Forum usage survey (official)

[vanished]

To throw my input on the day vs night theme into the mix, lets look at the vote so far

 

Since a) some people use both, b) a significant voted for each, and c) since it helps maintain proper formatting, not just formatting that looks right, I think we should keep both.

 

Now, as for which should be default, I think we can probably agree it should be whichever is more popular.  For this I think we need to discount those who use both, as well as those who were unaware that it could be changed, since it's safe to say that those 273 people will probably run to either day, night, or both in the proportions we see already (answers 1 through 3).  I think this is a fair assumption since the sample size for those (294+447+53 votes) is fairly large.

 

To this end, we can say that 294 of (294 + 447) people chose day (39.7%) and 447 of (294 + 447) people chose night (60.3%).  Therefore night is more popular and should probably be the new default.

[dizmo]

2 hours ago, MoonSpot said:

Why?  56% of participants are night theme users, 37% day theme, and 7'ish % swing both ways.  Not including the blissfully unaware.

No one is saying you can't choose the "I need cataract surgery, but am sacred" day theme option.  Just go to the bottom and select it; not suggesting you no can has what you wants.  I'd personally prefer to not be assaulted in the eyes by day theme defaults when cookies are cleared and visiting from new devices.

Was that really needed to prove your point?

1 hour ago, MoonSpot said:

Really?  Okay..

291+440+53 = 784

291/784 = 37%

440/784 = 56%

53/784 = 6.8%

~60% isn't insignificant, but it's far from overwhelming.

59 minutes ago, MoonSpot said:

-snip-

Yea, I wasn't being entirely genuine there.  Did forget the /s.  But day theme does fricking hurt dude. 

All that aside the real issue is pasted text and colour formatting.  Day V knight fighting only comes up because of that.(having to scroll all the way to the bottom to switch is a pain, but a minor one)

That's the thing though. It hurts you. The night theme is actually what bothers my eyes. That's why we have options.

I'm surprised that text formatting is an issue, you'd think when someone thought of having 2 themes they'd have designed the rest of the features to work with either one.

26 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

To this end, we can say that 294 of (294 + 447) people chose day (39.7%) and 447 of (294 + 447) people chose night (60.3%).  Therefore night is more popular and should probably be the new default.

Would there be a way to change it during sign up as @Max_Settings suggested before?

Personally, if I'd come to the site and seen the dark theme I simply would have avoided it all together. It's that off putting.

(I know everyone's not me, but you get the point).

[vanished]

4 minutes ago, dizmo said:

~60% isn't insignificant, but it's far from overwhelming.

It's more than 50% though, and so if we ignore any irrational reason to hold on to the status quo and just look at which would please more people, assuming the forum was a brand new thing starting today, night should be default.

4 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Would there be a way to change it during sign up as @Max_Settings suggested before?

Personally, if I'd come to the site and seen the dark theme I simply would have avoided it all together. It's that off putting.

(I know everyone's not me, but you get the point).

You can change it at any time using the drop down at the bottom of any page when signed in, and that setting is remembered with your account so anywhere else you browse, it will be maintained, so I'm not entirely sure what extra thing you're suggesting...

[dalekphalm]

4 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

It's more than 50% though, and so if we ignore any irrational reason to hold on to the status quo and just look at which would please more people, assuming the forum was a brand new thing starting today, night should be default.

You can change it at any time using the drop down at the bottom of any page when signed in, and that setting is remembered with your account so anywhere else you browse, it will be maintained, so I'm not entirely sure what extra thing you're suggesting...

We're still making assumptions about usage.

 

I don't have direct stats, but I'd assume that the vast majority of "casual" users use the Day Theme.

 

Many of them use it because they didn't know there were options.

 

But how many use it because they like the Day Theme, and couldn't have been assed to even look to see if there were alternate options?

 

I wouldn't even be surprised if most of them haven't even seen this survey. If true, that could significantly skewer results towards Night Theme users, simply because they tend to be very active users that will be more likely to respond to a poll about their usage.

 

I simply think it needs to be an option upon sign-up, though I would prefer if the Day Theme was still the default selection.

 

Furthermore, they need to fix auto-formatting - fixing that would solve most people's grievances with the theme system (Which goes both ways - I've seen quite a few Night Theme news posts that are illegible in Day Theme).

[dizmo]

12 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

It's more than 50% though, and so if we ignore any irrational reason to hold on to the status quo and just look at which would please more people, assuming the forum was a brand new thing starting today, night should be default.

If it was a forced survey everyone had to do, sure I'd agree with that.
However it's not, and frankly a survey size of 1,067 when you have 430,000+ members (granted that's insanely inflated) is minuscule. Even if we went with a much more likely number, say 10,000 active, current members, that's only 10% of members accounted for.

