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Making changes to improve site navigation & readability


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It's the offseason, which is the perfect time to work on cleaning up the board. I'm making some structural changes, as well changes around wording in some areas, widgets, and more. The goal is to improve the navigation, readability, and usability of the board. I don't expect any downtime during these changes, but just be aware that you may notice some wizardry going on.

Some changes you may see:

  • Simplifying forum headings so everything is easier to read at-a-glance.
  • Reorganizing front page categories & sub-forums.
  • There may be new or repurposed categories based on activity.
  • Reworking the 'combined forums' implementation where it makes sense.
  • Changes to widget blocks.
  • Other changes that make sense.

There won't be anything too drastic, but hopefully most tweaks are welcome ones.

I also welcome any practical suggestions.

If you have any suggestions, drop them in here, but please refrain from using thread to request new features. I'd like to keep it focused on the actual forums, sub-forums, and other options readily available. I'm also open to adding new forums if they're likely to see activity.

Thanks all!
Mike

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I'd like to make all members aware of the fact that we do have more than just the ND football forum.  If you're creating a thread that isn't centralized around the Irish football team then please look to where it should be placed.  I find myself moving several threads a week to new homes.  If you need help, message me or one of the other mods and we can help you out. 

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Keep it simple.  I want to go to the recruiting board, click it, and see a list of the topics….not subforums,  not watercooler…. There is too much sh!t to sort through to get to the actual stuff that matters.  All you need is:

General

Recruiting

Maybe Transfer Portal

Other Sports

Open Discussion

As the great Bud Kilmer said…”Stick to the basics, stick to the basics, stick to the basics…. Damn dumbest smart kid I know…”

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14 minutes ago, irishwavend said:

Keep it simple.  I want to go to the recruiting board, click it, and see a list of the topics….not subforums,  not watercooler…. There is too much sh!t to sort through to get to the actual stuff that matters.  All you need is:

General

Recruiting

Maybe Transfer Portal

Other Sports

Open Discussion

As the great Bud Kilmer said…”Stick to the basics, stick to the basics, stick to the basics…. Damn dumbest smart kid I know…”

You might like to see organized chaos, others like to see more organization.  I don't know how many times I have to keep making the same suggestion but I'll say it again.  If you want to make your experience as simple and streamlined as it can get then don't even click in the subforums unless you're looking for a specific older thread.  If you just click the "Unread Content" link at the upper righthand corner of the board(right under the search box which is right under your screen name).  This brings you to every single thread that contains a new post since the last time you visited the board.  You don't have to see anything else to get in your way or clog up your screen.

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Thanks guys.  I appreciate your efforts and have adjusted to everything in time.  This is the only ND board I'm a member of and post on, there's a reason for that.  This has been a great place to discuss all things ND with a pretty darn good group of people.  Again thank you for keeping it humming along.

Edited by jessemoore97
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2 hours ago, irishwavend said:

Keep it simple.  I want to go to the recruiting board, click it, and see a list of the topics….not subforums,  not watercooler…. There is too much sh!t to sort through to get to the actual stuff that matters.  All you need is:

General

Recruiting

Maybe Transfer Portal

Other Sports

Open Discussion

As the great Bud Kilmer said…”Stick to the basics, stick to the basics, stick to the basics…. Damn dumbest smart kid I know…”

I'm trying to simplify where it makes sense. Consolidating Notre Dame Recruiting into one forum is one that I'm giving serious thought to. I just need to make sure it doesn't hurt us in Google since that's one of our strengths, heavily due to the effort of @Big23Head.

I would like to see some other Notre Dame Athletics grow and bring other fans to the site over time, so keeping them organized now prevents a potential headache to cleanup down the road. Additional Notre Dame Athletics is setup so you see content from all sub-forums, so they don't need to be viewed separately. You can also click one of the categories like Notre Dame Football Forums to view all those forums in one place.

We're not done quite yet. The goal is to make it simple, but leave it open for growth.👍

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I'm running a test now that the reorganization & consolidation is mostly done. Please leave feedback letting me know if you prefer the combined forum view or the traditional view. I am going to leave this as the default for a few weeks to see how it performs.

If you want to change back to the traditional view, a click of this toggle will revert it back. It should remain that way unless you toggle back to fluid view.

image.png

Thanks again, everyone.
Mike

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1 hour ago, jessemoore97 said:

Each day seems to be some new added things.  I like the changes aesthetically.  Thank you.

Thank you! I've learned a lot over the last couple of year about works, but also what doesn't work. Where that lead me was that the problem is forums in general. Traditional formats are very outdated and clunky, and not made for the modern age. I've been having some fun with rethinking forums in general 😁

I think I'm done with the major aesthetic changes, but I'm going to continue my rampage and improve & tighten up what makes sense. Thank you for the positive feedback!

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On 1/20/2023 at 5:00 PM, TexasDomer said:

I’m going to be a contrarian for today’s tweaks.  I only really use the forums for ND football and recruiting, and it seems less easy to navigate to those boards

Hey @TexasDomer, whether on mobile or desktop, all you need to do is check the forums you would like to see topics from, and everything else will be hidden. I believe that setting saves.

 

 

 

Screenshot_20230122-022639~2.png

Screenshot_20230122-173441.png

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47 minutes ago, Mike said:

Hey @TexasDomer, whether on mobile or desktop, all you need to do is check the forums you would like to see topics from, and everything else will be hidden. I believe that setting saves.

 

 

 

Screenshot_20230122-022639~2.png

Screenshot_20230122-173441.png

This is such a great feature!  At first, I was a bit confused as to why I was seeing both Notre Dame Football and Recruiting, but then clicked the Showing topics from all forums drop down, saw the selections and what I had selected, and then noticed that’s what showed.

Definitely a huge help and will get me to use even more of the site, which I have not really done much in the past.

It’s just so cool, and makes me love Domer Domain even more!  Thanks again, @Mike

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On 1/20/2023 at 5:00 PM, TexasDomer said:

I’m going to be a contrarian for today’s tweaks.  I only really use the forums for ND football and recruiting, and it seems less easy to navigate to those boards

 

5 hours ago, Baldy said:

This is such a great feature!  At first, I was a bit confused as to why I was seeing both Notre Dame Football and Recruiting, but then clicked the Showing topics from all forums drop down, saw the selections and what I had selected, and then noticed that’s what showed.

Definitely a huge help and will get me to use even more of the site, which I have not really done much in the past.

It’s just so cool, and makes me love Domer Domain even more!  Thanks again, @Mike

I cleaned up the menu to make it easier to filter options as well 🎇

image.png

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2 hours ago, TexasDomer said:

We have an App?

Yep, and it’s awesome!

Go to the ‘Domer Domain Forums - The App’ thread in Announcements and it should tell you everything you need to know in order to get it.

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3 hours ago, TexasDomer said:

We have an App?

Yup! I'm undecided about going through all the hoops to get it in the Google Play & Apple App Store, but it might be worth giving it a go before the season. For now, you can install it through the forums.

Instructions can be found here:

 

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