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GC.com website VISUAL feedback thread


bittsen

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Very strange: No one of the Groundspeakers has said any reason for changing the design!

But all (yes all!) user have complaints about the new so-called "design". It still looks like the "programmers" has been made it in Word and saved it as HTML.

Why could they not change the html-code without changing the design?

 

Some other complaints (please excuse small pics):

 

A lot of wasted space for the additional wapoints:

 

utrv8.jpg

 

Bigger numbers in maps make it unreadable (and bad aligning at cache table to the right):

 

28vg02d.jpg

 

Hints are hidden within the middle of whitespace:

 

21az1ts.jpg

 

And, of course, all over the pages the 1.5 line spacing, the spacing of the tables, the strange font size, ...

 

Very poor design, looks like from the 90s :unsure:

 

I have no fun looking at GC.com. Please undo all of that!

 

dbox (working with opera 10)

Edited by dbox
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Regarding the visual issues only.

 

Raise your hand if you agree with me.

 

I would like to know if TPTB are reading what we are writing and:

 

a.) plan on making some more visual changes to address our concerns

b.) don't plan on making visual changes based on our concerns

 

OR

 

If TPTB aren't reading our concerns

 

OR

 

If TPTB really don't care whether or not we like the visual changes.

 

 

Also, is there anyone who likes the changes? Anyone?

Edited by bittsen
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Very strange: No one of the Groundspeakers has said any reason for changing the design!

But all (yes all!) user have complaints about the new so-called "design".

This is not true, and please do not speak for me. I like most of the changes. I'm sure they're working hard to correct the glitches that have been found.

 

--Larry

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But even you like only "most of the changes". What are the changes, you don't like?

I will never be 100% happy with any Web site, or any thing. At this point, any quibbles I would have are totally trivial and unimportant. We have enough people nitpicking the new design to death; they don't need me piling on.

 

--Larry

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Personally, I would just like to go back to the way it was. It looked just fine. Change for change's sake is never good. This version is too flat. There is not enough contrast between caches that I've found, and the ones that I haven't found, and the caches I own.

Edited by Dwoodford
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FWIW, I didn't notice the font size change, but that's because the old site tried to specify fonts that were smaller than my browsers' minimum font size settings. The new site may be doing the same thing, AFAIK. (I tried to sort out the style sheets, but given the CSS errors, I gave up.)

 

Ideally, the site would respect the browser's configured font sizes, which should satisfy both those who think its current font size is too big and those who think its current font size is too small.

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Regarding the visual issues only.

 

Raise your hand if you agree with me.

 

I would like to know if TPTB are reading what we are writing and:

 

a.) plan on making some more visual changes to address our concerns

b.) don't plan on making visual changes based on our concerns

 

OR

 

If TPTB aren't reading our concerns

 

OR

 

If TPTB really don't care whether or not we like the visual changes.

 

To which should I raise my fin??? :unsure: Feel sort of like the forgotten stepchild here... But I guess that cosmetic changes are not as important as fixing major screw-ups. It's good to see some color coming back. The all white was glaring. But it still looks like a bad Excel spreadsheet. It used to be friendly. It's still glaring, like waiting in the emergency room, rather than invited to someone's living room.

How's this for ugly???

e55e028f-f41e-470b-aa1e-066623b1f419.jpg

There used to be room for two TB icons next to the cache icon. But now they go on different levels. Maybe if they eliminated that blank line between 'miles' and 'icons'? And nothing lines up. D/T is a level down, unless there are three icons, in which case it is several levels down.

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Why invest a lot of time to replace the previous good layout with this ugly one? That is one thing I don't understand. I have noticed though that performance of the site seem to have improved. Is the new design a necessary evil to make it possible to move to a platform with higher performance?

 

On the other hand, why not use the scarce resources to implement stuff that users have asked for again and again instead of making the layout worse? Like including all image links on a cache page in GPX files so that people can download spoiler images without having to scrape the site. This is something that was promised to happen back in 2006, and now it is 2010 and it hasn't happened. Other much sought for stuff are an Android app, a windows mobile app, a better java app than GCLive etc etc.

