Toc Appearance.

[Hoovie]

These are my findings on how TOC appears for me, using 4 different devices, 6 different screens and 5 different Browsers.

Screen ‘Real Estate’

The Appearance of the Site is pretty well Browser-independent, except for one key thing I will comment on later. I am focussing on how it appears when reading a thread, as that probably the most common activity and where most of the time is spent whilst visiting the site.

The screen design in terms of layout works best on larger screens, and the reading/editing area is fine in terms of screen ‘real estate’. When I refer to “Larger Screens” I really do mean physically larger, not higher resolutions – though the resolution has some impact of course.

But as you go down in size of screen, then the reading/editing area as a proportion of the overall width of the screen goes down – and that is really the opposite of what is really needed. As a screen gets smaller, a user needs less and less space dedicated to non-essential/non-relevant areas and more dedicated to the task at hand, but with the Current TOC Layout, that does not happen.

On my 24” screen running at 1920x1080, I get 371mm (that is 15” worth) of reading width – more then enough really and the side bars are not an issue. As I drop down to 22” (1680x1050), I have 314mm reading width – again, fine.

But when I then use the site on the built-in screen on my Netbook which is 10.1”, I am down to just 109mm of reading width. That represents less then 50” of the width the TOC website is taking up, with 45mm dedicated to the user info on the left, and 65mm dedicated to .... well, what exactly?, on the right.

So 4.5” of space of thread visible on a 9” wide screen then.

Carrying on down to the ‘ultra-portable’ type devices we see an even worse situation ….

On my Samsung TAB 7” Tablet, I have just 76mm (3”) of reading area with 32 mm dedicated to the user info and 42mm dedicated to a dark grey band of nothing – That is in Landscape mode – if I left it in Portrait mode, I would have just 43mm (less then 2”) of useful screen info

On my HTC Sensation Smartphone with a 4.3” Screen (and running at 960 x 540 Res) I have 43mm of useful screen space, and text so small it cannot easily be read.

Here is a table of the screens and how much space is givenover to the user - the key column is the last one ....

Many websites are designed for the larger screen nowadays, and often optimized for maybe 1024 screen pixel width, as 1024 is a common resolution. However, what these designers forget to take into account is that if there is a vertical scroll bar due to a long page, then the max width drops below 1024 and their formatting is off, or maybe the user wants to be use without maximizing the browser window.

many browsers have an ‘autofit feature’ which can be used to accommodate this and adjusts the screen accordingly. This autofit feature is one I use a lot on many websites when using the internal Netbook screen.

Here is one example why I would use it and what difference it makes ....

User posted an oversized photo on a thread ....

Turn on Autofit ("Fit to Width" in Opera) ....

Howver, if this is used with TOC, it TOTALLY fails.

This is with that turned off:

and now turned on:

Identioal part of the screen, just with "Fit to Width" enabled

I have seen this effect on both Opera with my Netbook, and the Dolphin Browser on my Tablet. Now if TOC is using an autowidth feature natively due to the design of the coding, great (although it is not as otherwise we would not get the horizontal space bars if the browser window is shrunk below a certain width) but whatever it is using, the effect of enabling an autofit feature should not to be totally mix up the window like that. I do not recall a single other website I visit where the Autofit does not work as it is meant to.

So these are my observations on how the screens appear on a multitude of devices and screen sizes & resolutions, using a wide mix of browsers.

I have kept to comments about how TOC is presented in terms of screen real estate, and THAT impact on the 'user experience', and tried to avoid making subjective comments on colour schemes and contrast values as that can be a very personal thing, and one mans meat etc etc.

I have one final comment regarding the Browser and this is with regards to speed n a very specific way. I have noticed that when the TOC screen is in prominence i.e. is the visible window on a browser, then attempting to resize the Browser window can take some time and be jerky. If another website has prominence, even when TOC is still loaded in another tab, just not visible, the re-sizing is smooth. There seems to be some process going on that is taking resources in that situation, even when the site has appeared to have fully loaded.

[+Steve]

Superb post thanks for this. Will look into it

[nifer]

that's really an nice stuff it would help me a lot thanks for the post and very happy to meet you all.

[Manxrav]

Dave (Hoovie) I commend your post and the very detailed explanation. A lot of thought as gone into this, and I am sure that Steve will take on board your comments and suggestions. I think the time as come to draw a line under the issues and see what transpires in the not too distant future.

