Development Blog & News

Posted By Samuel | 498 views

Respect the Tablet Prevalence

People browsing the web with iPads and Android tablets know their devices are very capable. They are able to show the full web experience, have vibrant screens and modern browsers capable of rendering the latest web technologies.
 
And there are a lot of them using such devices today to browse the net.
 
So, one of the goals I envision for V4 is to always provide your tablet users the full viewing experience, as close to what you get on a regular desktop as possible.
 
However, we still have to recognize the fact that these devices are restricted in terms of screen estate by design. They've got very useable resolution but they're still only as good as a 17" monitor you no longer have at home.

Making sure there is no difference in User Experience 

Based on the reasons stated above, I know I need to revamp the gallery in order to match the needs of these new devices. Not only that, in the process we are going to streamline everything so that the gallery component works much better on the desktop browsers.
 
Based on these requirements, my first tasks to revamp the photo gallery are:

1. to get rid of the sidebar style thumbnail display, and
2. to create a new UI that put the focus back to the photo.

In the current version, there are just too many things on the page that require a wide screen to show properly, and as a result the photos are far too small on the page, relative to these less important elements.
 
On the right are a few screenshots for the new photo display. Just so you know that you can finger swipe on the filmstrip at the to navigate. The big photo below will respond to your figure swipe too.
 
 
Secondly, to promote engagement among your users, the comment area has to be re-written too.
 
To simply comment on a photo, your users do not need a full-featured WYSIWYG. It has to look as simple as possible, using a simple auto expanding text box that posts with Ajax so that we don't break the flow with page refreshes. We also want to show user avatar besides their comments:
 
 
Lastly, the current Gallery Homepage looks just like the forum homepage without its own identity, and it doesn't show enough information like new photos and recently updated albums either. This has to change because your users want to see information right away without additional clicks:
 

It's their experience that matters

Your users care only about their experience on your site and I am all about optimizing it for V4. V4 represents a great leap forward in terms of user experience, and in the future I will post more regarding UI enhancements your users will surely enjoy.
 
Thanks for your time today. Have a nice weekend.
 
2 sets of photos shown in the screenshots above are copyrighted:
 
"Brides & Widows" by Joana Kustra And "Teen Adventure Cover Illustration Series"  by Garth Glazier

License:
Attribution-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported (CC BY-ND 3.0)
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Posted By Samuel | 478 views

Hello everyone,
 
Development / Testing for V4 is going well but with a bit of delay, primarily because of the user experience tests I perform with tablets. I want to ensure that users browsing on an iPad can enjoy the standard theme (non-mobile) if they choose too. For this purpose a bit of experimentation and rework is required to meet this requirement.
 
I also tested the WYSIWYG editor capability on iOS 5 but so far the platform is not mature enough for me to support it (flaky implementation).
 
V4 will also have a mobile theme designed and refined for smartphones, and it will be in a separate folder under the main forum root. It is much more efficient (less download) and less error prone to move the design for small screens outside the main forum.
 
In conclusion, what I'd like to achieve in V4 is consistent user experience on various devices, especially by providing a full experience for tablet users.
 
I'd like to apologize for those who have been waiting for the release for V4. I received inquiries and business proposals by emails and PMs last couple of weeks asking me for the ETA.

Revised ETA

Here is the revised date for V4 and a bit of Q and A:
 
[edit] I am in the process of packaging V4 and transforming it into a platform that can help build online community in a more comprehensive manner. The "social scape" has changed considerably and we need a platform that provides better integration with content publishing, community building and social networking. I detailed my thoughts about the current market and my plan in this thread.

Theme and Template

I received a few emails asking me whether or not theme and template will be updated in V4. The answer is yes. I will also make a new post next month providing info on the improved Theme / Templating system for V4. It will be much easier to maintain than what we currently have with less duplication for templates and better CSS.

Free Upgrades

As posted on this thread a while ago, free upgrades are available for customers who purchased after May 16, 2011.
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Posted By Samuel | 1233 views

Social Network (Facebook, Twitter) Sign In Support

One of our main focuses for version 4 is tighter integrations with popular Social Networks like Facebook, Google+, and Twitter. In addition to the "Like", "Share" and "1+" buttons available on messages, it is even more important to streamline the Registration / Login process with these Social Networks.

The Growing Problems with online community

Most forums are set up so that visitors (non-registered users) can only access public forums with limited access privilege (read-only, e.g.) The main incentives for visitors to join are having access to private content and being able to interact with others (posting / private messaging).
 
However, these incentives can sometimes become more like hindrances and can cost forum owners new signups in the long run:

1. Hassle of registration: The process of registration often involves filling out a form, making sure email and passwords are filled in correctly, and then checking inbox to verify the email address. So users are being bumped between their browser and email application -> essentially this is a multi-step process involving multiple software people find confusing and become reluctant to joinjust to avoid the hassle.
2. Identity disconnect: Many people already have multiple online accounts with various sites, and potentially several different passwords and different emails to remember. Some people won't even remember their user name after a while let alone passwords (not to mention the pain involved in password recovery)!

