to fish for the notifications of new newspost comments, review responses, new content from my favourite artists, etc...

I started favoriting more authors now. Thats all that really changed.

And yes, I do use the different genre listings in the new movie portal to browse more content. it's awesome.

At 2 hours ago, TomFulp wrote: Early next week you can expect us to unveil new content formatting, based on the discsussion in this thread. The plan is that thumbnails will have a visible title and author on the front page while author and score will be visible on all other pages. Rollover info will include description, genre and content rating.

Related to your Feedback thread, I do have a suggestion. The rollover info would definitely be a nice touch, as I've seen several media sites that make use of a feature that is similar. However, instead of having the rollover information cover the content section underneath the one highlighted, would it be possible to appear over the box you have highlighted? I would think it would cause a little less confusion that way.

We have another surprise coming later next week so you'll have to stick around and see what it is! Actually two surprises if you count the new featured game next Friday.

Surprises are always nice :)

The NG buglist is LONG and the gang has been working their way through it. We are also cranking out mockups for improvements and other tweaks around the site.

There are a few things I'm curious about:

1) Do you find yourself ignoring the big content showcase box here on the front page? I've been told it doesn't make enough of a "call to action" and while looking pretty, people aren't being as enticed to click it as they should be.

I've used the feature boxes several times to see some of the latest games/movies by some of the author's on the site, but I fear that I haven't used the animated showcase box at the top very much at all.

2) Have you explored the content genre browsing? I feel like this is a really powerful system that a lot of people are overlooking; some have even complained that we removed genres. Go to the games page and scan the categories in the left column. Click around and start exploring. The categories get really in-depth and you can sort by all sorts of criteria. Right now we default to sort by date, which was an attempt to put the spotlight on new submissions but may have been a mistake. Instead we should probably default to sorting by score but maybe set the range to "Year" instead of "All" so there's more movement in the space.

Yeah, it took me a little bit of time to get used to it, as well as changing the content rating filters on the site to narrow my search results. So far I've been making pretty good use out of it, and I'm starting to find submissions that I haven't noticed with the new genre browsing/filtering.

This also makes me wonder if the games front page should be different. Right now we showcase the latest games, popular games from this week, highest scoring games of the month, highest scoring of the year and highest scoring of all time. Popular games tend to just mirror the front page. Best games of all time feels pretty static (instead maybe it could have a random selection from the top 200). But instead of all of that, I'm wondering if we should return to something like the old site, where we have a per-genre showcase. For example, the first box under "Brand Spankin' New Games" could be "Best New Action Games" and list the latest four action games with scores greater than 3.3 (number is based on some personal observations but not set in stone). The showcase would continue with "Best New Adventure Games", etc. I'm thinking it would better highlight the genre categories and might give people more direct access to stuff they like.

3) Have you been making use of the feed button (the star next to logout) in the header? It lists new submissions by artists you have favorited, something that was only available via email in the past. We intend to merge all favorites into one list of people you follow, so that you can easily add them from their user page and not have to add them in the context of a piece of content. Our current system (where you favorite artists based on content categories) is really old and has some charm but it feels like overkill nowadays.

I haven't had too much use out of the activity feed/notifications button, but then again I don't have hardly any favorites on the site just yet. It does seem like a nice feature though, and I'm sure I'll make better use out of it in the future when I have more favorites/more information filled out on my userpage and so on.

4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout?

I've actually found myself doing quite a lot more on the site since the layout. I've been doing a lot of exploring with the new layout, toying with some of the new features, etc. As well as watching/playing content I didn't even know existed prior to the redesign. It's given me a lot of time to check stuff out.

Thanks in advance for any feedback!

No problem. :)

ok, so the content and news feed update thing,
i know there is a calendar on the community drop down header, but for right now i will talk about the front page, a simple off link to the full out page would suffice if the little calendar simply said the title, the second calendar can say everything about the event and give references to other things (forum readings/news updates/users)
i would love to see a extended calendar so that we as users can see what is coming up in a month.. or 2 months, it gives people that are into animating the reference that that is the date that my thing has to be done,
just a overlay of the pic of the calendar with a little mouse over pop up screen that says what is on that day.. take for example the android ios, calendar, it just lists the day, and has a little line in the middle,
this again could be a drag around window that the site offers as ether a side program or a widget for different types of computers.. a little window that just kind of sits there in the corner and you can see whats coming up on ng,
ultimately the idea would boost peoples want to return as there is a level of professionalism and they can be more aware of what is going on in the site...