 

iller

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I wonder if the changes were made to improve the looks on an iphone? I know at least one prominent geocacher that uses an iphone, maybe that drove the changes.

 

Everything looks great on my iPhone. I am also one that doesn't really mind the new layout. Had one issue and it was solved.

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In my opinion, there is too much unnecessary spacing and too much line wrapping. I can live with the former if I absolutely must, but the latter is driving me nuts.

 

I really dislike the use of yours instead of my/mine.

 

The hint should be immediately below its header - the decryption key should not be between the two.

 

I agree with what others have asked, I would like to know the reason behind these changes.

 

I guess all-in-all, to me the site looks much less professional than it did prior to the roll out.

 

Ken

 

 

(Edited to add the comment about the hint.)

Edited by GeoKen
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(Reposted from the original thread, since it was closed right as I posted this, and this is more relevant here anyway)

 

I also want to voice my concern not only about the Mine/Your issue (it really should be the old way of "My/Mine"), but also that the extra padding/leading/line height/cell width is so overblown as to make much of the site not only much more difficult to navigate because you have to scroll around much more, but also much more difficult to read. I actually have trouble reading the text, and often times, there are HUGE gaps on the page where there should be none (see GCZGXM). Additionally, it seems like there is much less smaller-sized font (9 pt?), such that everything is overly large and difficult to read. I mean, do the log listings for the past 30 days on our profile pages really have to be in a font that large?? And the puffed-up padding in the line spacing actually makes the text all over the site more difficult to read, not easier or cleaner. Honestly, I find this to be absolutely terrible.

 

I refuse to accept the easy answer that the site redesign has to be this way because of internationalization -- I have never seen a site that looks anything like this, and I'm sure there are thousands of sites I have come across that cater to an international crowd, taking into account language differences. In fact, many of the "whitespace" issues that were supposedly to help support other languages such as the often longer words in German, were actually posted by GERMAN geocachers with screen captures containing all German words that are also overly whitespaced.

 

I am an ardent surfer of the web and I have been for nearly 20 years since its inception, and I have been studying the design of sites since the very beginning (and often designing my own). Honestly, next to Facebook's recent GUI overhaul, I have never seen a site more poorly redesigned. And frankly, I'm fully expecting this site to do the same thing that Facebook did and simply *ignore* all these comments and do whatever they want. It's always easier to apologize than to ask permission, right? :unsure:

 

Don't get me wrong, though -- I truly do love this site's functionality! It has an overall simple site map, and while not perfect, it is very usable. And while I absolutely wouldn't mind a redesign, this particular attempt is clearly going in a backwards direction, making the site look more like circa 1995 versus 2010 and beyond. If you could please add me to the list of paying customers who do not like the redesign, I would very much appreciate it. Thanks.

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Interesting observation. One of my friends has a wide monitor and surprise, surprise, most of the format changes look good on it. But, on my square monitor they look like crap.

 

Do you suppose that the changes were checked out on a wide monitor?

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It's been said above, but the point of this thread is to show the breadth of dissatisfaction as much as highlight the specific issues. I am in agreement with the points made above regarding choice of type, spacing and page layout.

 

The excessive leading (line spacing) bothers me most. It doesn't serve any purpose and it makes using the pages far more time consuming.

 

The change from My to Your is also troubling. It suggests that you do not care about the customer. I'm sure you don't care, beyond receiving our subscription payments, but it is customary for a company to create the illusion that the customer matters, and a common way to do this is to present the web pages from the customer's point of view, ie. My and Mine, as opposed to presenting from the company view, ie. Your and Yours.

Edited by tlap
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But even you like only "most of the changes". What are the changes, you don't like?

I will never be 100% happy with any Web site, or any thing. At this point, any quibbles I would have are totally trivial and unimportant. We have enough people nitpicking the new design to death; they don't need me piling on.

 

--Larry

That pretty much sums me up as well. Could some things be better, yes, but that's true of any web page and I sure like my account page's layout a whole lot better than it was. At least I can find things now.

 

Maps? rarely use them, but they work with Firefox so I'm good.

 

Stuff not working with IE6? Get a clue people, join the 21st century...oh, your playing at work?...no sympathy from me.

