Freesound Forums

Firstly, just want to say I absolutely love that we're finally getting a redesign. BW definitely looks a lot more professional and clean than NG, although there is still a lot to improve on. I'm just going to focus on text and the use of fonts here, which links to both form and function.

Typeface & Weights

I personally much prefer the new typeface, Segoe UI, over Verdana. Imho it looks far more modern and comfortable to the eye, though others will probably have different thoughts (bit like the reddit redesign I suppose).

Although, there is a lot of room for more variation in weights - specifically the lighter variants. One thing that particularly bugs me is how regular body text, even those in sound descriptions, or long forum posts like this, is in 500 - the default weight of regular text is 400.

Utilizing lighter weights would help the bolder text to stand out, rather than everything being emphasized, which ends up negating the emphasis. And I know you guys can do this: the regular 400 weight Segoe UI is already used in areas like the search bar, and tags.

Colours & Accents

Nothing much to improve on here, honestly. I think you guys have done a great job with the balance of black, grey and coloured text. Everything looks lovely and harmonious!

Rendering Issues

So, a very prominent issue is these spacing issues, which changing devices or zoom does not fix. It only seems to occur for buttons, such as 'download', 'follow', etc. That's definitely something that needs fixing.

Spacing & Alignment

Technically doesn't fit into the topic of fonts, but I mean, how text is presented is integral to its effectiveness. So, I'ma discuss it anyway.

I completely agree with what other people have said about there being too much whitespace. When I initially switched to the beta redesign, the first thing that hit me was how spacious the website looked. When I checked on mobile, there were like 3 elements on the screen.

Obviously, the text shouldn't be packed too tightly together, but for a site like this, where efficiency and productivity are key, I think having everything more compact would be better. Compared to NG, the spacing is like, 3 times larger. Navigating takes a lot more time spent scrolling and reading.

While having less content being thrown in your face at once does make it more appealing to new users, I think a little more than what we have now wouldn't hurt. And even better, there could be a 'compact' option or 'efficiency mode' setting for experienced 'power' users, which would drastically reduce the spacing and change everything to be more reminiscent of NG.

Final Additions

I think the options in the navigation bar should be spread out just a slight bit more, to separate them more clearly.

Also, it'd be neat if the search bar expanded to fill more space when you start typing in it. Feels more interactive, and saves you having to use arrow keys to navigate a long search.

Speaking of interactivity, I love how links underline when you hover over them! It feels a lot more alive and solid than the default HTML link underline, great job!

I might make more posts about my thoughts on the other aspects of the redesign, so I won't summarize my thoughts or anything.

(hopefully all the formatting and images worked)

I think Sup2.0 has addressed the main concerns I attempted to express in a much more detailed and constructive way than I did.

Thank you.

I also second Timbre's observation that the contrast between fainter text and background makes readability hard work.

Just for info, I generally visit FS (older version of Firefox) with page magnification default to 90% (This static setting is fine - not a problem that needs sorting). For me this zoom is the best comprise between Heading text filling up too much screen, body text being large enough to comfortably read and getting a more satisfying amount of scroll-free information on the screen at a time.

Thanks a lot Sup2.0 for the very detailed feedback. We'll take all these things into consideration and fix as much as possible.

The "hardest" thing to address in my opinion is the compactness issue that some of you have mentioned (also in other threads). We'll have a look at what can we do without a new full re-design. I'm sure we can optimise BW so that *almost everyone* is happy with it (or gets used over time)