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rotane — Suggestion: Activity Feed page mockup
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#deviantart #hoffer #rotane #suggestion #usability #activityfeed #watchfeed
Published: 2014-10-23 19:03:38 +0000 UTC; Views: 3305; Favourites: 43; Downloads: 10
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Description
Full view / Download recommended!The newly released Watch Feed poses 2 large problems:
1. Everything is too large.
2. The Activity widget on our profile pages is way too large.
… you see where i'm going with this.
And also:
3. There is currently no way to access our older status posts.
With this out of the way, i have a solution/suggestion: Let's remove the widget from our main profile page and move it to a new page, tentatively called the Activity Feed. As you can see in the screenshot, it gets its own tab on your profile. Now, this isn't meant to be a substitution to the old Activity page, but i did drew some inspiration from it.
Also, while this is a mockup for an entirely new page, i do believe that at least some of the details here can (and should, in my opinion) be incorporated into the Watch Feed, too. And yes, while it does look quite similar to the current Watch Feed at a quick glance, there are a ton of little details that are different. This was a conscious decision on my part; i didn't want to re-invent the wheel, only iterate on the current thing.
Let's run you through it:
Size
Everything is at a more reasonable size – the font of the status posts in particular. Also gone are the full view deviations. Why? Because i don't want to be limited to just one item per screen while i'm scrolling the feed.
Width
A max-width of about 900px ensures good readability. (800px, possibly even less, would be even better, but with a slightly larger font than usual, that's okay.) The wider the boxes get, the longer the lines, the harder it gets to read. It's as simple as that.
Colour
Everything you see is slightly darker and softer than the current Watch Feed, but i believe the Watch Feed is too bright and harsh in many places – a few parts are even plain white. To me this doesn't fit the identity of deviantART. Likewise, no blue-ish links, no bolding of links, and a more subtle external link indicator.
Also, the comment area is broken apart from the main post area by a hairline and is further distinguished by a slightly darker background colour. This is to better separate content from comments.
Comments
Comments are hidden by default, you'll only see a link like "View 2 comments" below a post. Once you click it, all the comments expand inline, without opening a new page. "HA!", i can hear you say, "but what if there are hundreds of comments?" Fair point, and in this case said link would indeed open a new page.
Favourites / Collections
I don't like it that i can't click on a thumb; instead i'm brought to a Collection where i need to go hunt for that deviation again. I think this is unnecessarily cumbersome – we do have a link to the Collection right there anyway.
Submitting a deviation / Writing a journal
While it's cool that we can read a whole journal and see the full view of a deviation right on the Feed page, i also think it takes up too much space. I think a large thumb is enough, and the new Today page has some nice designs as to how a teaser of journals can look.
The navbar
And finally, because it's in the screenshot, at the very top, deviantNAV . While i believe that the new navbar looks better than the old, it could still benefit from a few tweaks. You can read all about it here: About deviantNAV .
What is missing?
I'm not sure i like the idea of sharing and re-sharing every piece of content too much. Because of this, i've left it the way it is and only added one shared post near the bottom as an example. Also, i'm not too happy with the way a submitted journal or deviation appear in the feed; i might have to think about that some more.
Well, that's the gist of it. Feel free to comment!
Oh, and here is the same suggestion, distractions-free, without annotations:
Thanks ginkgografix for "lending" me her avatar.
Featured deviations by sabin-boykinov Shockbolt GraphicDream N0mm0 Kishan-Bagaria Dediggefedde and SimplySilent
I summon thee spyed danlev Heidi wreckling zilla774
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Comments: 62
Heh, yeah well, it's all in limbo right now. But i would've liked to have this page as well
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awesome feedback!
lots of cool updates coming for this system... we've learned a TON from the first go-around, I think you'll be very pleased..
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This is excellent! Great mock-up, it seems way more efficient. Although, maybe this isn't the best place to ask but, what is the difference between collections and favorites? On the feed I thought that collections replaced favorites?
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Collections are folders within your favourites. So they're basically the same thing, only that Collections let you group favourites together by a common theme. You can read more about it here: FAQ #6: What is the Collections Feature and how do I use it?