 

White space? Wrapping text? Different fonts? does any of that prevent you from using a PQ or downloading a GPS/LOC file so you can go out and cache? I doubt it.

 

Someone in a thread asked 'why not do the things people are asking for?'...I'll give you a reason, because no matter what Groundspeak does someone will say it's not good enough or it's different than before, and CHANGE IT BACK!!! Why should they do anything except what they want to do?

 

Leave them alone and let them get the site to where they want it to be...it'll all work out in the end.

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But even you like only "most of the changes". What are the changes, you don't like?

I will never be 100% happy with any Web site, or any thing. At this point, any quibbles I would have are totally trivial and unimportant. We have enough people nitpicking the new design to death; they don't need me piling on.

 

--Larry

That pretty much sums me up as well. Could some things be better, yes, but that's true of any web page and I sure like my account page's layout a whole lot better than it was. At least I can find things now.

 

Maps? rarely use them, but they work with Firefox so I'm good.

 

Stuff not working with IE6? Get a clue people, join the 21st century...oh, your playing at work?...no sympathy from me.

 

White space? Wrapping text? Different fonts? does any of that prevent you from using a PQ or downloading a GPS/LOC file so you can go out and cache? I doubt it.

 

Someone in a thread asked 'why not do the things people are asking for?'...I'll give you a reason, because no matter what Groundspeak does someone will say it's not good enough or it's different than before, and CHANGE IT BACK!!! Why should they do anything except what they want to do?

 

Leave them alone and let them get the site to where they want it to be...it'll all work out in the end.

 

Obviously a beta tester. Only a few seem to like the changes or are just happy to accept them as they are. If I had an agenda with Groundspeak or beta tested this site I'd defend to the hilt to.

 

How can anyone like the spacing? It is very hard to read and won't fit most computer screens properly. So everyone should pony up the money and go buy a wide screen monitor? Unfortunately, not everyone will or can afford to have the top of the line equipment or care about having the latest software upgrades all the time on every pc/mac they use. The pages worked on all the different versions before so why change it to this? And don't even say it because of the next version(2.0)...I've been hearing that crap for 2 years.

Edited by Shilo
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Obviously a beta tester. Only a few seem to like the changes or are just happy to accept them as they are. If I had an agenda with Groundspeak or beta tested this site I'd defend to the hilt to.

I wasn't a beta tester, and I have absolutely no "agenda with Groundspeak", whatever that means. What's my reason for approving of the new site design?

 

And on what basis can you claim that "only a few seem to like the changes"? I'm guessing that there are a whole lot of people who like the new design, and simply don't care to participate in this gripefest. Besides, only a small minority of geocachers ever visit these forums. I don't remember reading that anyone has taken any sort of poll of the general population of cachers.

 

--Larry

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Obviously a beta tester. Only a few seem to like the changes or are just happy to accept them as they are. If I had an agenda with Groundspeak or beta tested this site I'd defend to the hilt to.

I wasn't a beta tester, and I have absolutely no "agenda with Groundspeak", whatever that means. What's my reason for approving of the new site design?

 

And on what basis can you claim that "only a few seem to like the changes"? I'm guessing that there are a whole lot of people who like the new design, and simply don't care to participate in this gripefest. Besides, only a small minority of geocachers ever visit these forums. I don't remember reading that anyone has taken any sort of poll of the general population of cachers.

 

--Larry

 

Oh come on...the spacing issue is fine with you?? What use to be 'My Logs' on 'My Profile' use to fit on one line and now it has huge white spaces of nothing between them. Very hard to find something quickly and hard on the eyes. I'm not an AARP member or teenager but its very hard to read this for very long.

 

And yes, of all the posts I read only a few like it. You're right with the point if they like it they probably won't post here on the forums.

 

Only the same few people(you excluded) always praise the updates no matter how bad and terrible they are. I usually keep quiet about them but this spacing thing is horrible. The site looked professional before and now looks cartoonish. And the more I look at the site, I don't like Yours or Your over My and Mine. Just seems less personal to me.

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I find the new design to be less pleasing than the old one. The line wrapping drives me crazy. When I look at my logs from the last 30 days I can't believe there wasn't a way to get "Visit Log" to fit on a single line.

