Less clicks and animation?

I think Dolina was pointing out that your comment about quitting FB but staying here, in that context, sounded like you were doing that because of the differences in UI. She pointed out the differences, your direct response was that you left there and stayed here.

Number of users does somewhat correlate to quality. When you're developing for millions or billions of users, you spend more time on details because there's a bigger payoff. Same as anything else in manufacturing.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19418938
Confirmations have their purpose. For me it's when there are greater consequences for a mistake, such as 1-click ordering.

Emphasis added, obviously. "For me" is important. Individuals differ, and no site design can possibly be ideal for every user. A feature that pleases some will annoy others. For instance, people are using small screens or large screens; this affects how likely they might be to click in the wrong place. Their vision also makes a difference. Not everyone here sees 20/20.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19418951
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I think Dolina was pointing out that your comment about quitting FB but staying here, in that context, sounded like you were doing that because of the differences in UI. She pointed out the differences, your direct response was that you left there and stayed here.
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PRONOUN ADVISORY: Dolina is a he.

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AntonLargiader wrote in post #19418951
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Number of users does somewhat correlate to quality. When you're developing for millions or billions of users, you spend more time on details because there's a bigger payoff. Same as anything else in manufacturing.
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In that case, it is surprising that the software here, designed by one guy in his spare time, is smoother, more intuitive, much easier, and more enjoyable to use than Facebook's software.

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My bad. I associate names ending in A to be female.

Back to the software, I don't really use FB much but one important element is that AMASS is the software we have here, in a place we want to be. FB or Snapchat or wherever have really well-developed software but it doesn't matter to me because those sites aren't relevant to my needs. I don't care about a really well-designed bicycle if I need a truck.

Areas where you feel the FB software comes up short could easily be very deliberate decisions on the dev team, wanting you to do some extra actions for greater exposure/tracking/etc. Like the clickbait news sites that want you to read a story spread out over 20 pages, each with its own ad loads.

@OhLook, no argument from me. Well-designed sites and apps will scale well for people with different devices or poor vision. One of the apps I use a lot on my iPad is GAIA GPS, which scales horribly with the IOS scaling. From what I've seen, many dev teams would be better off relying more heavily on the native API rather than building their own screen elements that don't behave as well. That problem goes WAY back.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19418982
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Areas where you feel the FB software comes up short could easily be very deliberate decisions on the dev team, wanting you to do some extra actions for greater exposure/tracking/etc. Like the clickbait news sites that want you to read a story spread out over 20 pages, each with its own ad loads.
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But it causes me to simply leave the site and not bother with it anymore. . How is that working in their favor?

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AntonLargiader wrote in post #19418951
I think Dolina was pointing out that your comment about quitting FB but staying here, in that context, sounded like you were doing that because of the differences in UI. She pointed out the differences, your direct response was that you left there and stayed here.

Number of users does somewhat correlate to quality. When you're developing for millions or billions of users, you spend more time on details because there's a bigger payoff. Same as anything else in manufacturing.

Sorry, but I disagree. Dolina is a "he". And I've POTN has many fewer bugs than software with many more users, but less complexity. The Unitied Airlines app has my passport details for an upcoming trip to Spain, but it wants my passport information for a trip to Canada just a few weeks later- the passport has many years left on it. Many more people use United's app than PotN. Micro$oft has the "eject" and "format" commands for a USB next to one another- not what I would do! My Agilent analytical chromatography system locked it's UI as I added more samples to the queue- something that is commonly done.

There's too much poorly written software out there to support your premise.

Edit- here's an example from right now- Nothing else should be locking the clipboard. This happens on the first copy operation in Excel when I open it. This is from their most recent upgrade.

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OhLook wrote in post #19418827
Agreed. You didn't bring it up, I did. I had in mind that each forum is different and what suits Facebook designers and users won't necessarily apply to POTN. I wouldn't expect the two venues to match.

I agree that each online forum have tweaks and customization relevant to their end users.

Like, I really really really appreciate AMASS being able to pull out the EXIF data from flickr or the image's metadata.

It saves people like me from typing in

- Camera model
- Lens model
- f-number
- shutter speed
- ISO sensitivity
- etc

These details are helpful for people who want to buy/rent gear in the future or improve the image quality of the images by trying previously unused camera settings in certain lighting situations.