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OHHHHHH Oh oh oho. I didn't realize they were called collections. That clears so much up, thank you!
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This would be so much better! I sincerely hope the dA-staff takes a look at it and consider making these changes.
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This is a very nice suggestion. The details you mention are very nicely illustrated and I hope these changes are implemented!
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Not a fan of the Activity page, but if DA were to implement your suggestions then I might even start using it sometimes. Great suggestions
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This appears to address most of my concerns with the design
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This is perfection. 
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I like the activity feature, but the widget makes it unusable for me - it's too big and just... no. But if something like you suggest would be implemented, that would be wonderful and I'd totally start using the feed feature!
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Quite big indeed. Oh, but i do have some thoughts for a revamp of the widget as well. Maybe on the weekend i'll find some time to do a quick mockup as well
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That would be amazing. Your ideas are great, keep up the good work!
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Thanks! Unfortunately, real life has taken over for now, so i currently don't have the time to work on another mockup…
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I greatly dislike the activity widget but your suggestion makes this manageable. I may not use it, but still nice to know this could be an option.
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Thanks for featuring me^^
The design looks neat and I guess a lot of these things could be done by userscript/-style but as his feature is pretty new and will be probably get changed in more than its css-class-names, working on that is risky at best.^^
I also don't use the activity-feed. Sometimes I feel like posting what I am working on, but after posting I always feel like shouting my name in an empty room... I kind of want to say something relevant when I post something... that's also why I always uncheck "friends" and check "scraps" when watching someone... I care about what is posted individually. Reading an infinite page of things some random people said in chronological order somehow doesn't interest me...
So... While this would be a neat design, I still wouldn't use this feature.^^
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Things probably could be tweaked with CSS to look similar to this, but the whole widget can't be moved into a separate page without at least some javascript tinkering. And even then some of the features i'd like still wouldn't work, i guess. But you're right, things will definitely change, this was pretty much confirmed by the staff.
Yes, the Feed has greater, more fundamental problems than how it looks that also need to be tackled. But if it at least looks nice, maybe a few people are more inclined to use it even in its current form.
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I like the idea of less comments and more art. From your model, I think it makes the art more clear. Definitely would be nice to see some of it implemented!
I don't know though, this new update is just the worst and anything is better.
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To be honest, i didn't see the need for this at first either. But now that i've used the new features for a while, i can definitely see their appeal – first and foremost the new Today page. The Watch Feed to a lesser degree. But don't forget, no-one is forcing you to use these new pages; you can still use your Message Centre and Browse page, just like before.
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You put all the things I wanted into an actual mockup. Thank you ,__, you're awesome
I hope they listen to you!!
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I'm still not truly happy with it, but it's a start. Thanks!
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Ooooh, this looks so much better than what we have now.
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*appears in a puff of smoke*
consider me summoned...
All interesting points. While I can't delve into some of the details I'd love to discuss right now (I'm slammed) I will say that 1) Activity Feed is far from perfect. We're deeply aware of that. 2) This is Activity v1 we're talking about... it's going to improve 
One thing I'm not so hot on is the lack of the comments... I kinda like seeing the first couple of comments, given that it's generally the most recent and newest comments something has received. Perhaps this is a "mode" requirement and should be something the user can toggle on or off depending on their preference.
We do need somewhere for the Activity Feed to live though, a tab is obvious but that area is already not scaling well. I think I'd prefer to look at the Journals tab, rename it, and have both journals and activity feed in that area. There's related somewhat and it might make for a nice "communication center" style area... not sure how that would pan out when you actually sit down to spec it though, so only take this as a wild idea.
Anyways, awesome post, great feedback. It will definitely be taken into account for v2 of the activity feed
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PS, in regards to hidden comments: By our own TheRyanFord : www.facebook.com/theryanford/p…
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I agree with this "Ryan Ford" person's opinion in full.