 

I'm not surprised many people are voicing frustration over this. Anytime a change is made people will tend to hate it at first and then grow to accept it over time. We'll see what happens here I guess.

 

Take a look at some of the old designs like this one: http://web.archive.org/web/20010630111026/...geocaching.com/ I wonder if I searched the forums if people hated it when that design went away too, even though I am sure no one would want that design now.

 

It was only after I saw this change did I realize how little time I spend on the site -- my queries come in the mail, I load them into GSAK and I go caching. So, while I may not like the changes they have hardly impacted my usability of the site.

 

Like many others though, I'm more worried about why resources were put into this change than adding some of the useful features we have been asking for for years. There must be a good business reason, I just don't know what it is.

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But even you like only "most of the changes". What are the changes, you don't like?

I will never be 100% happy with any Web site, or any thing. At this point, any quibbles I would have are totally trivial and unimportant. We have enough people nitpicking the new design to death; they don't need me piling on.

 

--Larry

That pretty much sums me up as well. Could some things be better, yes, but that's true of any web page and I sure like my account page's layout a whole lot better than it was. At least I can find things now.

 

Maps? rarely use them, but they work with Firefox so I'm good.

 

Stuff not working with IE6? Get a clue people, join the 21st century...oh, your playing at work?...no sympathy from me.

 

White space? Wrapping text? Different fonts? does any of that prevent you from using a PQ or downloading a GPS/LOC file so you can go out and cache? I doubt it.

 

Someone in a thread asked 'why not do the things people are asking for?'...I'll give you a reason, because no matter what Groundspeak does someone will say it's not good enough or it's different than before, and CHANGE IT BACK!!! Why should they do anything except what they want to do?

 

Leave them alone and let them get the site to where they want it to be...it'll all work out in the end.

 

Obviously a beta tester. Only a few seem to like the changes or are just happy to accept them as they are. If I had an agenda with Groundspeak or beta tested this site I'd defend to the hilt to.

 

How can anyone like the spacing? It is very hard to read and won't fit most computer screens properly. So everyone should pony up the money and go buy a wide screen monitor? Unfortunately, not everyone will or can afford to have the top of the line equipment or care about having the latest software upgrades all the time on every pc/mac they use. The pages worked on all the different versions before so why change it to this? And don't even say it because of the next version(2.0)...I've been hearing that crap for 2 years.

BZZZZZZZZTTTTTT....nope, not a "beta tester"...try again.

 

Did I say I liked the spacing? No, but do I care...also a NO...and I use a Laptop, not a 'widescreen monitor' so you might want to reign it in a bit but I doubt you will. Spacing means nothing to me.

 

I use the site to download PQs and I really don't give a dadgum if there's "extra white space" that I may have to scroll through to see logs or what ever, nor do I care how the CO may want to format their page. If I had a say, I'd say don't allow any HTML at all and just list the page...but some don't agree with me, surprising isn't it?

 

As for 'stuff working 2 years ago but not now', if your bank all of a sudden decided to change their page after 2 years and you didn't like it, do you really think they would 'change it back' because of you? :rolleyes:

Edited by mtn-man
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Obviously a beta tester. Only a few seem to like the changes or are just happy to accept them as they are. If I had an agenda with Groundspeak or beta tested this site I'd defend to the hilt to.

I wasn't a beta tester, and I have absolutely no "agenda with Groundspeak", whatever that means. What's my reason for approving of the new site design?

 

And on what basis can you claim that "only a few seem to like the changes"? I'm guessing that there are a whole lot of people who like the new design, and simply don't care to participate in this gripefest. Besides, only a small minority of geocachers ever visit these forums. I don't remember reading that anyone has taken any sort of poll of the general population of cachers.

 

--Larry

 

Oh come on...the spacing issue is fine with you?? What use to be 'My Logs' on 'My Profile' use to fit on one line and now it has huge white spaces of nothing between them. Very hard to find something quickly and hard on the eyes. I'm not an AARP member or teenager but its very hard to read this for very long.

 

And yes, of all the posts I read only a few like it. You're right with the point if they like it they probably won't post here on the forums.