2.
most people these days will simply use the search bar or favorite things they like, the idea of the games portal or the games page is one that very young or inexperienced users use to get around the site quickly,
although it is useless to the more experienced users, it is crutal to bring in new users like the young 10 year old that is surfing around on his computer and just wandered in from kongregate or funnyjunk..
its simple and quick, but at the same time i think that there is a GREAT need to browz quickly through these things.. addicting games, kongregate, candy stand, ebamsworld and many others use a simple list format to showcase their games and movies, its what was so successful about the old portal, it waas very quick to look through and there was a little pop up window with info when you mouse over the name so you have a minor idea of what you are getting into
what has been done in there is PERFECT keep it like that, i urdge you to do that

if you are looking to change the front page though i would suggest the ability to move things around again.. and i will stress that strongly!
as the site matures .. more.. the administration will take on more money from advertising, the ability to move things around will will allow people to .. move select things out of the way, instead of them being right in your face.. if you evtend the view section from that of 1300pixles to 1700 and add a free play mod to it, so that you could drag a select window over top of the background then you could add the calander, a news section, a full aray of other things, and everything, allowing the user to see everything as they want, as fast as they want,
this i am pretty sure will boost professional levels and viewing pleasure as the users can add or subtract things
if i want everything the i can organize me tab of newgrounds as i see fit, put everything up and read to my hearts contesnt
but if little jimmy only wants to see a calendar and the best of all time games with a few select other links then he can do that to....

that gives choice to the user and choice is what draws people and holds them
makes them want to do things, explore

3
not really no, i am a forum junkie and i really tune into stuff that happens here..
..
but i see that use of the star thing, that in it self can really speed up a movie makers branching speed.
for the form, i would take away the ability to use gifs in the header/footer/icon.. that shit will destroy people and their Internet loading speed, i really like how the option is available.. but i have not seen one single person use it, comment about it, or even think about it,
i think its a unanimous idea of if i do that, people will hate and kill me because im messing up their Internet speed
i would though go back to using the forum name though instead of using the community name, the little pop down thing will apear in the time that the Internet page is beginning to load and that will spark interest in the looking through those things..
people will go back there
but as it looks right now, we dont have a official forum page
please move the under judgment to the movies section,
the use of submit yours at the bottom of all the games/audio.movies/art drop down things is excellent, that really makes it clear that you can add to the site

other than this i would also love to see a ability to change backgrounds or even a voting system.. maybe on the front page, to see where things should go, it could give people the chance to participate in a choice that the site is going to need to make, weather it be the look of a new design, a new color.. this could be added into the secrets page so that only the people that are truly dedicated to the site could see how it changes..

.. so many things to talk about.. so few characters remaining

At 2 hours ago, TomFulp wrote: 1) Do you find yourself ignoring the big content showcase box here on the front page? I've been told it doesn't make enough of a "call to action" and while looking pretty, people aren't being as enticed to click it as they should be.

I tend to look in there for interesting featured items every once in a while, but it did feel more special and noticeable in the old layout. Probably because only one item was featured in there instead of 2 or 3 at a time.

2) Have you explored the content genre browsing?

I have and it's very useful and fun! I also have been jumping around using tags and finding amusing things I never would have seen before. I love these new systems.

This also makes me wonder if the games front page should be different.

It wouldn't be a bad idea to have this option, but I'm not sure if I'd use it too much myself.

3) Have you been making use of the feed button (the star next to logout) in the header?

Being able to see new posts and submissions from my favorites is great, but the list seems to get kind of lengthy. Do items disappear after a certain amount of time or do they just disappear as more things are added to the list?

I'd also love to see this system expanded to include replies in the forums.

4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout?

Browsing movies more often than games. Just a small note, I'm not a big fan of where the stats and info are found on games and movie pages. I think the box should be moved up above related content or combined with the credits box like it is in the art portal.

I don't click most of the content on the front page because I only find it interesting if it's a certain genre. I'm sure others agree that it depends on the type of content, not how advertised it is.

At 1 hour ago, Exedor wrote: ". . . When hovering over icons, it shows the maturity-rating in the corner, but I personally barely notice it. I know the hover color is per-section based, what if the hover color reflected the rating (A - red, E - green etc)"

AGREED!!

