Site Post » User Page Ideas · 12:20am Dec 22nd, 2013
A lot of people seem to be having issues with the new user pages that I can think almost all be summed with the fact that the update made things look different than before, and you will HAVE to update your page if you want it to look good. Thusly, I've decided to give some ideas for what looks good in my experience when I was designing the different modules.
Banners
If you look on my userpage I have a banner as my top module on the left. You can do this by adding a custom text module and including only an image. The image should be at least 1000px wide and preferably quite small vertically so it doesn't take up much space. Mine is 1000 x 225px for example.
Custom bios
The bio box on the right no longer shows your long bio but you could instead put it in a custom text module on the left. This will give you a lot more room and fits in better than in the bio box itself.
Lists
Need to use a list or some kind? Maybe a list of services you provide or stories you've preread? These sit nicely in custom text boxes on the right when you don't need a lot of horizontal space.
Custom Artwork
Again if you look on my page I have a picture of fluttershy below my bio box. Because it's an image only it has no padding and takes up all the space. This lets you put a piece of art in without it having to be excessively large or have white space to the right like it would on the old design or if you had the custom box in the big column.
These are just a few ideas I've come up with myself but I'm hoping people will find other inventive ways to do things. If you do, let me know and maybe I can add it to this list.
While I was designing the new pages I thought of a few use cases in order to make sure everyone could do what they wanted. The use cases I used were:
+ Myself - (I'm kind of a special case in terms of the site because of my user page's functionality as a "help and suggestion desk"
+ An author
+ A reader
+ An artist (I know there's a few)
For authors I found it best if you put your latest stories module at the top on the left and below it your comments. Then on the right you can comfortably put in watchers, groups and maybe some featured story lists if you run any types of series.
For readers I found it best if you have either your latest blog post at the top on the left or a couple of "favourites" modules, followed by, maybe, watchers, and then comments. You can then fit some more featured stories and groups on the right.
For artists you can put a photo album at the top left to show off your best work, comments below and a custom text module on the side if you offer commissions to list the prices of them. A featured story list below can show stories you've done art for.
There were other inbetween cases I considered too but if you can't think of how to lay your page out for the type of user you are, ask me and I might have some suggestions. The ideas outlined above should help through anyway.
Edit: I've upped the max number of custom modules per page to 10.
I thought you were gonna ask us for ideas on how to make a better user page
Gimme my long bio back!!!
I just finished yesterday writing some super long stuff about myself
I've gone and fixed mine up now.
Plus that one issue with the lopped off 'r' in my name's been fixed, so...
I'm good now.
~Skeeter The Lurker
1633504
That would require him to stop being a butthole.
No "For trolls"?
That is all. Equestria is ours.
I disagree, as it's a matter of opinion either way. Preferentially, I had more room before, and things looked more even. Now, I have several spots that I simply won't use, because it's difficult and inconvenient to read them.
I come to the age old adage of our time as a solution to fix this quandary of epic proportions, Knighty.
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
Worked great in the military, should work here, too.
I have seen quite a few complaints, but even though I am used to the old design, I do see a lot of potential already. I shall experiment some, and see what I can do with this.
1633504
I would be in favor of a poll, myself.
Oh!
Forgot to ask...
What happened to that nifty online/offline stat you had in the previous profile page setup?
I kinda liked that.
~Skeeter The Lurker
The problem for me is that there aren't enough custom boxes available. The maximum is three, and this saddens me.
Or just put it back the old way, the way that worked, ya know.
I love how it was supposed to be made easier for mobile users, but it just broke it for everyone
derpicdn.net/img/2013/5/5/316755/thumb.png
This requires that everyone not be a lazy bum and actually do stuff.
Nice try m8
Why do you run this site?
Honest question. Why do you run it?
Or you could just revert to the old design that worked perfectly fine for all intents and purposes.
1633504
That would have been a much better blog post and idea.
Seriously Knighty, you done messed up.
fc09.deviantart.net/fs70/f/2012/092/f/9/son_i_am_disappoint_by_songoharotto-d4uq9e4.png
Is it really too difficult to just ask us before you change something? You did it for meta stories
knighty, how are you able to stand these stupid people day after day?!
Welp, looks like Knighty decided to break things since they were working fine before. Nothing new here, folks.
But I want it to be perfect immediately! And I want it to be exactly the same as before but better too! And I think you should have told us you would be making this blog post before hand, so I could work myself into a frenzy!
In all seriousness, it looks like pictures will be more important than in the old layout. Custom banners and little art galleries will add some colour and break up monotonous text, which seem to be the biggest problems with the wider/narrower setup. Similarly, if you have something with a LOT of text (a really lengthy bio, a substantial blog post, whatever), you will probably want to mess with different font sizes and effects (underlining, bold, italics) more than in the old system. Again, it's about breaking up walls of text.
I, for one, find the new user page layout quite splendid.
I personally hate the new user page thing and hope it changes back or at least to something remotely similar to the original one
Thanks, Google+.
It was fine before, so:
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
That's all I have to say. Or at least put out a site blog post BEFORE you update, just to make sure we aren't complaining about it
I never spent any time on my user page, so I'm OK with this.
Keep pissing people off, Knighty, you sweet, delicious troll. The tears of angry, petulant bronies, they sustain me!
