delicious support forum - What do you dislike about the new design?:

-nettie: the UI is horrible. It is not designed for easy scanning of lots of links----in other words for the people who use this professionally. This used to be a significant research tool for me. Now its nearly useless. I was using it a great deal this summer on a book project, and yesterday in the middle of work, suddenly the whole thing "broke."
The whole screen is less easy to read because of clutter and spacing. There seems to be duplicate information at every turn (esp. at the top of the page). The look is not "sophisticated," it is bland, monochromatic (which the old one was a fair amount too, but it never overwhelmed me because of the warmth of the pink yes) and the icons, especially that face thing are just ugly. Corporate, not: sophisticate, professional, friendly, useful, etc.
I appreciate the work put into expanding search feature and other new things, but the re-design of the UI is a huge FAIL as I think is evidenced overwhelmingly by the comments from users. I also appreciate the quick responses in the threads (Britta) and email yesterday.
nice to note Britta's efforts in replying, keeping upbeat tone. 350 replies or so. I've seen a few replies fr other dlcs team members now, but far & away mostly her dealing w ppl. (her replies came fast & thorough at the beginning of the threads, then disappeared ~ overwhelmed probably)
But I don't appreciate the "we can't change it back" attitude that was parroted after ppl were asking for options to use the classic UI and other requests.
and well I think they really mean that they can't. which, I guess, must not be strictly true but I am imagining that they changed the whole 'back end' in such a way that going back is not possible. would be best if sth said about this, explaining, so ppl do not feel that they are just being told No to sth seeminly simple that so many ppl want.
I'm curious why so many changes were made to the UI and what the rationale was. It strikes me the designers had little understanding of how people use de.licio.us (and I can live with the new domain name, but I think its a loss on many levels).

-totally redesigning the look of a site and changing the domain, even by way of punctuation, is really jeopardizing the brand loyalty of your users, many of whom are tech-savy and use a great deal of programs and services to integrate with your site, like Fluid for example, where the thumbnails feature now doesn't work for your page.

-I originally chose this site over others BECAUSE of it's simple, stark design... I loved it then, I miss it now. I think the old visual design was REALLY strong. I don't like the new look, it is hard to read and too cluttered...I feel like I have to squint, between all the white and greys.. Also, I preferred the old shade of blue. I don't mind any of the other changes, but the visual stuff has got me down and may be a dealbreaker for my continued usage of this site.

-The old version was quite simple in its design and my eyes knew exactly where to look for specific points of information; the new version has too many visual distractions (top 10 tags, etc). I liked the design on the older version much, much better. I agree with the folks who'd like to see the previous version be an alternative usage option.

-please, get rid of this visual disaster and give us our old del.icio.us back. you can even leave it up on the old domain, and not maintain it for all i care, and i'll still use the old one. i'm dismayed

-Reminds me of New Coke. where everyone preferred the 'classic'

-CLASSIC LOOK NOW!!! Also, my top 10 tags are not necessarily the tags with the most bookmarks. huh? how can that be? in wh sense 'top ten' if not most used? & every use is a bkmrk, so: most used tag = tag w most bkmrks.

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two ppl wh liked the aesthetics (good counter to those who immediately d n) & yet find new UI less usable:

-kccdc: I love del.icio.us. And my first impression of the redesign was that it looked slick, much better than the original. That said, I think I'm slowly changing my mind based on how I realize I use Del.icio.us.

-agree with many of the comments about usability issues. Actually, contrary to the many naysayers, I actually *like* the visual look of the new design-- I think it's pretty sharp. So, I would rate the visual appeal of delicious.com's new design perhaps 8/10. But since it seems to affect usability substantially by scanning poorly and therefore being less readable , I would rate the overall redesign a 4.5/10. On many sites, being able to quickly see and scan links is not vital. But here, it's really the whole point, isn't it?

...
-I'm having a hard time seeing/reading the site now. I'm middle-aged and my eyes just don't like the colors scheme, or rather, all the gray and lack of contrast. The darkish gray on light gray in various locations has me straining to read the text, and the font for most of the text, despite being black, doesn't show up as readable against gray as it does against white.
It doesn't matter how nice a site looks if it's hard to read.
I love delicious, and have used it more and more, but I might go back to using it just to quick link to something so I can later see if I want to permanently add it to another location, ie my website, which is how I used to store links online. At least that way, I can organize as I see fit and set my own color and font options. yeah I was thinking of this... but I do also look at others' notes....

-I REALLY don't like the new method for managing tag bundles. In the old format I could easily manage multiple bundles from the same page, but now I have to go to the page to make changes to one bundle and then when I'm done with those changes I have to backtrack to the main bundle-managing page and select another bundle to edit and repeat until I'm done. Total hassle!

-Tab completion no longer works, tab takes you to another text field. The list of possible matches can only be selected from using the arrow keys or mouse. Clicking on tags to add them causes the page to scroll back up to the tag entry box. In short: adding new bookmarks is a royal pain unless you don't want to tag them. But what reason is there to bookmark them without tags? wasn't dlcs more or less *the* first to use (or popularize the idea of using) tags? the site th others followed. y wkp: "dlcs pioneered tagging"

-Adding tags is a royal pain both in bookmark add view and in bundling view.
The browser window keeps getting scrolled back up to the tag entry box whenever you click on a tag.
This is annoying for adding a bookmark but it's a killer on the bundling page.
Hope you don't want more than a dozen or so tags in a bundle because it'll take a while to add them otherwise.
Seriously, this was tested thoroughly? It doesn't feel like it. I'm pretty sure I'll find other annoyances the more I use it too.
--Not to mention the new "manage tags" function - it's simply unusable at all. If You have a lot of tags, and you add some to a bundle, with each click to add a tag to a bundle the page "jumps" up to the input box.
-When "managing" my tag bundles, there are two tags listed I don't use at all, 'pdf' and 'document'. These two tags appear about 4/5th down, instead of in their alphabetical place. yes I see this there also, along w 'audio' & other descriptors ~ types of page. it's ok since these do not show up on bookmarks page, only when bundling. just a bug I guess.