 

Only the same few people(you excluded) always praise the updates no matter how bad and terrible they are. I usually keep quiet about them but this spacing thing is horrible. The site looked professional before and now looks cartoonish. And the more I look at the site, I don't like Yours or Your over My and Mine. Just seems less personal to me.

History proves that those that agree won't say anything (with few exceptions)...only those that disagree will complain. Welcome to the minority.

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Interesting observation. One of my friends has a wide monitor and surprise, surprise, most of the format changes look good on it. But, on my square monitor they look like crap.

 

Do you suppose that the changes were checked out on a wide monitor?

I think that may be true. In which case I can't blame the designer, but I can blame the management who didn't give him/her the requirement that this had to work on a variety of different sized monitors using a variety of browsers. You'd think having done this several times before, Groundspeak management would have learned that you can't make format changes to the website and not checkout how this effects a variety of user configurations. Apparently they have a small group of "beta" testers all of whom are using the latest version of the browsers and who mostly have large screens. The also don't have a testbed of cache pages and profiles that are likely to cause problems, so the beta testers look at a few simple caches pages and profiles and don't find any problem. And finally the beta testers were probably told to check functionality only so when they saw something that were slightly out of place or that looked a little weird, they didn't report those problems.

 

It was about time for some changes to be made in the display of the website. While old timers don't have much problem finding their way around, just look at some of the questions in the Getting Started section. People can't find links to maps, how to use the print friendly view of the page, or even how to log the cache once they have found it. Some of the rearrangement of the pages makes sense if you think "If I had never seen a geocache page before could I figure out how to use it to get a map or to log my find?" Even the controversial My/Your change makes some sense. A newbie who hasn't posted a profile before may see My Profile and wonder how Geocaching.com could be creating a profile of them. "Your profile" seems to indicate that this is a place where they can put in something about themselves. (They may also discover that Groundspeak is keeping a record of which cache they have found that anyone can see. Maybe the real reason for the change is to stop all the threads asking for the ability to hide my profile).

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...

It was about time for some changes to be made in the display of the website. While old timers don't have much problem finding their way around, just look at some of the questions in the Getting Started section. People can't find links to maps, how to use the print friendly view of the page, or even how to log the cache once they have found it. Some of the rearrangement of the pages makes sense if you think "If I had never seen a geocache page before could I figure out how to use it to get a map or to log my find?" Even the controversial My/Your change makes some sense. A newbie who hasn't posted a profile before may see My Profile and wonder how Geocaching.com could be creating a profile of them. "Your profile" seems to indicate that this is a place where they can put in something about themselves. (They may also discover that Groundspeak is keeping a record of which cache they have found that anyone can see. Maybe the real reason for the change is to stop all the threads asking for the ability to hide my profile).

Spot on!

I tried to introduce geocaching to a slightly hesitant friend who kind of liked the idea of discovering nice places with geocaching but didn't really care about GPS technology and similar stuff. It was hard for me to convince her to log her visits on the site, but when I sent her a mail with URL:s to all the caches she had found, she tried to log. I say try, because she somehow managed to log one cache but then she couldn't remember how she had done that gave up. She still hasn't come back to the site to log her finds.

Maybe she will never be a real geocacher but I still think it is sad that the site was not intuitive enough to make it possible for her to log her finds.

 

Where is the big button that says "I found this cache and want to register my find on the site!". Well it isn't. In the upper right corner there is a box called "Navigation" where you are supposed to know that you should click on "log your visit" and that this doesn't mean that you will log your visit to the web page but actually register the cache as found. I think the main problem for my friend was that the Navigation box didn't show because she had not maximized the window and she would have to scroll to see it.

 

Changing basic stuff like this would be good things to do. Not making very strange layout changes that don't really make it easier for beginners to find their way around the site.

 

iller

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Name calling and accusations aren't helping anything. Please keep it civil.

 

I have noticed that there are a small few concerns that are being "fixed" along the way. Maybe we are being listened to.

 

I remember a while ago, when I was involved in another website, there were similar concerns when design changes were implimented. The design changes "were necessary" in the implimentation of new "software". Well, I was very vocal on the changes because it was apparant that there was ONE programmer that had his own design idea and was forcing it upon the owners of the site who were basically clueless as to how the site software worked. The owner of the site kept defending the programmer while he was changing all the design elements, saying they "were necessary".

