Thank you to everyone who participated in our Forum reskin private beta. We received a lot of very helpful feedback that went a long way in helping us really understand what is most valuable and important to all of our members. The Adobe Forums have not had a major design update since we originally launched on the Jive platform back in 2009. However, with the launch of Adobe Creative Suite 6 and the Adobe Creative Cloud, we expect that the Adobe Forums will become an even more essential resource for the entire Adobe community.In fact, one of the major design goals was to create a more integrated user experience between the Creative Cloud, Adobe.com, and the Forums. Some of the major changes include: Dramatically simplified global navigation More consistent sign-in/sign-out experienceCommon UI elements and interface conventions, including shared fonts (Adobe Clean served via TypeKit) and color palettes. In fact, both the Creative Cloud and Adobe Forums now use a dark-grey right-hand navigation panel where all of the tools/actions are aligned (just like in our desktop apps). Streamlined interface, pared clean of cluttered icons and redundant options — so you can really focus on the content that you care most about.And finally, an optimized layout designed to cultivate the true heart and soul of the Forums experience: community Q&A. This last goal, in particular, is the most exciting for all of us on the Adobe team – we understand that in a true community of experts, help is not a document. It’s a conversation. That conversation starts here – in this forum with this community. And the whole team here at Adobe, from design to engineering, honors that simple idea and we hope to share more exciting news with you over the coming months as we explore fresh ways to create connections, conversations, and content. And yes, we know -- the new theme is still not 100% perfect so please continue to report bugs in the Known Issues thread. The team is listening and we will be responding quickly with new patches and bug fixes on a regular basis. In the meanwhile, we look forward to many, many great conversations to come!

Adobe Employee

Question

About the Forums Redesign

Forum|Forum|13 years ago
May 6, 2012
11 replies
28182 views

Thank you to everyone who participated in our Forum reskin private beta. We received a lot of very helpful feedback that went a long way in helping us really understand what is most valuable and important to all of our members.

The Adobe Forums have not had a major design update since we originally launched on the Jive platform back in 2009. However, with the launch of Adobe Creative Suite 6 and the Adobe Creative Cloud, we expect that the Adobe Forums will become an even more essential resource for the entire Adobe community.

In fact, one of the major design goals was to create a more integrated user experience between the Creative Cloud, Adobe.com, and the Forums. Some of the major changes include:

Dramatically simplified global navigation
More consistent sign-in/sign-out experience
Common UI elements and interface conventions, including shared fonts (Adobe Clean served via TypeKit) and color palettes. In fact, both the Creative Cloud and Adobe Forums now use a dark-grey right-hand navigation panel where all of the tools/actions are aligned (just like in our desktop apps).
Streamlined interface, pared clean of cluttered icons and redundant options — so you can really focus on the content that you care most about.
And finally, an optimized layout designed to cultivate the true heart and soul of the Forums experience: community Q&A.

This last goal, in particular, is the most exciting for all of us on the Adobe team – we understand that in a true community of experts, help is not a document. It’s a conversation. That conversation starts here – in this forum with this community. And the whole team here at Adobe, from design to engineering, honors that simple idea and we hope to share more exciting news with you over the coming months as we explore fresh ways to create connections, conversations, and content.

And yes, we know -- the new theme is still not 100% perfect so please continue to report bugs in the Known Issues thread. The team is listening and we will be responding quickly with new patches and bug fixes on a regular basis. In the meanwhile, we look forward to many, many great conversations to come!

This topic has been closed for replies.

hans-g.

Legend

Hi,

my observation from section 10 still applies.

Hans-Günter

B

Bob_Peters

Inspiring

I really wonder just how carefully this "new and improved" design was studied!

Where is the text which ties a reply to the target of the reply: "in reply to", or something like that.

Why is there so much wasted vertical space on each line?

Who thinks light blue text on a light gray backbround is a good design feature?

This looks like Amateur Hour again.

.Buko.

Known Participant

well I just can back because I'm having bridge issues. and my first impression of this forum is worse than the last time I was here 2, 3 years ago. Navagation is terrible and thats a compliment. look is bad

Noel Carboni

Legend

That's good info.

Those of us frogs who have been in the water all along haven't noticed it getting hotter slowly and steadily.

You don't like Adobe's own web font?

-Noel

hans-g.

Legend

What is this?

"Beachten Sie, dass Ihre Antwort von einem Moderator genehmigt werden muss, bevor sie im Forum gepostet werden kann." means something like: "Please note that your response be approved by a moderator before they will be posted on the forum."

Do we now have a censorship?

What are you afraid of? Until now, the messages of the participants about SPAM, obscenities, etc., were sufficient to deter people from nonsense.

D

Dave Merchant

Legend

@Hans : you triggered the moderation system by using a particular word in your last reply (beginning with V...)

hans-g.

Legend

Hello,

ok, and does it mean he (Drymetal) "Yeah, how often do you get good news in your spam folder? It goes to show that wading through thousands of viagra ads can be worthwhile." got the same message before sending?

... and by the way, 'cause it best put here, I would like to assist Jim Simon's recommendation from above: "there are no post numbers any more. So we can no longer say, "Did you see the link in post 7?".

Sincerely,

Hans-Günter

Noel Carboni

Legend

Mark Nichoson wrote:
Dramatically simplified global navigation

So you're saying the fact that I can no longer jump directly to Adobe's main site by any link at the top of the page is a "dramatic simplification"? What if after reading something I really wanted to go buy a product?

The operation was a success, but was that the patient's last gasp I just heard?

-Noel

adobe-admin

Legend

What happens when you click on the red Adobe logo in the upper left corner of the page?