If there was a profile-level opt-in feature I'd love to be added to AMSS would be the display of GPS coordinates with a hotlink to Google Maps or other mapping site as I manually tag 99% of all my images with it in post so that it can be publicly visible when I upload.

I do this as it helps me organize photos on Apple Aperture & flickr when my memory becomes bad or when others wants to visit the birding/photography site.

For data privacy reasons I want it opt-in as not everyone's that tech savvy and have privacy concerns.

But going back. What I am asking for is UI improvements to lessen the clicks to at most 1 or put the UI elements to what was established before like how MS Office's Excel has its toolbar or other forum software.

Most used features are 1 click away without the UI second guessing my intent.

I get 2nd guessing when you want to shut down a computer while you have open documents that you need to save before it gets deleted when you turn it off.

But 2nd guessing a like? Say I accidentally like your work will it financially diminish me or my time? Not really. It may even make your day.

But if I was ordering biryani chicken and pad thai then I'd like a confirmation screen before clicking the order. I experienced before when I ordered both 2x in a span of 1 min. I accepted the order because it was there already and I do not want to be blacklisted by the restaurant. Thankfully the food is good.

There are always going to be tweaks that can be made. I for one think this forum is as wel or better put together as any I’ve been a member of…photography or otherwise. In fact if someone is going to put effort into changing anything I think the biggest bang for the time spent would be a tool that allows some group of users to add equipment to the database. I know that is a heavy lift but it would make as much or more day to day difference as anything else. The fact that we have the database at all is a testament to the thought and effort that has gone into the design here however.

Tom Reichner wrote in post #19418845
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I realize you addressed this question to someone else, but I will give my reply anyway.

I pretty much quit Facebook because of their UI. . Any time I went to FB, it was so difficult to find what I was looking for. . I would just give up. . Could never wrap my head around the way FB laid things out or how to do what I wanted to do there. . Interacting with Groups was always especially complicated and confusing.

So, I still have my Facebook account, but I barely ever use it. . If I get an email saying that someone tagged me there or something, then I will click on the link to see whatever they said about/to me. . But other than that I avoid FB, solely because I can't figure out the user interface (particularly with regards to groups).

But I absolutely LOVE the software here that Pekka has designed. . Never had to try to figure anything out. . Almost everything here on POTN just "works" intuitively, the way I would just expect it to work without having to think about it or learn how to use it.

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I am looking at the BBCode of your reply and I see a lot of SIZE & COLOR tags that do not meaningfully reflect on what is displayed in your reply.

I get why you may dislike today's Facebook Group UI layout and orientation. It tries to cram too much information on the desktop web browser rather than putting front & center the text/photo/link/video post.

What I was trying to point out is the UI elements of the platform that works for billions of users that have been metrically proven to work hence it has been left unchanged for nearly a decade.

Like when a like was 1st introduced in Facebook before forums had them it was just a 1-click action. They introduced modifications to it like heart, thumbs down, angry, other emotions. These other emotions selection is discarded when the user moves onto other actions and the like is passively approved.

With AMASS if I like a post it needs me to actively approve it a 2nd time.

AntonLargiader wrote in post #19418938
The use of yes/no confirmation dialogs seems very 1990s. For things that really don't matter, and are just as easy to undo as they are to confirm, it just adds a step for everyone who got it right the first time as well as the few who accidentally clicked "like" or whatever. There's no consequence to accidentally liking something.

Confirmations have their purpose. For me it's when there are greater consequences for a mistake, such as 1-click ordering. I'd rather go to a screen which shows not only the cart contents but also the card used, shipping address, etc because I have multiples of those. That screen is basically a beneficial confirmation dialog. Deleting or moving a lot of files, a dialog is useful especially if it lists the files you're acting on and the destination. MacOS, when you want to shut down, does display a confirmation dialog but it times out, so you can have a 1-click shutdown or restart if you just walk away. Sort of a smarter confirmation dialog.

Animations can serve a useful purpose. When a screen element jiggles because it needs your attention before you can proceed, that's useful and intuitive. The animations here are pretty benign and don't bother me, though, because they don't give me the feeling that they're wasting my time. They're just kind of cutesy.