 

Over time it became obvious that the programmer was making changes that were designed to keep the site under his control. Basically he was putting the site owners over a barrel and, all of a suden, out of the blue, the programmer demanded part ownership. Yup, he had succeeded in his plan. The fallout was horrible and the site went down in flames.

 

Whenever I hear "these changes are necessary for the implimentation of new software", I am reminded of this incident. Design elements rarely need to be changed due to software changes.

 

When you have 3-4 million users who use your site, the last thing that should be done is to impliment design changes without fully exploring the effect on the members. Unfortunately bull was let loose in the china shop and all that can be done is to sit back and see if its cleaned up.

 

 

For the person, above, whose cache pages were mucked up due to "changes", Your pages do look like garbage now. I feel your pain.

 

Groundspeak staff who are reading this thread. Please take note that there are a few new forum posters who came here just to say they hate the new design. It has to be pretty bad if its going to draw new people into the forums for just that reason.

 

Please give a little more attention to the design elements, please.

 

 

P.S. I just looked at the My/Yours thing that people are complaining about. I don't like it either. In fact, i don't think I've seen one person who said they preferred it this way.

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...

Someone in a thread asked 'why not do the things people are asking for?'...I'll give you a reason, because no matter what Groundspeak does someone will say it's not good enough or it's different than before, and CHANGE IT BACK!!! Why should they do anything except what they want to do?

...

Leave them alone and let them get the site to where they want it to be...it'll all work out in the end.

I think you have totally missed the point here. Most people who have asked the question 'why not do the things people are asking for?' are not saying that Groundspeak should ask users exactly how they would like the layout of the site and make it that way. They are concerned that Groundspeak uses the (scarce?) development resources they have to do totally unnecessary and unwanted layout changes instead of adding functionality that is much asked for, e.g. geocaching apps for mobile phones with Android OS, Windows Mobile OS. Or make it possible to download spoiler pictures to your GPS without violating the TOU. Or add functionality to PQ:s to make them work like they should (e.g. instant instead of being delivered after a lengthy delay). That would make sense to invest development resources on. But it seems that Groundspeak is not simple interested and instead they let some (inexperienced?) developers spend a lot of resources to make unneccesary layout changes.

 

I have just introduced geocaching to a friend. He is still surprised that users are willingly accepting to submit caches to a company that don't allow anyone to access the database. He basically thinks this is wrong and must be changed. I told him about opencaching.se that is just starting up in Sweden and he was very interested and would check it out. Today be said a very wise thing: "If we acutally allow a company to keep the database of geocaches we create, the company must be friendly to the users and not work against them in any way". Unfortunately I think that Groundspeak has forgot about this.

 

iller

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"If we acutally allow a company to keep the database of geocaches we create, the company must be friendly to the users and not work against them in any way". Unfortunately I think that Groundspeak has forgot about this.

 

iller

 

Interesting take on things.

 

Oddly, I find myself agreeing wholeheartedly

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P.S. I just looked at the My/Yours thing that people are complaining about. I don't like it either. In fact, i don't think I've seen one person who said they preferred it this way.

 

Ok, I'll bite. I wasn't sure how I felt about this change yet, although I couldn't see what people were talking about when they say it's offensive. :rolleyes: Anyway, I did a bunch of stuff on the site today, and after using it for a bit, I have to say that I really like the "yours" thing. "My" always seemed bland, never caught my eye. For some reason, I guess the way my brain thinks, "yours" catches my eye and sticks out to me. I guess in my thinking, this isn't my website. I'm perusing the site, sharing it with others, etc. Then, I want to check out the stuff that has to do with me, so the site is saying to me, here is "YOUR STUFF".

 

:anibad:

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P.S. I just looked at the My/Yours thing that people are complaining about. I don't like it either. In fact, i don't think I've seen one person who said they preferred it this way.

