Oi! LiveJournal! No!

[owl]

LJ are trying out the beta (at least, I hope it's the beta) of the new profile pages. Here's mine.

Now, I can live with the ugly. What I'm cross about is the lack of functionality. I like the box at the top, apart from the huge pixellated user graphic. However, the two columns are yukky and unfunctional. Perhaps if we all yell enough over at lj_design, they'll not implement it, or at least improve it, but I'm not optimistic.

• the important stuff—bio, interests, contact info—is all shoved away over to the right, with the flist occupying the more prominent left of the page.


• interests are right down in the bottom right corner! The first thing I, and a lot of other users, look for on an info page is what interests we have in common, so why is this now relegated to the least important position?


• mutual friends are no longer bolded in the friend-of list, while if you try to solve this by showing mutual friends


• 'mutual friends' and 'also friend of' lists are separated by the friends list


• in fact, it's now hard to distinguish between 'friended' and 'friend of' at first glance


• when viewing other user's pages, common friends are not bolded
seems to be a temporary bug

• users with more than 150 friends have their lists cut off, meaning that they have to use that stupid directory search with the default icons to see their entire flists


• why is a user's most recent school/university considered to be more important than an email address?


• too much info-light space at the top, neccessitating scrolling


• still no link to the tags list! There is a link to update journal instead, which is redundant as there's also one in the blue drop-down menu at the top of all LiveJournal pages


• bad HTML (eg tables without a closing tag) can break the page.

Come on, LJ. Bebo has better profile pages, for crying out loud. Even if an opt-out is put in place, it looks as though this will be the default, so we'll have to cope with all that scrolling whenever we visit other people's info pages.

The only good thing about it was that I discovered I had some bad HTML in my bio, making the page break at the contact info. How many of those bios full of colourbars have bad HTML that will break the vulnerable two-column style, and how many of those users are going to bother to fix it?

And while I'm bitching about LJ, please please please can we have an option to turn off the loathly icon-full results page as default in the directory search? Especially when you're trying to view someone's >150 friends. What's wrong with a plain list of usernames? More results fit on the page, it takes a quarter of the time to load, and you can't be offended by anyone's default userpic.

Comments

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I like the idea of the 'In Brief' box. I'm not hugely opposed to the two columns, even - I just think the implementation they've got at present is a bit rubbish, and that 'School' ought to be back down at the bottom or in the middle - putting it up at the top looks like they're marketing LJ as a site for teenagers.

I doubt I'm going anywhere either, to be honest, I expect I'll stay here and moan. :) Here is where my friends are, and you're such a diverse bunch that if you decamp you'll probably decamp in umpteen different directions, which would be less than ideal.

Incidentally, following links from lj_design took me to this (http://community.livejournal.com/lj_biz/236361.html?thread=7277897#t7277897). ('Out of interest, and if we're feeling particularly public spirited, can paid/perm members opt in to have ads if they want to give LJ extra revenue?' / 'Yes, and we're hoping to build a model that's so damn good you'll want to turn it on to see what neat things are being offered!')

[owl]

I like the idea of the 'In Brief' box.

Thank you *bows* Now if only the LJ design team agreed with you....

I'm not hugely opposed to the two columns, even - I just think the implementation they've got at present is a bit rubbish, and that 'School' ought to be back down at the bottom or in the middle - putting it up at the top looks like they're marketing LJ as a site for teenagers.

Yes, ditto to all that. Why is your school more important than your email or IM? Oh, apparently Six Apart have decided we're all teenagers:

LiveJournal has grown to be an amazing community of fiercely independent bloggers, primarily teenagers and twenty-somethings. Over the past seven years, that community has developed in both its scope and its need for powerful customization. We think that Vox will be a great choice for bloggers looking for a more turnkey environment that balances community and privacy.
Grrrr.


('Out of interest, and if we're feeling particularly public spirited, can paid/perm members opt in to have ads if they want to give LJ extra revenue?' / 'Yes, and we're hoping to build a model that's so damn good you'll want to turn it on to see what neat things are being offered!')

Yeah, right. If I'm logged out on a public computer or something, I make a point not to click on ads. I suppose they won't ditch it even if it doesn't get them much revenue, but it's the principle of the thing.

[ankaret.livejournal.com]

I don't really understand what 'turnkey' means as an adjective - I vaguely associate it with novels in which the eighteenth-century protagonist gets flung into Newgate.