Our Fresh New Look Is Here

nope- there is no white box on the right side. Am on my phone but didn’t see it on the computer either.

Is there any way to block that ad in the upper right hand corner? If we can’t totally block it, can we at least get it to stop moving?

I can tellyou what it does do - it allows you to reply, but the comment goes to the bottom of the thread.It does not quote the post to which you are replying nor does it place the reply immediately below. I guess it just saves scrolling down to the bottom of the page the post a comment. :confused:

Well especially since there is now a bunch of stuff below the reply box, scrolling to the bottom to respond is pointless.

AdBlock (free but you can donate if you like it) stops the upper right corner ad for me (on Mac).

Some websites refuse to display their contents if an ad blocker is active (or, sometimes, even just present). Website hosts are entitled to some revenues by running ads. If we all use ad blockers, CC may find necessary to block the ad blockers. That’s why I prefer to use browser features/extensions that only stop auto-play of videos and audios. But the best solution/compromise would be for CC to make ads less obtrusive and irritating to many users.

Hate it on iPhone. Haven’t yet tried computer or iPad but not expecting much!

Which is a reason I uninstalled adblock a while ago. Sadly, I had to reinstall it today.

The reply button (not to be confused with the reply box,) has been around a long time. It lets you reply to that post without flagging the poster (@.) New kids do it. And we cant tell to whom they’re responding, cuz, yep, the reply post sungls to the bottom, sequential order.
Could eliminate it. Yep.

It looks like the ad blocker I just installed on Chrome tonight due to that horrible video ad, allows it to be de-selected individually for access to websites. I’ll have to explore further but that’s what it looks like. Is the video and permanently gone? A few people have commented that it seems to have vanished but I have not yet uninstalled my ad blocker

@CCadmin_Sorin – you KNOW how important College Confidential Forums are to thousands and thousands of people. WE love these forums and learn so much; and so many wise people are here; and WE LOVE no politics or debates. ITS wonderful!

However, the actual forum look in this new format is a hot mess. They space is small. it is less than half of my monitor. The rest of my monitor is blank. The replies are not easily seen, they don’t spread across the page, but rather take up a small vertical space, and it’s hard to see other’s responses and thoughts easily. You have to scroll scroll scroll. And see 50% white space. What a waste of space. I could so easily read these if the topics spread across the screen rather than in a vertical column. I don’t get the rationale. Why would you change the thing people LOVE???

You can whitelist sites that complain with AdBlock.

The video ads (Princeton Review and others) are still there when I pause AdBlock.

The autoplay video is horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible. Why are you spamming that crap onto my screen? When longtime posters are trading ways to get the crap off our screens, it’s time for CC to get the crap off our screens.

Autoplay videos are garbage. They’re always garbage, everywhere.

Ironic that this improved mobile experience will drive me to use my tablet as uch as possible.

I suspect I use CC similar to other folks - I go to a forum that I’m interested in and browse the list of topics to see what I want to read.

Thanks to the Wayback Machine, I can pull up a version of the SAT Subject Tests Preparation forum from a month ago and compare it to the “fresh new look”
If I ignore the sticky threads that have been there forever, I used to be able to see 15 thread titles to browse and select from. Now, I see 4. Yes, this “improvement” has eliminated 73% of what I can see at a time.

Also thanks to the software, I can’t post the screen shots, but I’d be glad to share them with anyone on the UX team who wants to look.

Perhaps CC can just re-brand this new fresh design as a site where users can practice and refine their clicking and scrolling skills, because that’s all I seem to be doing.

p.s. - I love the gear icon, typically used for settings and adjustments, that has nothing but Dismiss as an option. The only thing I can do with Settings is dismiss the menu for Settings. Brilliant.

Agree - terrible layout, impossible to find sub-fora, generally makes me want to not come back.

Long time CC contributor here. I’m usually not adverse to change when it’s for the better, but I cannot stress how much this new format is unreadable. . . . so much so that I’m not even going to bother checking CC anymore. Who ever designed this mishegas – you’ve lost me!!!

Web developer here. Just the obvious issues I see:

  1. The font is way too light, needs more contrast for easy reading.
  2. Many have already commented on the annoying sticky video. It is very distracting and the fact you can’t stop it is very user-unfriendly. If something has to be sticky, it’s navigation - which isn’t.
  3. Navigation is confusing. Best practice is to put it on the top or the left side of the page. It can be OK to put it on the right, but only if it stand out and is clearly navigation. As it is, with exactly the same font it’s not at all obvious. Being covered with the sticky video doesn’t help. Also, forum categories are not well done, “College Admissions and Search” is too broad and not well organized. And it’s annoying you can’t easily get from one category to another.
  4. Yes, I know big font and lots of scrolling is the latest design fashion. However, it’s not really working well in the forums where people want to see more information at a glance, that’s why best-known forums like Stack Exchange stick with the smaller size font.