 

Ok, I'll bite. I wasn't sure how I felt about this change yet, although I couldn't see what people were talking about when they say it's offensive. :rolleyes: Anyway, I did a bunch of stuff on the site today, and after using it for a bit, I have to say that I really like the "yours" thing. "My" always seemed bland, never caught my eye. For some reason, I guess the way my brain thinks, "yours" catches my eye and sticks out to me. I guess in my thinking, this isn't my website. I'm perusing the site, sharing it with others, etc. Then, I want to check out the stuff that has to do with me, so the site is saying to me, here is "YOUR STUFF".

 

:anibad:

 

Did they offer you a platinum membership to say that?

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...

Someone in a thread asked 'why not do the things people are asking for?'...I'll give you a reason, because no matter what Groundspeak does someone will say it's not good enough or it's different than before, and CHANGE IT BACK!!! Why should they do anything except what they want to do?

...

Leave them alone and let them get the site to where they want it to be...it'll all work out in the end.

I think you have totally missed the point here. Most people who have asked the question 'why not do the things people are asking for?' are not saying that Groundspeak should ask users exactly how they would like the layout of the site and make it that way. They are concerned that Groundspeak uses the (scarce?) development resources they have to do totally unnecessary and unwanted layout changes instead of adding functionality that is much asked for, e.g. geocaching apps for mobile phones with Android OS, Windows Mobile OS. Or make it possible to download spoiler pictures to your GPS without violating the TOU. Or add functionality to PQ:s to make them work like they should (e.g. instant instead of being delivered after a lengthy delay). That would make sense to invest development resources on. But it seems that Groundspeak is not simple interested and instead they let some (inexperienced?) developers spend a lot of resources to make unneccesary layout changes.

 

iller

No, I haven't 'missed the point'. I could care less what what Groundspeak uses their resources for...be it iPhone, Android, Wherigo, site redesign or naked hot tub parties on weekends. I'm saying it's their site and they can do what they want. Just because you and others think something is "unnecessary' doesn't mean it's not part of some plan down the road.

 

Personally, I think the iPhone app was a good idea with the first release, but each subsequent release has diminished the experiment. There's no need for all that functionality in my mind, I think you should visit the website to log the cache... but the people in the iPhone forum will disagree with me.

 

As for PQs, I've no idea what you are talking about. I submit a PQ request, I get it within minutes. If you are talking about "scheduled" PQs, then you are keeping an offline DB which are officially not supported and how can you expect GS to support them?

 

Rant all you want, neither you or I will influence what they do unless it serves their purpose.

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P.S. I just looked at the My/Yours thing that people are complaining about. I don't like it either. In fact, i don't think I've seen one person who said they preferred it this way.

 

Ok, I'll bite. I wasn't sure how I felt about this change yet, although I couldn't see what people were talking about when they say it's offensive. :anibad: Anyway, I did a bunch of stuff on the site today, and after using it for a bit, I have to say that I really like the "yours" thing. "My" always seemed bland, never caught my eye. For some reason, I guess the way my brain thinks, "yours" catches my eye and sticks out to me. I guess in my thinking, this isn't my website. I'm perusing the site, sharing it with others, etc. Then, I want to check out the stuff that has to do with me, so the site is saying to me, here is "YOUR STUFF".

 

:D

 

Did they offer you a platinum membership to say that?

She's already got one... :rolleyes:

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P.S. I just looked at the My/Yours thing that people are complaining about. I don't like it either. In fact, i don't think I've seen one person who said they preferred it this way.

 

Ok, I'll bite. I wasn't sure how I felt about this change yet, although I couldn't see what people were talking about when they say it's offensive. :rolleyes: Anyway, I did a bunch of stuff on the site today, and after using it for a bit, I have to say that I really like the "yours" thing. "My" always seemed bland, never caught my eye. For some reason, I guess the way my brain thinks, "yours" catches my eye and sticks out to me. I guess in my thinking, this isn't my website. I'm perusing the site, sharing it with others, etc. Then, I want to check out the stuff that has to do with me, so the site is saying to me, here is "YOUR STUFF".

 

:anibad:

 

Did they offer you a platinum membership to say that?

 

:D Wot Allanon said...I already have one.

 

But, it was part of the contract that I had to sign, to periodically say nice things about Groundspeak.....

 

Oh, NO! It's the black helicopters!

 

I can see the men in labcoats coming!!!!! Tell mom that I love her!