At this point, though, I think users would prefer that dev time was spent on the gear database rather than the interface.

When the yes/no confirmation dialog box came out it reminded me of "beginners" difficulty level of 1991 Civilization DOS.

As for number of clicks to insert the URL onto the name of that game.

- toolbar is located to the left of text box that is unique to AMASS
- highlight the text
- try to figure out where the URL tool is located
- click around on interace
- accidentally realize it's under "More Tools & Commands" as it is unique to AMASS
- Read a text list of what I intend to do
- Is it "Named URL"?
- Click on other elements before I figure it is that.
- Insert the URL
- Approve it via "Make the URL tag"

Other forums is much simpler

- toolbar is located above text box like how MS Office & Google Docs does it
- highlight text I want
- click on the named URL tool
- dialog opens for insert URL
- Click OK

I get there is artistic and IP reasons why X Y Z is done but let us save server resources & clicks for the user.

As for the animation I saw a animation done when I am logging in. I get that it is done to give users an idea that progress is being made to log you into your username but wouldn't the added load just slow down the log in time?

These observations has been noted since the move to AMASS but I did not know where to report it until this week.

Capn Jack wrote in post #19418944
Your comparison to facebook is irrelevant. The number of users isn't indicative of the quality of the software. Facebook has been losing users. By the metric you mentioned- "that has billions of users, uses the more conventional 1 click approach", does this mean people don't like their UI any more? Facebook is losing users: https://www.theguardia​n.com …-tech-giant-begun-crumble.

Facebook's losing of users has these reasons

- trendiness of the platform
- stickiness of the platform
- changes of Terms & Conditions
- new UI elements that are annoying
- privacy concerns
- user demographic changes
- fake news

But the thing is the thread is not about the adding/losing of users but more on improvement on the UI so we all save time and the forum saves on server resources.

dolina wrote in post #19419100
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I am looking at the BBCode of your reply and I see a lot of SIZE & COLOR tags that do not meaningfully reflect on what is displayed in your reply.
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That is because I like things to be spaced out, with some extra room between lines of text, a top margin, a bottom margin, etc. . Not sure what that has to do with the standard user interface ... it's just something "extra" that POTN software enables me to do to format my posts the way I like them.


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Tom Reichner wrote in post #19418969
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PRONOUN ADVISORY: Dolina is a he.

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In that case, it is surprising that the software here, designed by one guy in his spare time, is smoother, more intuitive, much easier, and more enjoyable to use than Facebook's software.

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Thank you for the correction but whatever gender I may be the ideas I express should be objectively replied to.

It only becomes a problem when older men try to pick me up.

dolina wrote in post #19419105
Thank you for the correction but whatever gender I may be the ideas I express should be objectively replied to.

It only becomes a problem when older men try to pick me up.

I would rather hope younger men create the same problem

jcothron wrote in post #19419098
There are always going to be tweaks that can be made. I for one think this forum is as wel or better put together as any I’ve been a member of…photography or otherwise. In fact if someone is going to put effort into changing anything I think the biggest bang for the time spent would be a tool that allows some group of users to add equipment to the database. I know that is a heavy lift but it would make as much or more day to day difference as anything else. The fact that we have the database at all is a testament to the thought and effort that has gone into the design here however.

Actually I like AMASS as well but I'd want to save everyone an extra click & time.

This is similar to Apple's Steve Jobs encouraging his engineers to improve the boot time of their 1980s products. He said that their is a multiplying effect for decreasing a few more seconds on the boot time for millions of users who turn on and turn off their Macs at the end of the day.

I've been doing my part in improving the Gear Database by reporting within the thread of the Lens Sample threads and eventually on AMASS Forum Software Talk.

I provided

- links to the threads that need improvement
- copy paste the text that needs changes
- type in the correct product name that needs modification and BOLD them to highlight what is correct

I did this as I found it difficult to find the lens/body threads and photo samples I wanted to see. End users use the slang/informal name of the product that the manufactures say.

I am unsure if it can be done, in violation of T&C or even legal but is it possible to scrape off camera & lens data from a database like dpreview.com? Similar to how Plex scrapes off TV/movie data from IMDB or other database?

As camera gear does not appear on an hourly basis AMASS could check on a per week/month/quarter basis?