I've sorted mine out and I'm quite happy with the result. Wish the DeviantArt folder thing worked when put on the right side, but eh, I like the new layout overall.
Good guy knighty, helping out the community.
1633579
The problem with telling people beforehand is that, a lot of times when you develop something new, there's a... somewhat reactionary initial backlash to it. People are used to whatever was there beforehand, so they have a tendency to say "I hate this change. Keep it like it was before!" even if the change might technically be better in the long run.
This isn't to say that the concerns are irrelevant, or that all people who dislike the new change simply aren't used to it yet, it's just that the most likely initial reaction to any change knighty makes to the site's format is going to be fairly negative, whether it really deserves that or not.
So, if knighty tells people beforehand, and people raise a fury over it, he's put in an awkward position -- the change he makes may very well be better in the long run, but it looks bad if people go "Bleh I don't want any change!" and he changes it anyway. It's sort of a catch-22 scenario, in that he either looks tyrannical for forcing a change on the users they claim they don't want when he tells them about it, or looks tyrannical for making a change without telling anyone.
The only other way out of that is to never make any changes at all, and I think that'd be hurtful in the long run.
I think the best position would generally be to go ahead and make a change, if it seems wise, then work closely with the users to figure out where the legitimate concerns lie and address them. Best for both parties, yeah?
People rejoice.
Mmm, had to switch up a few modules here are there, but I do rather like the whole smaller sidebar thing going on with the right-hand side of the userpages, it helps categorise things imo. I'll probably have to change how I've formatted text and such-like so it doesn't look too terrible, but the additional custom modules should certainly be a huge help.
Thanks for adding the additional tips, knighty.
Thank you very much.
I love the look of my userpage now.
1633537 i noticed zero things wrong with the original,
However stuff is more organized
anything that didn't get fucking deleted1633623
That's not the point behind all this.
We don't need more, we just need it to work. Don't spread the sh*t around, clean it up.
We can either have stuff on the left side, making the pages even longer than they were before, or on the right side and microscopic and easily missed.
Again, polls are not hard to make.
The new text boxes seem to be incredibly broken. I cannot select anything in particular, I can not copy anything. I can't do anything, it seems.
I'm using Firefox.
1633533 I LAUGHED SO HARD I PISSED MYSELF
I came here because I assumed I would learn how to make my tampered userpage "better," or in other words, "more like the way it used to be," but instead, I only saw someone else's opinion on how to make it better. Its not like everyone has preferences or anything.
1633517
Agreed. That's why you're my favorite mad scorcerer, Merlos. You can read the minds of of others.
1633504
That'd be the day we start taking liberties.
1633523
I second this notion.
1633651 Yeah, I'm having issues with that too, pressing up and down put me at the top or the bottom of the entire text, whereas I can only move left and right to the end or beginning of the line.
Oh, and are the handling of custom profile links meant to look like this: i.imgur.com/LkjpWo4.png
Because it seems a tad weird.
Because of the new layout, I think each story box should have six stories instead of five. Three rows of two. Mainly because there's an empty space where a sixth story could be and a story filling its place would be more appealing to the eye...
Self restraint, knighty; practice it some.
1633623
i11.photobucket.com/albums/a185/cyota/Macros/OhLordyLord.jpg
No, knighty, we're annoyed because you forced this unnecessary update upon us without any sort of warning.
It feels like the site is being managed by someone who doesn't even use it half the time and just saw something and went 'That looks nice. Let's do that!' without thinking about how the users would react...
Oh, and let us sort our stories by 'most recently updated', would you? Feels like a horrendous oversight.
1633648
Ah, well, I disagree that the new format is bad. Admittedly, it's a personal preference thing, but I kinda dig the ability to shunt stuff I don't really need to draw much attention to, like Following and Latest Stories, off to the side, in favor of giving lots of attention to the stuff I do want to draw folks' eyes to, like Featured Stories.
That said, the addition of more custom modules so you can jazz up your page however you want is pretty unquestionably a plus, I think.
But yeah, it's sort of an opinion thing on how nice the new format works, I guess. We may have to agree to disagree on that one.
1633683
That doesn't matter if nothing is even on both sides.
If I have my bio on the right side, the text gets smashed down to an unreadable size, or it just extends even longer than it would be if it were in a normal box if the left and right sides were the same.
Same goes with pictures. It can either take up a whole 'screen' you have to scroll past, or be the size of a dime. Don't even get me started on the mobile version of the site.
tl;dr it doesn't work the way it is intended, it makes the pages longer.
You know what would be nice?
An ability to format the user page like the old one while keeping the interface you think is better for the site. I'm not sure about the difficulty of that, but basically, it provides more customization for the users who liked things the old way and allows others who want to embrace the new design to do what they're doing. Everyone is happy, and no one is upset. And let me tell you, it doesn't look like too many people care for your new design of the user page.
Just... something to think about
I cant move my watchers to the right!
I would like the ability to actively resize the modules but as for the new changes im with Obselescence on this one, it isn't that bad
What are you going to do about people who left the site, but still have popular stories?
Thanks Satan
1633701
No. Don't get me started on the mobile version. My only means of getting on the internet is by using a tablet and every site update hasn't been making things easy for me here. The new user page update doesn't really help with readjusting things on a mobile device.
1633729
For a second, I thought you said, "Santa."
I think either would've worked.