New DCUM Forums Design

by Jeff Steele — last modified Apr 29, 2023 08:47 AM

We have updated the look of the DCUM Forums to enhance the experience for mobile users.

Today we have released a slight redesign for the DCUM Forums. For years, posters have been asking for a design that was optimized for mobile users. An attempt to deploy such a design a few years ago ended amidst a host of user complaints and performance issues. I hope that this design has resolved both of those problems. There will not be a lot of differences for those using desktop devices. Mobile users, however, will find a completely redesigned interface. The top navigation bar and the left side menu (where "Recent Topic" is located), can now be found in two "hamburger" buttons in the top corners. The default font size for all devices has been increased. So, if you suddenly find the fonts to be too large, adjust the zoom level of your browser. I found that I have been running my browser with the pages zoom 120 percent so in this design I made that size the default and now have my browser at 100 percent zoom level. For those of you who simply cannot abide change, there is a link at the very bottom of the page to the legacy design.

Please post any bugs, complaints, or suggestions regarding the new design either here or in the "Website Feedback" forum. On addition that I can already say is planned is a "dark mode".

At this point, the Nanny Forums have not been updated. That will probably happen down the road. The home page, events listing, blog pages, the about page, and the advertising page all run on a separate content management system. At this point, I have not decided what do do about that part of the site. So, for the time being it will remain as it is.

Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 10:14 AM
I hate the new look
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 10:52 AM
I an old. I want the kids off my lawn.
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 11:24 AM
It's seriously impossible to read
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 11:34 AM
It looks fantastic on mobile. I have no idea why people are complaining.
DCUD says:
Apr 29, 2023 11:53 AM
I actually liked the tiny print because it made it easy to scan lots of topics quickly, but I recognize that I am just averse to change generally
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 01:36 PM
Love, love, love the new responsive design!
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 03:02 PM
I’m a dinosaur who prefers the old version. I liked the table format where it was easier to scan information. The current version seems a little jumbled. I also miss the dates and times info on Recent Topics.

I appreciate you allowing access to the old system, but could you please move the link to the top of the page so that we don’t have to keep scrolling to the bottom?
Also Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 03:07 PM
I don’t like it either! Every time I open it, I close it right away. I agree with the person who said the smaller print made it possible to scan a lot of text/topics at once.
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 03:31 PM
Please make the link to the old site more prominent, and always keep that as an option. The new version is much harder to read on mobile; as others have said, we want to scan broadly, not read one word at a time. You don’t really start reading the site until you click into a thread. We need to scan the top levels.
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 03:57 PM
So much easier to read on my iPhone (once I figured out where everything is.) well done!
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 04:46 PM
Finally! Welcome to the this decade. The redesign is much better on my phone, which is where I spend most of my DCUM time
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 07:04 PM
Oh my lord, people, welcome to the 21st century. This isn’t an AOL chat room. Mobile-responsive is so much easier to read and navigate and I imagine Jeff spent a lot of time getting it to work. Thank you, Jeff!
Anonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 08:42 PM
OK - I’m the dinosaur who prefers the old system. I access DCUM on a cellphone (iphone 12 mini - Safari), and I thought the old system was much easier to read and navigate.

I’m more than willing to admit I may be missing something or may be unaware of new and improved practices. I don’t even fully understand the term “mobile responsive”.

Could you please specify how you feel it is easier to read and navigate? I may be a dinosaur, but I’m not an old dog that can’t learn new tricks.

I greatly appreciate the time and effort Jeff devotes to maintaining and continually improving DCUM. I’m just having trouble with this particular change.
Anonymous says:
May 02, 2023 10:02 AM
Previously you had to scroll sideways, pinch and zoom, and move all over the place to read a single post. It was unmanageable.
Annonymous says:
Apr 29, 2023 08:26 PM
Love the new design! Especially with my vision being a bit compromised. THANKS!!!!!
Anonymous says:
Apr 30, 2023 01:22 AM
I think the new format is excellent. Well done!
Anonymous says:
Apr 30, 2023 08:39 AM
New design is great! I can finally browse on mobile - thank you!
Anonymous says:
Apr 30, 2023 12:01 PM
Its much harder for me to read. Liked the old much better. Was really hoping it was temporary.
Anonymous says:
Apr 30, 2023 03:20 PM
It would be great if instead of each post in the forum view saying what time the last response was posted (04/30/2023 15:11), it said something along the lines of "12 minutes ago" up until 24 hour or whatever, and then switched to the exact time.
Anonymous says:
Apr 30, 2023 08:12 PM
It looks like a giant mess. If this were posted in April 1, I would have thought this was part of an April Fool’s Day joke.
Anonymous says:
Apr 30, 2023 08:13 PM
I seriously thought to myself, “Well, this will finally cure me of my DCUM addiction. This is a visual disaster.
Anonymous says:
Apr 30, 2023 08:37 PM
It looks okay on my laptop, but terrible on my iPhone. The words are huge, and there are 3 words across before it wraps, making it really difficult to read. I can't even imagine attempting to read any sort of long paragraphs. I'm going to have to figure out how to post images, so I can show you what the two things look like.
Jeff Steele says:
Apr 30, 2023 08:42 PM
If you are talking about the forum pages, something is very wrong. Lots of iPhone users are having a good experience with the new design. It's possible that you are having an issue with caching and need to clear your browser's cache. On the iPhone, you do that by going to Settings -> Safari -> Advanced -> Website Data and then search for dcurbanmom.com and swipe to delete. The other possibility is it you may have previously zoomed your browser. Check by tapping on the two "A" characters in the address bar and make sure the zoom level is 100%.
Anonymous says:
May 01, 2023 02:21 PM
That's loads better, Jeff. Thank you! The forum pages look crowded, but definitely more manageable.
Anonymous says:
May 01, 2023 08:19 AM
I'm on my desktop, the forum page area looks tight/small and the pop-up advertising sides look huge. Very distracting. Ugh!
Jeff Steele says:
May 01, 2023 08:22 AM
Is there anyway that you can provide a screenshot?
Anonymous says:
May 01, 2023 08:32 AM
I adjusted the browser and it looks better now. The ads still look big but at least they are not screaming at me anymore.
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