[vanished]

4 minutes ago, dalekphalm said:

We're still making assumptions about usage.

 

I don't have direct stats, but I'd assume that the vast majority of "casual" users use the Day Theme.

 

Many of them use it because they didn't know there were options.

 

But how many use it because they like the Day Theme, and couldn't have been assed to even look to see if there were alternate options?

 

I wouldn't even be surprised if most of them haven't even seen this survey. If true, that could significantly skewer results towards Night Theme users, simply because they tend to be very active users that will be more likely to respond to a poll about their usage.

 

I simply think it needs to be an option upon sign-up, though I would prefer if the Day Theme was still the default selection.

 

Furthermore, they need to fix auto-formatting - fixing that would solve most people's grievances with the theme system (Which goes both ways - I've seen quite a few Night Theme news posts that are illegible in Day Theme).

 

Just now, dizmo said:

If it was a forced survey everyone had to do, sure I'd agree with that.
However it's not, and frankly a survey size of 1,067 when you have 430,000+ members (granted that's insanely inflated) is minuscule. Even if we went with a much more likely number, say 10,000 active, current members, that's only 10% of members accounted for.

 

Lets assume most people who didn't vote (ie, the remaining 430,000 or so ) are currently using day theme.  How many of them would vote differently given the choice though?  How many would care, and of those who do, how many would actively choose day or night?  Well, do we really believe that there is a strong, statistically significant correlation between those who are active and would vote, and those who prefer night theme?  Why would there be?

 

If there isn't - if people are just people and on average, any group of sufficient size would vote roughly the same - then we can say that the vote so far fairly represents all users.

I don't know for a fact if this is valid or not, and neither would anyone else without actually surveying all 431,000 or so people, but it seems logical to me.

 

But, regardless, lets throw that out just for the sake of argument, and assume that in fact there is a strong correlation between active members and night theme use.  Well, in that case, shouldn't we cater more to the main users rather than the people who just pop in for a post or two once a year?

[LienusLateTips]

7 hours ago, Redicat said:

what bar? there is a bar?

There is a bar at the top of the screen with your notifications and messages. If you scroll all the way to the top, a pin will appear.

[dalekphalm]

4 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

 

 

Lets assume most people who didn't vote (ie, the remaining 430,000 or so ) are currently using day theme.  How many of them would vote differently given the choice though?  How many would care, and of those who do, how many would actively choose day or night?  Well, do we really believe that there is a strong, statistically significant correlation between those who are active and would vote, and those who prefer night theme?  Why would there be?

 

If there isn't - if people are just people and on average, any group of sufficient size would vote roughly the same - then we can say that the vote so far fairly represents all users.

I don't know for a fact if this is valid or not, and neither would anyone else without actually surveying all 431,000 or so people, but it seems logical to me.

 

But, regardless, lets throw that out just for the sake of argument, and assume that in fact there is a strong correlation between active members and night theme use.  Well, in that case, shouldn't we cater more to the main users rather than the people who just pop in for a post or two once a year?

To answer your final question: No, we should not cater more strongly to "active" users vs casuals. At least in my opinion. Yes we should take their opinions into consideration, but the whole foundation of this community is we do take the casuals into consideration.

Furthermore, what do we define as a casual? One or two posts a year? What about one or two posts a month? A week? A day? There are some users who make dozens of posts a day. Should they get more of a say then someone who makes one post a day?

[vanished]

1 minute ago, dalekphalm said:

To answer your final question: No, we should not cater more strongly to "active" users vs casuals. At least in my opinion. Yes we should take their opinions into consideration, but the whole foundation of this community is we do take the casuals into consideration.

Furthermore, what do we define as a casual? One or two posts a year? What about one or two posts a month? A week? A day? There are some users who make dozens of posts a day. Should they get more of a say then someone who makes one post a day?

Yeah obviously that's a rabbit hole deeper than any of us care to investigate I'm sure.    At the end of the day the best we can do to try and treat everyone equally is put up an official survey, pin it to the front page, and give enough time that most people who care will have had a chance to vote.  At the end of that, if it comes out one way or another, we have to just take action based on the votes we have, and assume, like every other vote ever done, that those who didn't would have voted like those who did.  Holding out under the belief that they would have significantly swayed the results one way or another just isn't reasonable, here, or in any election.

[LogicalDrm]

Seriously? Are we getting flame war about Night theme vs Day theme and which one should be default? To note. Luke and Linus both use Night theme. At least on WAN Show. But I remember reason for Day being default is that it represents company colors better than Night theme. I personally don't care, but like the idea of it being easier to find. As Mortis' screenshot style in users dropdown menu.

 

And I don't care that much of formatting either. But I liked the messed up formatting better when it was black text on white background. Not that dark-sih grey-blue mix that its using currently. The previous could be read, this one not so much.