I must admit I was not happy with it at first but do not seem to have had many problems of late. I suppose it,s a case of getting used to it. The one thing we do not want to do is loose our members on such an excellent site, so I think it,s a case of letting Steve and the lads get on with the job in hand and give them advice where possible to rectify the problems.

There you go my two pence worth

Regards Clare

[jedi134]

I can not see exactly what your getting at????????? Are you saying the site is not auto resizing?

I just installed dolphin mini browser from the market onto the HTC desire (similar phone to yours so should work the same) I quite like the browser by the way, and cant see any problems with it???

It re-sizes , zooms in and out, works in Landscape/Portrait no errors????????

Do you have any special settings you need when using PC`s? anything out of the ease of access center by any chance?

[jedi134]

Hmmmmmm using dolphin browser on`th phone I set text size to huge and it seems to resemble your problem

Do you have huge text size settings in your browsers B) are they all set to huge?

On tablets and phones I dont think you need big text size as you and pinch and zoom

Not sure if these are your problems but only this site seems to do it, other sites seem to resize with the huge text option or browser zoom enabled.

Solution:

Reset browser text size to normal, and zoom level to normal...??????????

[Jan&tone]

A brilliant post.

I normally use my I-pad to browse both this and another forum that I am on, between the two of them pretty much 4 or 5 hours a day of i-pad use(I'm semi retiredd)

On a laptop (as I am at the moment which is widescreen) there is no problem with the size, or the layout per-se.. however on the i-pad it is almost unusable the layout is so bad - to the extent that I am seriously considering not renewing the due subs.

Laptop batteries don't last long, two or three hours on mine, and to use a desktop takes me out of the family rooms which is not desirable.

Tone

[+Steve]

Tone

I am using ipad and the only part it struggles on is the main forum index, mainly due to the sponsors banners (which i will be working on)

Ar you able to take a picture of this and post it up?

Do you have the fonts enlarged on your ipad?

[+Steve]

Dave (Hoovie) I commend your post and the very detailed explanation. A lot of thought as gone into this, and I am sure that Steve will take on board your comments and suggestions. I think the time as come to draw a line under the issues and see what transpires in the not too distant future.

I must admit I was not happy with it at first but do not seem to have had many problems of late. I suppose it,s a case of getting used to it. The one thing we do not want to do is loose our members on such an excellent site, so I think it,s a case of letting Steve and the lads get on with the job in hand and give them advice where possible to rectify the problems.

There you go my two pence worth

Regards Clare

Thank you clare.. Thats exactly what we are after :)

[jedi134]

Not sure if you can make out from the attatched file, a sceen shot from Android phone using Dolphin mini browser, once page refreshed it goes back to normal.

Is this whats happening on you Dolphin browser devices?

I cant replicated this on a PC though using IE9 or latest Firefox, or standard browser on android, but then again the standard android browser does not show full member details.

Site does seem a bit slow when zoomed in or huge text size selected, But I never use zoom in or huge text size so not sure how it functions on web pages

edit: Just replicated attatched pic in Firefox by using the zoom text only function

[Raistlin]

I use the stock browser on my Desire HD and I have no issues with the site in either landscape or portrait it's all good :)

[Jan&tone]

Tone

I am using ipad and the only part it struggles on is the main forum index, mainly due to the sponsors banners (which i will be working on)

Ar you able to take a picture of this and post it up?

Do you have the fonts enlarged on your ipad?

Thans for replying Steve.. Fonts, no not enlarged and sorry, no way of takin a pic of it at the moment, but it sounds like you are having the same problem as I am with the initial screens!

The speed is fine whether on the ipad or pc/laptop, and I am getting the hang of it... Maybe I'm just a luddite :)

[Raistlin]

Tone

I am using ipad and the only part it struggles on is the main forum index, mainly due to the sponsors banners (which i will be working on)

Ar you able to take a picture of this and post it up?

Do you have the fonts enlarged on your ipad?

Thans for replying Steve.. Fonts, no not enlarged and sorry, no way of takin a pic of it at the moment, but it sounds like you are having the same problem as I am with the initial screens!

The speed is fine whether on the ipad or pc/laptop, and I am getting the hang of it... Maybe I'm just a luddite :)

You a Luddite perish the thought... :)