The solution is simple and its benefits are obvious

The answer to the above problems is simple: leveraging visitors existing online accounts! Why not let the visitors solve these problems painlessly themselves?
 
People already have established social accounts they regularly use and have gone through the pain to verify their emails. By linking their forum presence to their social network accounts, we solve 2 problems for your visitors:

1. They don't have to go through the pain of registration again;
2. They don't even have to remember their username and password!

The process goes like this:

When you click on the Log In link as a visitor, you will see an inline login form with Facebook and Twitter icons appearing right beside the regular login box. If this is the first time, simply click on the network of your choice and Facebook / Twitter will ask you whether to allow account linking, choose Confirm and your forum presence will be created right away! The whole process takes less than 30 seconds.
 
From now on, when you want to log in, simply click on the social network icon and you will be logged in right away. This takes about 1 second and it is so much easier than typing in user name and passwords!
 
What this means to your visitor is: no more registration, and no more remembering user name and password.
And for you as an owner of an online community: you have just eliminated one of the biggest barriers to entry for your online community.

Of course, we also support a host of other social networks with exactly the same process. See this figure for the additional networks we support.
 
Thanks again for your time today and I will show you some of the exciting UI enhancements for V4 next time!
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Posted By Samuel | 1322 views

There are many exciting UI elements we are adding to Version 4 to make browsing more enjoyable and convenient. Today I am going to talk about a couple of core UI elements that are new to the software:

1. New Home page w/ Article Slider and Featured articles
2. Top Navigation bar w/ Search Everywhere

New Home Page with Article Slider and Featured Articles

The most prominent change you will notice immediately in the screen shots is the new forum home page with a big Article Slider at the top and up to 10 featured articles listed beneath it.
Typically when you land on a traditional forum platform you see a gigantic forum list, and it can be very intimidating to new users because they have no idea where interesting contents are located and will have to first browse the forum list, and then browse the message list.
 
People tend not to stick around if they can't spot hot topics or understand what's going on right away.
 
In V4, we solve this problem by giving you the ability to feature popular contents you want people to see right away. And this feature is not limited to the contents on your forum; it can be anything like a short intro to your Facebook page too. When you featured an article, you can add a short description, upload an eye catching photo to make it outstanding, and if this article is to be featured on the top Article Slider (useful when you want to show a big photo), you can even add captions to the photo and style the captions and photos individually (you can rotate the photo, change the opacity, etc.). See the screen shots for example.

With this new layout, you can effectively guide new users and re-familiarize infrequent users, making it easy to engage your members.

Of course, it doesn't mean we have removed the forum list at all. If you prefer, you can still make it the default home page. But I believe you will find it more engaging with the new presentation style.
 

New Top Navigation bar w/ Search Everywhere

Another common issue with forums is that it takes 2 or more clicks ( = page loads) for users to see the important message lists (e.g. subscribed, unread, active, etc.), and once you have read a message, it takes multiple clicks again to locate another message on a different list. Although this is not a major barrier to the using of the forum, it is not very convenient either.
 
Again, in V4 we make everything easier to use. When you click on the top navigation bar, a drop down will show (see screen shots), giving you access to all the lists immediately, and it doesn't take any page refresh at all to switch between lists.

And if you haven't noticed it already, there is a search box on the drop down, too. What this means is that you no longer have to go to the dedicated search page to perform a simple search! Type in a search phrase and you will see the results immediately, WITHOUT a single page refresh.
 
The best thing about this is that since the top navigation bar powers this feature, everything we talked about above is available on all pages of the forum! You don't need any page loads to access the lists anymore.
 

Release is scheduled for Q2, 2012

We will be releasing more exciting info about V4 like what we have done for the past months, and because of the complexity involved in bringing tighter integration with Facebook, we need a bit more time to polish and test. Therefore, we aim to release the beta in Q2 2012 and soon after that the final version.
 
Thanks again for your time and this will be the last post from me for 2011. Merry Christmas and Happy holidays!
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Posted By Samuel | 1019 views

In the last post, I talked about the importance and the emphasis we placed on the Searching capability in the next version of our software. One of the strengths for our software lies in the ability to filter search results, and I am going to discuss another important filter you will find in V4 of our software: Smart Tags & Plain old tags.

What is a Tag?

A tag is usually one or two keywords attached to the messages and photos in your forum. Tagging allows users to provide keywords that categorize forum content. This in turn helps other users to locate the appropriate content in your site by using the tag cloud available on the sidebar. Tags carry different weights (shown as differences in size), proportional to their usage frequency by the users.