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Thanks for taking the time to respond and take this into consideration! Let me then just reply real quick on some of the things:
- Lack of comments. To me this is twofold. One, It's a matter of size, and having a couple of comments always sit there just takes up too much space in the long run. Two, they're a distraction from the actual content. Sure, they suggest "community interaction", but they are of little actual value. And if i care enough for comments, i wanna read more than just the 2, so i'll check out the page.
- Merge with Journals page. This would make sense if it were just Status posts and Journals, otherwise it's just the Feed in its current form. Unless said "Communication Center" had a little sub-nav for all the different types to view separately, or something like that. Hmmm, yeah, i do like that.
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Gotta say, I like this 
But yeah, I like this layout. The way things are shown here just seems "simpler" and more concise.
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Thanks man!
Yeah, a few things probably will never see the light of day (like the nonnaked stuff), but i do have to push them when i can
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Looks all good to me 
I like the idea of having it on an extra page, so that you can just see the activity of one person. Especially if people make good use of status updates and such (without sharing every bit of their life) this can be a good way to keep up with the updates.
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Yeah. There could still be a widget for your main profile page, but it would have to be greatly reduced in size – like a "mini-feed". I'll probably make another mockup, if i find some time…
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Something like the twitter widget. Already suggested it, so hopefully we will get something like that.
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Something like that, yes, but maybe a tiny bit bigger
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Completely agree with everything here. Good on the dA staff for mentioning this.
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THANK YOU.
Everything is too wide right now on a desktop screen.
It really annoyed me that all their screenshots of the layout were of tiny screens, as if everyone browsed dA on tiny iPads and things. Just zero acknowledgement that all sorts of people use 1920x1080 screens.
The elements look horrendous stretching out horizontally on not-at-all-unusually-sized screens. And much worse on those ultrawides some artists use.
I'd go farther to say the max width should be even narrower. like around the 700's or something. I know tumblr has it a bit above 500, which looks great but I don't know if it would fit dA.
If the narrower width isn't a default, it should at least be an option, like the Cozy, Compact options for Google's stuff.
For the same reason, pushing the top nav buttons to the left makes sense. They're SO FAR APART on a desktop screen. It's ridiculous. It's like Windows 8 all over again.
The white areas next to deviations are also butt-ugly.
I like your recommendation here, and in general regarding color.
I think white isn't necessarily against the dA look, but those white bars and random white areas everywhere are just weird.
The single-row collection updates look much better than the weirdly aligned stuff (again with the white bars) dA currently has. Apart from not being relevant to me, the other reason why I stopped following everyone's collections was that it was an eyesore on the feed.
Your deviation mockup doesn't account for people who don't describe their artwork much though. I follow a bunch of people who just put one sentence, or a dot, as their dA description. Maybe attribution info.
I still kinda feel that the layout should be able to center the thumbnail. And be able to accommodate both tall and wide deviation thumbs reasonably.
Still, your stuff looks good.
Overall, love this mockup. Everything looks clean and readable. I wish dA would use it.
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Wow, what a wall of text, but you bring up a ton of good points! Cheers!
- Max-width: This is true, 900px might still be too wide, even 800 might. But the font-size is slightly larger than what we're used to, so it's not as glaring. But still, i do agree. 500px, however, might look too weird on dA. I might try again with something in-between, possibly around 750…
- Funny that you brought up Windows 8. That's one of the largest (pun intended) issues i have with it, when they stretch these previously tiny windowed apps (like Skype) into a blown up fullscreen app. Just horrible. Not to mention the extreme "flat" approach.
- Other than comment boxes, there is literally no white on dA. Unless you want to count sta.sh. About a year ago or so spyed mentioned in a journal, that there are 3 colour schemes: green/grey for the community part (deviantART), white/blue for deviation management (sta.sh), and orange for professionals (DreamUp, or what it's called). So i think it's important to stick to your guns.
- Submitted deviations: True again. I'm not quite happy with that myself, but i didn't want to further wreck my brain last night, when i finished this. Maybe another time.
From a look at the other comments, it seems at least some of the features suggested here are in discussion internally already. Fingers crossed!
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the da staff is looking into it, from what I can tell.
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