[vanished]

46 minutes ago, LoGiCalDrm said:

Seriously? Are we getting flame war about Night theme vs Day theme and which one should be default? To note. Luke and Linus both use Night theme. At least on WAN Show. But I remember reason for Day being default is that it represents company colors better than Night theme. I personally don't care, but like the idea of it being easier to find. As Mortis' screenshot style in users dropdown menu.

 

And I don't care that much of formatting either. But I liked the messed up formatting better when it was black text on white background. Not that dark-sih grey-blue mix that its using currently. The previous could be read, this one not so much.

No, just trying to decide:

• If this survey represents the community as a whole or not (I think it does, clearly some disagree)
• What the results indicate (seems to be that dark theme is winning, again some seem to disagree)
• Whether there are additional factors we should consider or assume to be true (I don't think so, but it seems again there's debate)
• Whether we should act on the results or not (I think so and that's a point I don't recall having seen contested)

I think that's it

[Jito463]

3 hours ago, MoonSpot said:

Or a night theme appreciation month, where the default is night and then see what people like?

3 hours ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Therefore night is more popular and should probably be the new default.

I formally opt out.  Reading white text on a black background hurts my eyes to no end.  In facts, studies have shown that it's much easier to read black text on a white (or light colored) background.  I did a quick search for some information, and found this:

 

https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-white-color-theme-is-better-for-the-eyes

Quote

There has been a lot of research on this topic since the 1980s and a lot of it still holds true today. One study from the 1980s states this:

However, most studies have shown that dark characters on a light background are superior to light characters on a dark background (when the refresh rate is fairly high). For example, Bauer and Cavonius (1980) found that participants were 26% more accurate in reading text when they read it with dark characters on a light background.

Reference: Bauer, D., & Cavonius, C., R. (1980). Improving the legibility of visual display units through contrast reversal. In E. Grandjean, E. Vigliani (Eds.), Ergonomic Aspects of Visual Display Terminals (pp. 137-142). London: Taylor & Francis

The reason why this matters is because of focus. As this article on UXMovement states, "white stimulates all three types of color sensitive visual receptors in the human eye in nearly equal amounts." It causes the eye to focus by tightening the iris. Since the eye is focused, dark letter forms on light backgrounds are easier to read. When using a dark background with strong light letter forms, the iris opens to allow more light in, but that causes letter forms to blur. Why?

People with astigmatism (approximately 50% of the population) find it harder to read white text on black than black text on white. Part of this has to do with light levels: with a bright display (white background) the iris closes a bit more, decreasing the effect of the "deformed" lens; with a dark display (black background) the iris opens to receive more light and the deformation of the lens creates a much fuzzier focus at the eye.

Jason Harrison – Post Doctoral Fellow, Imager Lab Manager – Sensory Perception and Interaction Research Group, University of British Columbia

Now there seem to be varying factors into contrast and legibility. Room ambient lighting. Brightness of the monitor. Also you can mitigate the straining effects of white (#FFF) on black (#000) by simply lessening the contrast like using a light gray (#EEE, #DDD, #CCC) on a dark background (#111, #222).

 

2 hours ago, dizmo said:

The night theme is actually what bothers my eyes. That's why we have options.

*snip*

Personally, if I'd come to the site and seen the dark theme I simply would have avoided it all together. It's that off putting.

I concur.  I don't know if I would have avoided it completely, but I would certainly have been less inclined to stick around.

[vanished]

1 minute ago, Jito463 said:

I formally opt out.  Reading white text on a black background hurts my eyes to no end.  In facts, studies have shown that it's much easier to read black text on a white (or light colored) background.  I did a quick search for some information, and found this:

 

https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/53264/dark-or-white-color-theme-is-better-for-the-eyes

 

I concur.  I don't know if I would have avoided it completely, but I would certainly have been less inclined to stick around.

Perhaps we should actually make the default the less desirable one since people will be more inclined to go looking for the switch then  /s

 

Remember, it's just a default, it's not like we're ever going to force everyone on to one colour theme

[Jito463]

Just now, Ryan_Vickers said:

Perhaps we should actually make the default the less desirable one since people will be more inclined to go looking for the switch then  /s

 

Remember, it's just a default, it's not like we're ever going to force everyone on to one colour theme

Perhaps the issue can be mitigated by using a softer background instead of white, as suggested in the quote I posted.  I certainly wouldn't be opposed to a light grey (not that I desire it, just that I wouldn't find it bothersome).

[vanished]

19 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

Perhaps the issue can be mitigated by using a softer background instead of white, as suggested in the quote I posted.  I certainly wouldn't be opposed to a light grey (not that I desire it, just that I wouldn't find it bothersome).