 

Ahhhggggg...........................gurgle

 

.

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Not a fan at all of the visual changes. But the worst thing of all is the cache pages no longer load properly on my phone. Yeah, I'm using old technology (Palm OS/Blazer) but the old website worked quite nicely and now it's not usable at all. If this doesn't get fixed I will definitely be canceling my premium membership. Yeah, there's the WAP site, but so much info is missing going in that way.

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Why is there an inch-wide (+-) column of white space between (main content) and (Navigation / attributes / Inventory / etc.)?

 

You're squeezing the fruits of our creativity (our cache listings) into smaller and smaller spaces.

 

Yes, I have a wide monitor.

No, I never maximize my browser.

 

At my normal browser width, the content in this page is struggling for space to lay itself out.

 

Can I have that inch of space back please?

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< snip

Whenever I hear "these changes are necessary for the implimentation of new software", I am reminded of this incident. Design elements rarely need to be changed due to software changes.

 

When you have 3-4 million users who use your site, the last thing that should be done is to impliment design changes without fully exploring the effect on the members. Unfortunately bull was let loose in the china shop and all that can be done is to sit back and see if its cleaned up.

 

<snip?

 

For the person, above, whose cache pages were mucked up due to "changes", Your pages do look like garbage now. I feel your pain.

<snip>

 

I'm also skeptical that the changes where needed for internationalization, but then again perhaps Klingon requires lots of white space. Perhaps they have to completely redo all the pages for the effort and decided just for grins they will try a new layout. Thankfully being a FireFox user I was able to make a reasonable looking site. But there were some changes they could make on the layout. One question that keeps coming up is how to log my find. Perhaps some effort to redesign the nav bar would have been better.

 

As for the mucked up cache pages (and profile pages), announcing the changes a couple weeks in advance with a "whats changing" and possible impacts to your cache pages would probably have helped calmed many of the complaints. One cache owner posted links to his cache pages and pointed out what exactly is wrong. Raine did tell him exactly what he needed to do to restore the pages to the previous state. I think a prior announcement of changes coming and impacts and cures would have helped immensely.

 

Jim

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...

Someone in a thread asked 'why not do the things people are asking for?'...I'll give you a reason, because no matter what Groundspeak does someone will say it's not good enough or it's different than before, and CHANGE IT BACK!!! Why should they do anything except what they want to do?

...

Leave them alone and let them get the site to where they want it to be...it'll all work out in the end.

I think you have totally missed the point here. Most people who have asked the question 'why not do the things people are asking for?' are not saying that Groundspeak should ask users exactly how they would like the layout of the site and make it that way. They are concerned that Groundspeak uses the (scarce?) development resources they have to do totally unnecessary and unwanted layout changes instead of adding functionality that is much asked for, e.g. geocaching apps for mobile phones with Android OS, Windows Mobile OS. Or make it possible to download spoiler pictures to your GPS without violating the TOU. Or add functionality to PQ:s to make them work like they should (e.g. instant instead of being delivered after a lengthy delay). That would make sense to invest development resources on. But it seems that Groundspeak is not simple interested and instead they let some (inexperienced?) developers spend a lot of resources to make unneccesary layout changes.

 

iller

No, I haven't 'missed the point'. I could care less what what Groundspeak uses their resources for...be it iPhone, Android, Wherigo, site redesign or naked hot tub parties on weekends. I'm saying it's their site and they can do what they want. Just because you and others think something is "unnecessary' doesn't mean it's not part of some plan down the road.

 

Personally, I think the iPhone app was a good idea with the first release, but each subsequent release has diminished the experiment. There's no need for all that functionality in my mind, I think you should visit the website to log the cache... but the people in the iPhone forum will disagree with me.

 

As for PQs, I've no idea what you are talking about. I submit a PQ request, I get it within minutes. If you are talking about "scheduled" PQs, then you are keeping an offline DB which are officially not supported and how can you expect GS to support them?

 

Rant all you want, neither you or I will influence what they do unless it serves their purpose.

One other thing I should say...maybe two...

 

No, I don't work for them...

 

and I have no idea what their plans are, but I'm 100% sure it's designed for our pleasure and enjoyment and use, no matter what you may think.

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