Noel Carboni

Legend

OK, I missed that.

But you have to admit, that's not an obvious link. Not like "My Adobe" or "Adobe Store" might be. If I missed it, who else is missing it?

-Noel

Ned Murphy

Legend

I have not complained over the past few years regarding the changes made to the forums - most of what was done didn't really change my experience so I adapted easily. The changes that have been recently introduced are simply terrible as far as visuals/layout go, to the point of being unreadable... especially when you have a posting title that is squished into a ~100 pixels of space...

And the loss of numerous useful features (information-related features) only helps to make whatever is being done seem more and more amateurish.

Mark_NichosonAuthor

Adobe Employee

Hi Ned: where are you seeing this? Can you share the URL? And in what browsers? This looks like a (serious) bug and we will investigate asap.

And a quick FYI, the team has been following ALL of the feedback here and we will be releasing an update to address the issues very soon. As soon as I have an exact date, I will share with you all.

adobe-admin

Legend

That looks like the Discussion page for Action Script 3, but I'm not seeing that hapening for me unless I really compress my browser window down to a very narrow width...

Normal width on a 1280x1024 monitor:

Narrowed window:

A

Anonymous

Streamlined? Better? The new layout is just plain terrible and poorly designed. When I go the AS3 forum all I see are trending mesages - I used to be able to view all discussions. Really bad design here. Let's hope they don't stay this new way.

E

excited_Genie16B8

Legend

I'd like to add a fourth and fifth issue to my list above.

Fourth, there are no post numbers any more. So we can no longer say, "Did you see the link in post 7?", or "Please answer the questions asked in post 2".

Fifth, the individual questions are spaced farther apart on the page, meaning you get fewer questions on the same sized page. How's that better?

And we users aren't the only ones who don't like this mess. This was posted by an Adobe employee. "Please, please, please tell the forum team on the forum that they read. It doesn't help to yell at us (the people who make the video software and who agree with you on this issue)."

Mark_NichosonAuthor

Adobe Employee

Hi Jim: thanks for the feedback -- and the specific suggestions above. The team has been monitoring the reactions, inside and outside of the company, and we will be releasing some enhancements and fixes very soon.

I need to confirm the schedule with the team but, once that's done, I will share our detailed plans and schedule with all of you as soon as I can.

Thanks for your patience.

E

excited_Genie16B8

Legend

I will share our detailed plans and schedule with all of you as soon as I can.

That would be nice. We lost some good folks when Adobe went to the Jive forums. I'd hate to see a repeat of that.

hans-g.

Legend

Hi Mark,

"the new theme is still not 100% perfect" and so I deliberately waited with my answer a little bit. In addition to this my previous speakers have mentioned, I'll show you the graphical representation on MY computer:

1. A rather insignificant navigation:

2. Presentation is unclean working here:

3. Problems with the character sets:

4. Confusing and a waste of space:

5. The font size or the screen display in my opinion are made too small and therefore difficult to read.

6. Not so important, but I like it and I miss them: Where are the "points"? (correct answers helpful answers)

Hans-Günter

D

Dave Merchant

Legend

Points are still collected when someone votes your content as correct or helpful. Only the display of points is temporarily missing.

hans-g. wrote:
6. Not so important, but I like it and I miss them: Where are the "points"? (correct answers helpful answers)
Hans-Günter

D

Dave Merchant

Legend

Hello dave,

thanks for answering, BUT as I said: "Not so important"!

... what's about 1. - 5.? Has the "council" already taken note of these? Are they already known, dicussed, solved aso.?

Sincerely

Hans-Günter

The primary list of known issues is here: http://forums.adobe.com/message/4382597

Points 1, 3, 4 and 5 will be resolved by clearing your browser cache, as I can see from the screencaps that you are still seeing elements of the old CSS. Point 2 is on the list of things to fix.

hans-g. wrote:

... what's about 1. - 5.? Has the "council" already taken note of these? Are they already known, dicussed, solved aso.?

E

excited_Genie16B8

Legend

In order to be helpful and not just complain, there's three specific things I don't like about the new skin.

First, there's no 'box' around the original post. It just hangs out there with the rest of the background. I don't like that. Every post should have some sort of 'box' within which it appears.

Second, the original post used to be in blue, very distinguishable from the replies. Subsequent posts from that OP were also in blue, again to distinguish it. Others' posts appeared with a white background, and my own appeared with a gray background. Now, everyone's post has the same plain grey background. That makes it more difficult to go back and look over what I've previously written, and more difficult to cull out posts from the OP in a thread. Changes should make things better, not worse. This current scheme is worse.

Third, most folks are right handed, and will move the mouse cursor off to the right when reading a thread. The Reply and other buttons should go back to being right justified, not left.

the_wine_snob

Inspiring

John,

For the previous "update," I was involved in the beta. Maybe my being in the UK for a couple of weeks negated my contributions to this update. Sorry that I missed it, as I would have had volumes of contributions, and pleased to either make changes, or to not do some things.

I have lived through many changes to the Adobe forums, going back to the NNTP days, and this might be the worst, that I have experienced.

As things seem to be changing by the hour, after the ~ 2 hour shutdown, I will reserve my final comments, but each hour seems to make thing worse.

After a decade (actually longer) of work in the Adobe forums, this is a bad move, at least IMHO.

I wish you luck, and do appreciate what you are trying to do, but think that both of your hands might be tied behind your back.

Hun

john_cornicello__retired_

Inspiring

Not sure what you see "changing by the hour." There have been no updates to the forum since the initial launch around noon pacific time.

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