MacRumors New Forums Design and Testing

[grahamperrin]

Outdated documentation

Please note, I'll edit this post periodically …

How do I contact the moderators and administrators? (2014-01-19, referred from http://xenforums.macrumors.com/threads/macrumors-faq-forum-rules-and-more.1708464/) marked as unhelpful – thumbs down, with no opportunity to comment – only because it will be outdated. At least: near the top of the page there's an image with a red arrow indicating a feature of the vBulletin environment.

Forum Tips and Tricks (2014-01-21) includes general information about the vBulletin forum software, with a series of links:

• General Forum Usage (not found if I try a comparable URL in the xenforums.macrumors.com domain)
• User Profile Features (ditto)
• Reading and Posting Messages (ditto)
• vB code markup (ditto)
• Search the vBulletin FAQ (ditto).

http://xenforums.macrumors.com/search/683/?q=%22BB+Code%22&c[title_only]=1 finds two topics, neither of which can be a successor to the current 'BB Code List'. Without digging elsewhere, I have a hunch that a successor in the macrumors.com domain may be superfluous (I expect to find at least one good point of reference in, or linked from, XenForo Community).

MacRumors Registration Agreement (2013-18-12) mentions vBulletin.

Forum Rules (2015-05-19) mentions vBulletin.

 

[grahamperrin]

Seeking, searching, finding, wildcards etc.: observations (not problems)

(I might edit this post if/when additional discoveries are made.)

https://xenforo.com/community/search/6961649/?q=looking+caf*

• presents a reminder of the sought expression
• finds https://xenforo.com/community/threads/test-link.86860/#post-853853 (and other posts) – so * is a wildcard, that's reasonably intuitive √

http://xenforums.macrumors.com/search/680/?q=caf*

• does present a reminder of the sought expression √ (maybe a very recent fix for something that I didn't rush to report)
• finds both cafe and café in various posts √

 

[grahamperrin]

Bug: limit a search to a sub-forum, search again, edit keywords …


Actions

01) http://xenforums.macrumors.com/search/683/?q=%22BB+Code%22&o=date&c[title_only]=1

02) observe two matches

03) click 'Search Again'

04) overtype "BB Code" (type over the preselected text)

05) type markup

06) key Enter or Return


Expected

07) matches from within the Site and Forum Feedback area


Actual result

07) matches from everywhere


Observations

The root of the problem is apparent around the response to action (03). Specifically:

• the selected (preselected?) menu item – All Forums – differs from the selection that was originally made by the end user.

Side note

As far as I recall, this bug was present, glaring, from day one of the open test. However – my apologies – after initially finding the UI non- or counter-intuitive, I couldn't devote much head space to seek/find behaviours. (The dyslexic learning side of me, blah blah.)

We did have the early invitation to discuss the UI – thanks in particular @Doctor Q – but that was a weekday beginning to two extraordinarily busy weeks for me, with overflow into last weekend. So this weekend, with migration scheduled, is pretty much my first proper dive into the whole caboodle.

 

[grahamperrin]

VoiceOver

(I had not planned to test this aspect of accessibility, but I accidentally keyed Command-F5 so here I am. And I may update this post with additional observations in due course.)


search group ≠ Search

The magnifying glass, spoken, is "search group".

The spoken phrase, two words, differs from the visible phrase. (Visibly: one word with a yellow background.)