Plain old tags

As the name suggests, it is similar to the oldest form of tagging you find in blogs. In the next version, users will be able to add tags to their messages (admin can decide who can / cannot tag), and anyone who wants to filter messages by tags will be able to do so easily.
 
The problem with this old tagging feature is that users generally tag their messages without a second thought and when they tag, they don't know if there are similar tags (e.g. "bug" v.s. "bug report") already exist in the system. When this occurs repeatedly over time, tags become polluted and no longer offer the desired filtering benefits.
 
We deal with this problem in V4 by

1. only allowing tags that are approved by moderators;
   
2. providing auto suggestion while users type their tags (smart tags are listed above the text box; see below);
   

 
Even with such capabilities in place, forum admins often desire even more control over tagging to ensure that tags do provide relevant results. And in V4, we have a more powerful Smart Tag to help with this.

Smart Tagging

Smart Tags are predefined tags that are reserved by the admins with certain restrictions to prevent overuse, and the forum software automatically finds messages to tag based on these restrictions.
 
With this system in place, users will not be able to abuse the reserved tags and we will be able to ensure that some tags provide only results relevant to your community.
 
In the adminCP, you will be able to supply the following restrictions for each Smart Tag:

1. Only tags messages in certain forums- this is great if you create a forum with a very specific purpose (downloadable contents, e.g.)
2. Only tags messages made by certain users- you can ensure only posts made by your moderators are tagged this way, for example.
3. Only tag messages
   1. marked as FAQ
   2. contain poll
   3. received helpful replies
   4. received an answer
   5. updated within ? days
   6. and only tag x number of messages with this tag

More: Filtering is applied within context

As you can see from the screen shots above, the tag cloud provides users the ability to filter messages on the sidebar. And when users do click on a tag, tag filtering is applied within the page context. For example, when you are viewing a forum and open the sidebar to see the tag cloud, you will only see tags that are used in this specific forum. And when you click on a tag, you will see the filtering effect immediately on the message list, without being redirected to a general tags listing page. This provides smoother user experience with fewer page reloads.
 
Thanks for your time today, and in the next post, I will provide more details on the new Top navigation bar & Sidebar in V4 which together play an important role to ensure great user experience.
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Posted By Samuel | 1370 views

One of the most important features that receives a UI + Usability revamp in the upcoming V4 is the Search function.
For a lot of users, instead of the forum and the message lists, the search engine is their entry point into a community forum. Nowadays not many have the desire and time to browse a sea of messages hoping to find what they need.
 
Therefore, it is vitally important that we focus our attention on the usability end of the search engine in order to meet users' expectations.

Simplified Interface

As you can see from the following screen shots, the Search engine in V4 has a simplified and more streamlined interface, compared to what we have in V3. Gone are the Advanced options from the initial screen that confuses many novice users. However, with a single click, advanced users can still find the options to narrow down the scope for their search. Notice that even the advanced options are easier to understand than what we currently have.

Simplified, but actually much more Powerful

In most forum systems, even though the search results are more relevant than message lists, users still have to wade through a sea of results hoping to spot what they look for. And if you didn't narrow down the scope before you hit the search button, you would probably see messages from unwanted forums showing up on the search results, making browsing time-consuming and forces you to repeat the search process with carefully selected filters.
 
The Search feature in V4 takes care of these very problems by allowing users to apply filters and sort order after the results are returned. This is remarkably more flexible as users can customize the way results are presented on-the-fly. In contrast, once the search action is performed, users have no way to customize the results in V3.
 
The following filters are available on the results screen in V4:

1. Content Filter: you can narrow down the search results by showing FAQs only, Messages with Attachments only, Threads that received helpful replies, Threads that are marked as Answered, and any combination of the above;
   
2. Forum Filter: you will see a list of forums and the respective result count within each on the left hand side. And you will be able to select one or more forums to filter the results;
3. Time Filter: you can narrow down the results by date, too. In the current version, you have to specify this filter before you hit the search button, making it inflexible because if you "guessed" the time period wrong beforehand you will see no results returned and have to redo the search.
4. Sorting: We have more sorting criteria in version 4, and again, you apply the sorting criterion on the results, not before you search.
   
5. Filter indicators: Once you apply any filter on the results, you will see indicators at the top of the results list. This allows you to easily see the current filters and remove any unwanted ones with a mouse click.

More: Search is available everywhere

When people search, they generally want to see the results right where they are quickly. What I am saying is they prefer not to leave the current page just to find out if there is anything relevant. In the next post, I will show you what we have in version 4 that allows users to get what they want even more easily than what we see here. This "Search Everywhere" feature is going to be the ultimate usability and convenience booster for your community.
 
Thanks for your time today, and I hope you have enjoyed what you have seen so far about version 4!
 
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