This is addressed in the new rollover boxes!

so my question isn't going to get answered?

on a different idea, i think you may want to make the adult sections a little less accesable..
not for the fact that it will help parents keep reins on their kid
not to help people at work
not to sensor people at school

its to make the people that want to watch that kind of thing feel more bad ass when they do.. it totally makes it all more worth while when you feel your sneaky about it

as you said before, will there be more animation on the site, and if do will there be the option to either enable it or disable it easily?
can the user experience be fixed as well, the voting power for new users vs old users is out of proportion.. dedicated users with high ranking accounts should have the power of a god when it comes to a movie.. (maybe not that of 200 votes or something.. but instead of 10 votes.. make it.. 50 or 40) you get what i mean, and PLEASE bring back the old writings of the voting system, i loved to track my progress like that, you need to vote on this many more submissions to get your points, maybe you could add a little bonus for the people that are movie junkies,
vote on 100 or more movies and you will get a item.. or a badge. or a raffle ticket for a tv.. or whatever, keeps people coming back for more, it keeps the site up n the screen longer, it would promote younger kids to show their friends.. more people.. more moneys.. more visits to the store...
make them want to come back for more

please have more things to buy in the store
you could have users that make a flash or a artwork or something pay a premium and the site could start making a logo for the item.. it would promote large companies to use the site if they could easily say here is our stuff, and our money, make this product..

it would be very nice to see more avantagious things for the people that are building their accounts.. weather it be more options, added tweeks..
take the forum for example.. you go from the 0-9,999 posts and then finally you get a new forum to post in..
thats a large gap, but the same could be said about other parts of the site, give people something to look forward to... give people that have a achievment and perfectionist attitude a feeling that if they just do this a little more they can get something, give the kid that is suffering through depression a little glimmer of light if this is all they have... im not saying free things, im not suggesting imortality,
maybe a get out of a ban free card.. or a boost my movie/artwork by a star (conditionally) (for higher end users)

as i also see tweets and other things are also coming into popularity on the site.. should ng also have a (think of a name) newt... ... (lets go with that for now) system that people on a celular can simply text over to the site and it will pop up iin a scrolling text window
could be money in that, maybe 10 cents a text ... whatever..

At 2 hours ago, TomFulp wrote: We actually still have that bug that the genre mods knew to work around, where if you use any uppercase letters in your tag, the data gets lost. It was ok when it was just mods adding tags but now it definitely needs to be fixed.

Done and Done

Glad to see you guys are really working your asses off I appreciate it!

I love the new notification feature! :D

All I would like to add to this topic is that I'm really missing the updates on reviews on your own submissions.
The system before the update made it visible in one scroll to see how many new reviews and on what submissions you have, and now I can't seem to find any, making it harder to respond to them. :]

One of those fucking surprising better be the fucking chat Thomas. I've been waiting titty amount of years for that shit you gobbler of handsome. Don't rofl at me sir. HEHAHEHRUUUEHEH ROFL!

1) Do you find yourself ignoring the big content showcase box here on the front page? I've been told it doesn't make
enough of a "call to action" and while looking pretty, people aren't being as enticed to click it as they should be.

I havnt really clicked it, so i guess yes, i have ignored it quite a bit.

2) Have you explored the content genre browsing? I feel like this is a really powerful system that a lot of people are overlooking; some have even complained that we removed genres. Go to the games page and scan the categories in the left column. Click around and start exploring. The categories get really in-depth and you can sort by all sorts of criteria. Right now we default to sort by date, which was an attempt to put the spotlight on new submissions but may have been a mistake. Instead we should probably default to sorting by score but maybe set the range to "Year" instead of "All" so there's more movement in the space.

Ive checked it out once, i didnt really use it on the old design anyway, i only used the classic portal page.

3) Have you been making use of the feed button (the star next to logout) in the header? It lists new submissions by artists you have favorited, something that was only available via email in the past. We intend to merge all favorites into one list of people you follow, so that you can easily add them from their user page and not have to add them in the context of a piece of content. Our current system (where you favorite artists based on content categories) is really old and has some charm but it feels like overkill nowadays.

Now this is a good addition :) i really like this, ive checked it out a few times, although im not really subscribed to alot of people.

4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout?