-the lines between bookmarks in bookmark title list could be erased to save screen space, and the tags should be shown there. int. how much of diff fr feel of old design has to do just those lines? separating the bkmrks into compartments. 'clean' 'boxy' -
-I resent the flow-breaking date column, but I could live with it if I had to. kind of helpful for me? but I have no flow reading the page now, and I'd rather have the old school just text: title - notes - tags.
-Less box. that was the advantage of the old design, simple and focusing on the important part

delicious support forum - hey! return the old delicious, this inconvenient
-This is a mass of chartjunk and bad fonts. chartjunk = the lines btw, date column.
-I just love the suggestion to put your tags in tag bundles (dlcs team m above told user to put tags in bundles in order to have show up on pop-up when adding a mark) , that's a time consuming process when you have a lot of tags. I've got 1288 tags not in bundles, and the new interface is basically forcing me to spend all that time to make sure they're all in bundles now? How about you give us an option to have all our unbundles tags appear as a virtual bundle named "untagged" or something instead? This worked before so it's a bit rude to expect your users to spend lots of time just to have the site work as good as it did before the "upgrade." Frankly this is a downgrade.
-I'd greasemonkey'd the CSS to make a number of personalized changes and had the account set up exactly perfect for me. This new version is both ugly, inconvenient, and less useful. They made tagging and bundling the tags harder, not easier. And getting rid of the the unbundled tag group just makes no sense. Complete downgrade.

-I'll agree with all the text issues mentioned above. The site is just more difficult to read now and, because it's a page of text, more difficult to use. The change that jumped out the most for me was moving the tags over to the right. Instead of being directly under the link, and being readable (the pinkish highlighting actually stood out), they are now separated by white space, and blend in with the sidebar. Even knowing that the tags are over there, they still don't register as part of the information that is presented. The tags are part of the information of the link, not a sidenote. I shouldn't have to actively visually hunt for the relevant tags. The monotone may be clean, but clean isn't always usable. I consider tags a major part of the site usability.
Speaking of the sidebar, why are my bundles now underneath my unsorted tags (all tags)? The tag sidebar organization before was much more usable and streamlined. The first thing in view should be the data set that has received additional & specific attention by the user, not the LAST portion. Generated statistics, like the top 10, should be at the end of a data index (as I obviously use it the tag list), not the beginning, like a data summary.
On the network & on popular links page too page, the person that posted the link has replaced the tags (directly underneath). To be perfectly frank, I don't care nearly as much about who posted a link as I do about the context that "somebody" posted it under. right. tags certainly more integral to the link, even if int in who posted it.

-Who thought it was a good idea to require _more_ clicks to get to things? A lot of energy went into this "upgrade" that could have gone into something useful, like better bookmark and tag management.

-Way too clunky when adding a new link:
1-Used to be, the cursor would land in the Notes box, and I only had then to tab once to get to the Tags box. Now I have to tab six times to get to the Tags box, or else use the mouse. Mouse slow, one tab fast....
2-Autocomplete:
Used to be: Tab once to get to the Tags box, type pho [both hands on keyboard] to get to the short list of "photography photoshop" with photography selected, tab once to select photography, press Return to save and exit.
Now: Tab six times to get to the Tags box, type pho [both hands on keyboard] to get to the short list of "photography photoshop" with nothing selected, move hand to mouse, click on photography, press Return which moves photography to the Tag list, press Return again to save and exit.
NOT NOT NOT an improvement. Please let me be one of your beta testers next time. 30 yrs working in Silicon Valley as a tech writer and UI tester! Seriously, you need to make sure that you're addressing all your users, and it seems that you've assumed that one interface (for the slow-typist and/or casual-user, or maybe just for the engineer who designed the system!) fits all. you need to have a variety of levels of user testers and types of user testers if you're going to start making "improvements" to an established system.

delicious support forum - What is wrong with the new version.
-I just want to echo the other sentiments. What I REALLY liked about del.icio.us was the fast bookmarking. I visited a site I liked, hit the "post to delicious button" saw the recommended tags, type a few letters, hit tab (rinse and repeat), post, done. I thought that the ease of use and simplicity were delicious' unique selling point and I do not understand why you changed those. I do like the new design, I just do not understand why it has to come with decreased functionality.
Is this the design that was in beta for a long time? Surely these issues (tab completion does not work and recommended/popular tags are gone) must have come up before? that's wh I am thinking. wld be int to read about their beta testing results & implementation. or maybe there really just was not any testing.

delicious support forum - Who else hates the new design? Parallel 1.0/2.0 perhaps?
-ntwilcox:
I think I understand what the delicious.com team is trying to do with the new look and feel, and I want to respect that. For starters, it does have kinda slick "web3.0" thing going on, and I think the new interface may attract some folks that were put off by the nerdy intensity of the old look. But I have to agree with other posters that for power-users, the "feel" is just not as clean as the old UI/UX.
If I only had a few dozen bookmarks to view, I would probably love this interface. It's the type of thing that I would recommend without hesitation to my parents.
But for librarians and IT workers-- the info-omnivores-- this new design does add some unnecessary visual clutter that gets in the way of rapidly reading and parsing the information that is so important to us.