I'm not sure how much work is required to make theme, perhaps there could be a "optimized for eye health" theme  Or maybe even let people customize it themselves.

[dizmo]

26 minutes ago, Jito463 said:

I concur.  I don't know if I would have avoided it completely, but I would certainly have been less inclined to stick around.

Interesting, I didn't know that astigmatism was one of the reasons it's bothering.

24 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Perhaps we should actually make the default the less desirable one since people will be more inclined to go looking for the switch then  /s

 

Remember, it's just a default, it's not like we're ever going to force everyone on to one colour theme

Hahaha, but the rage posts we'd see from new members!
I see it like this: If that stat is correct, and 50% of people have astigmatism, then they might not join the community at all. Now, while night users prefer the dark theme (I can get it), it likely is more preference based than immensely bothersome, since most websites are light. Thus, it would make more sense to keep it day theme defaulted, with the option to switch in a more prevalent place.

[vanished]

3 minutes ago, dizmo said:

Interesting, I didn't know that astigmatism was one of the reasons it's bothering.

Hahaha, but the rage posts we'd see from new members!
I see it like this: If that stat is correct, and 50% of people have astigmatism, then they might not join the community at all. Now, while night users prefer the dark theme (I can get it), it likely is more preference based than immensely bothersome, since most websites are light. Thus, it would make more sense to keep it day theme defaulted, with the option to switch in a more prevalent place.

Ultimately I just want

a) what makes sense for the most people without them having to change anything, 

b) people to be aware there is a choice, and

c) people to make sure they format things properly so it looks good on every theme

[Jito463]

24 minutes ago, Ryan_Vickers said:

Ultimately I just want

a) what makes sense for the most people without them having to change anything, 

b) people to be aware there is a choice, and

c) people to make sure they format things properly so it looks good on every theme

Well, as I just discovered from my copy/paste (and then checking under night theme just out of curiosity), apparently setting just the automatic text color doesn't correct it.  However, removing all formatting automatically would get rid of any embedded links that were copied, so maybe that could be looked at for whatever the fix is.

[nicholasfd]

I use a browser called Yandex on Windows. Just thought I'd mention that since it wasn't an option

[vanished]

1 hour ago, Jito463 said:

Well, as I just discovered from my copy/paste (and then checking under night theme just out of curiosity), apparently setting just the automatic text color doesn't correct it.  However, removing all formatting automatically would get rid of any embedded links that were copied, so maybe that could be looked at for whatever the fix is.

That's the trouble, there's no way to clear formatting without clearing links, and the list goes on with regard to limitations on ways we can change the editor.

[NumLock21]

6 hours ago, dalekphalm said:

What browser and OS are you running?

The OS I'm using is, Windows 10 Professional. Okay, I pay close attention to the navigation bar, and this is what I've found out.

• The thumb tack is pin by default, when you visit the site, even before logging in.
• Only Internet Explorer, does not have any affect with the thumb tack being pinned or not. When you scroll up, the navigation bar disappears, even when it's pinned.
• FireFox and Edge both responds to the position of the thumb tack, pinned = navigation bar is always on top, unpinned = navigation bar disappears when you scroll up the page.
• I don't have Chrome, Opera, or Safari installed on my system, so I can't tell if they behave the same as FireFox and Edge, or like Internet Explorer.

[LogicalDrm]

6 hours ago, Jito463 said:

Perhaps the issue can be mitigated by using a softer background instead of white, as suggested in the quote I posted.  I certainly wouldn't be opposed to a light grey (not that I desire it, just that I wouldn't find it bothersome).

Grey is bit troublesome color. If it needs to be light, something close to natural, warm white would be optimal. Or sand / cream brown.

[Ithanul]

Only thing that probably be nice is if the buttons for the themes was at or near the top instead of the bottom.

Like ArsTechnica, they have theirs at the top of their site.

 

At least this forum board gives the option of themes, another forum board I go to won't bother with themes at all.

 

8 hours ago, NumLock21 said:

The OS I'm using is, Windows 10 Professional. Okay, I pay close attention to the navigation bar, and this is what I've found out.

• The thumb tack is pin by default, when you visit the site, even before logging in.
• Only Internet Explorer, does not have any affect with the thumb tack being pinned or not. When you scroll up, the navigation bar disappears, even when it's pinned.

Yep, in IE the nav bar does not follow.  I only use IE when at work since it the only allowed browser on most computers here.

Screenie of how it looks:

 

Sorry if the forum looks wacked.  On gov computer, so a lot of scripts get stripped off sites.

[grimreeper132]

On 8/6/2017 at 6:19 PM, colonel_mortis said:

Keeps the nav bar visible when you scroll down.

I'll be honest I have it pinned, and never even release,

A) I could unpin it

B) that it was even at the top of my  screen when I scrolled down