Ive found getting my daily exp alot more frustraiting. For a while, i was voting on almost 50 under judgement submissions per day. But since the redesign ive found it hard to get 5.
The reasons for this are:
The classic portal page isnt the default page.
The flash 'splash pages' for each game are a step way way way back imo. Its like going back to the old design when i signed up (2005) which was quite cool 7 years ago... but Flash is really not needed for a button just loads the flash... And the noises... srsly, it could just be an image, would load way way faster, would be way way less intense on my computer. Especially seeing that most people vote on under judgement submissions by opening EVERY SINGLE one up in seperate tabs and then going through them. (saves alot of time when you go through 20 or so) With the flash splash page and sounds, this is prettymuch impossible unless you are a 5voter who is going to close all the windows in 30 seconds anyway...

Also, score is not displayed under the place where you vote, this is just stupid imo. I have to scroll down to actually see what the current score is... The information boxes for flash and audio were layed out perfectly on the old design, why completely change the way they are layed out for the worse? Also removing the [other submissions by this person] box was bad imo.

Well, those are most of the things i can think of right now. Appart from those things, i think the redesign is cool.

At A few seconds ago, Chad-T wrote: One of those fucking surprising better be the fucking chat Thomas. I've been waiting titty amount of years for that shit you gobbler of handsome

keep in in the forums..

At 1 hour ago, Supersteph54 wrote: 4.) If you implement the suggestion above this one, I'd highly suggest adding a setting in your account options allowing you to mark which notifications you want to receive. For example, if I'm a very popular audio artist and I get tonnes of reviews on my audio, I'll have notifications for new reviews on my audio submissions cluttering up the notifications button and I'll have to fish for the notifications of new newspost comments, review responses, new content from my favourite artists, etc...

Actually the goal is more like this (although this lumps forum and blog replies into one group). The thought for blog replies would be anything in response to a blog post you made that doesn't start with @someonesname or anything in any blog thread that starts with @yourname.

http://www.newgrounds.com/dump/item/15b5ccf2892c89c56ddfdbf3 0bdbfabc

Is anything being done about the voting? I vote on 5 sdifferent submissions and it just tells me to keep voting. I vote on 10 and it keeps saying the same thing.

:Question 1) Do you find yourself ignoring the big content showcase box here on the front page? A. I personally want to click on everything at once where-as before I felt like "okay lemme check this out hopefully i'll like it" The new layout makes everything look like super enticing idk how to explain...

Question 2) Have you explored the content genre browsing? I feel like this is a really powerful system that a lot of people are overlooking; some have even complained that we removed genres. Go to the games page and scan the categories in the left column. Click around and start exploring. The categories get really in-depth and you can sort by all sorts of criteria. Right now we default to sort by date, which was an attempt to put the spotlight on new submissions but may have been a mistake. Instead we should probably default to sorting by score but maybe set the range to "Year" instead of "All" so there's more movement in the space. A. I haven't done this yet.

Question 3) Have you been making use of the feed button (the star next to logout) in the header? It lists new submissions by artists you have favorited, something that was only available via email in the past. We intend to merge all favorites into one list of people you follow, so that you can easily add them from their user page and not have to add them in the context of a piece of content. Our current system (where you favorite artists based on content categories) is really old and has some charm but it feels like overkill nowadays. A. I haven't made use of this ftr yet but sounds like i need to

4) Have you found yourself doing anything more or less as a result of the new layout? YES MOAR I always checked out the audio and art portals every once in a while but now i find myself evenly checking everything out. NG is growing so much I love it ! I think with this new layout moar and moar people are going to start flocking especially now it's easier to share stuff on FB

Thank you Fulp and Everyone for all your hard work it really shows and that's why NG is my home on the internetz because it's like you guys have seriously made a great atmosphere for a great community! ugh I just love you all! thank you

I'd love to see the notification bar being used for new reviews on your movies, although with an option to turn it off since more popular authors get so many reviews. Also a notifications for new news comments, although again, make it so we can toggle the option. That notifications bar could be utilized for so much more than it is right now.

This could just be a problem with my computer or internet, but some medals aren't working properly. The best example I can think of is "Acid Bath" in Abobo's Big Adventure. I've done that 3 times. I may just be a problem with the game though.

Not sure if this has been brought up, but I feel pretty strongly about it. Redesign is looking good though. Well done guys. : )

I would definitely keep the star icon and the featured games/movies/artist banner on the front page. The rest will just kinda sort itself out over time.

I haven't been able to deposit since the update. Not on Google Chrome. It lets me on IE, I think, but fuck using that every day.

I click the 0-5 buttons and nothing happens, it's just like they're pictures.