Enhancement request
In lists/tables of topics, please cease using emphatic (bold) text for:
Problem
Traditionally: emphasis (bold) implied that all or part of a topic was unread.
Now, with the May 2015 redesign: emphasis is used indiscriminately in the statistics column.
Observations
As a person's gaze is drawn primarily to an area of emphasis, so the first impression may be of a mass of unread content.
From any point in that mass (column) of emphasis, the gaze may shift to the left. Expect secondary focus on the wording of the title (subject line) of the topic; not on the typeface used for those words.
Where those words are of immediate interest to the reader, do not expect great attention to the date. The date is relatively small, lacks emphasis, is in a separate paragraph, and is paler than both the statistics column and title.
There's a modern trend to use reverse chronological order – descending (with the most recent item uppermost). Within domains where that trend is followed: where the uppermost listing in a table of topics shows zero (0) replies, it's reasonable to make an initial assumption that uppermost = most recent.
A comparison
Before the May 2015 redesign, with vBulletin:
Now, observe the uppermost listing – bold text emphasising that something has gained no reply:
Context: how this problem was realised
Yeah, including a mass of changes to design
and for the reasons given above, I failed to noticed the age. That 2008 topic was amongst a top five – without me performing a search – and the first impression was (to me) that everything in that top five was unread …
Additional screenshots
A sanity check (I had no recollection of performing a search that might have drawn attention to a 2008 topic, this shot confirmed that I had not gone mad):
A mass (a column) of text with bold/emphasis:
A review of the top five where my attention was drawn to something directly related to work in progress:
In lists/tables of topics, please cease using emphatic (bold) text for:
- the number of replies per topic
- the number of views per topic.
Problem
Traditionally: emphasis (bold) implied that all or part of a topic was unread.
Now, with the May 2015 redesign: emphasis is used indiscriminately in the statistics column.
Observations
As a person's gaze is drawn primarily to an area of emphasis, so the first impression may be of a mass of unread content.
From any point in that mass (column) of emphasis, the gaze may shift to the left. Expect secondary focus on the wording of the title (subject line) of the topic; not on the typeface used for those words.
Where those words are of immediate interest to the reader, do not expect great attention to the date. The date is relatively small, lacks emphasis, is in a separate paragraph, and is paler than both the statistics column and title.
There's a modern trend to use reverse chronological order – descending (with the most recent item uppermost). Within domains where that trend is followed: where the uppermost listing in a table of topics shows zero (0) replies, it's reasonable to make an initial assumption that uppermost = most recent.
Those points, and others, may cause a reader to fail to realise the age of a topic.
A comparison
Before the May 2015 redesign, with vBulletin:
Now, observe the uppermost listing – bold text emphasising that something has gained no reply:
Context: how this problem was realised
you are answering a thread from 2008, a lot of things have changed since then.
Yeah, including a mass of changes to design
and for the reasons given above, I failed to noticed the age. That 2008 topic was amongst a top five – without me performing a search – and the first impression was (to me) that everything in that top five was unread …Additional screenshots
A sanity check (I had no recollection of performing a search that might have drawn attention to a 2008 topic, this shot confirmed that I had not gone mad):
A mass (a column) of text with bold/emphasis:
A review of the top five where my attention was drawn to something directly related to work in progress: