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Overall Appearance/GUI
Updated, yes, and cleaner yes, but perhaps too much of a change. it looks and feels like a simple, dumbed-down version of a forum, and there are really no visible design cues or similarities to previous versions to suggest it's a vBulletin product. The vast majority of VB3 and VB4 forum users will find the VB5 layout to be dramatically different. Forum operators who have been through major upgrades know that the best way to kill your forum is to significantly change the format. For this reason alone, most forums would see substantial drops in traffic and user participation with a change to VB5 connect.
Navigation Tabs
On the demo site, I assume the tabs are not configured as they could be (i.e. have a "Forums" tab) so it's a little confusing right now. Is "Home" the same as "Forums?"
Photos
When viewing a forum, I find the navigation of the photos to be counter-intuitive. There should be an option so that when you click on a photo, it takes you directly to the post that has that attachment, instead of the lightbox which doesn't allow commenting. Also, with no organization of the photos, I would hesitate to implement this feature simply because on high traffic forums it will just be a mess. No way to search photos? No tagging? These things could help a bit.
Forum Display
Why does it say "votes" below replies on each thread even if it's not a poll?
Thread Display
The design is cleaner and less cluttered before, but the quote and reply buttons are really tiny and not very user friendly. I don't see the point to the latest activity tab on the thread pages. It just takes up space. Also the "Sorry, you are not authorized to view this page" message at the bottom when you're not logged in should be changed to a login/registration forum so people know why they can't post. At least a little message about having to log in to post a reply. Right now it looks more like an error.
User Profiles
I sort of like the new profile format, but there is no way to find their posts or threads. And I am curious as to why you can see another member's subscriptions---is this intentional? Also, the subscriptions page is not linked to the rest of the profile, really, as it has a "back to profile" link. Too many clicks!
Performance Issues
When you click on "Home" you see an activity stream with some formatting issues, then it vanishes, a blank screen shows for a second or two, and then a "forumhome" type page loads. This behavior is consistent inside of individual forums as well, except in the forums a small "Working..." notice appears at the top. I don't think I've seen any professionally designed forum software behave in this manner. It looks and feels like a bulky, inefficient system. And what's worse is that there is a delay on every single page load for this reason. I can state with absolutely, unquestionable, metaphysical certitude that this particular issue would be a deal-breaker for me and not only would I not upgrade to VB5 over it, but I wouldn't even use any forums that run VB5. It feels like an old out of date java-powered forum (no insult to the java guys out there
).
Vbulletin needed to get lighter and faster loading, not the opposite. Based on some of the other comments regarding performance, number of queries, loading times, file size, etc, the performance issue is way beyond a serious concern. In my opinion it will spell the death of this product if not resolved.
Cheers!
Updated, yes, and cleaner yes, but perhaps too much of a change. it looks and feels like a simple, dumbed-down version of a forum, and there are really no visible design cues or similarities to previous versions to suggest it's a vBulletin product. The vast majority of VB3 and VB4 forum users will find the VB5 layout to be dramatically different. Forum operators who have been through major upgrades know that the best way to kill your forum is to significantly change the format. For this reason alone, most forums would see substantial drops in traffic and user participation with a change to VB5 connect.
Navigation Tabs
On the demo site, I assume the tabs are not configured as they could be (i.e. have a "Forums" tab) so it's a little confusing right now. Is "Home" the same as "Forums?"
Photos
When viewing a forum, I find the navigation of the photos to be counter-intuitive. There should be an option so that when you click on a photo, it takes you directly to the post that has that attachment, instead of the lightbox which doesn't allow commenting. Also, with no organization of the photos, I would hesitate to implement this feature simply because on high traffic forums it will just be a mess. No way to search photos? No tagging? These things could help a bit.
Forum Display
Why does it say "votes" below replies on each thread even if it's not a poll?
Thread Display
The design is cleaner and less cluttered before, but the quote and reply buttons are really tiny and not very user friendly. I don't see the point to the latest activity tab on the thread pages. It just takes up space. Also the "Sorry, you are not authorized to view this page" message at the bottom when you're not logged in should be changed to a login/registration forum so people know why they can't post. At least a little message about having to log in to post a reply. Right now it looks more like an error.
User Profiles
I sort of like the new profile format, but there is no way to find their posts or threads. And I am curious as to why you can see another member's subscriptions---is this intentional? Also, the subscriptions page is not linked to the rest of the profile, really, as it has a "back to profile" link. Too many clicks!
Performance Issues
When you click on "Home" you see an activity stream with some formatting issues, then it vanishes, a blank screen shows for a second or two, and then a "forumhome" type page loads. This behavior is consistent inside of individual forums as well, except in the forums a small "Working..." notice appears at the top. I don't think I've seen any professionally designed forum software behave in this manner. It looks and feels like a bulky, inefficient system. And what's worse is that there is a delay on every single page load for this reason. I can state with absolutely, unquestionable, metaphysical certitude that this particular issue would be a deal-breaker for me and not only would I not upgrade to VB5 over it, but I wouldn't even use any forums that run VB5. It feels like an old out of date java-powered forum (no insult to the java guys out there
).Vbulletin needed to get lighter and faster loading, not the opposite. Based on some of the other comments regarding performance, number of queries, loading times, file size, etc, the performance issue is way beyond a serious concern. In my opinion it will spell the death of this product if not resolved.
Cheers!
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