Lack of navigation, breadcrumbs is unsettling

[crabpaws]

I'm finding the minimal navigation to be very disorienting.

One of the functions of navigation, such as breadcrumbs, is orientation, it shows you where you are in the tree. This gives you a sense of place. Also, you can jump quickly to another location.

It would have been easy to put a nav tree in a drop-down where the IPS Comm.... link is, to replace explicit breadcrumbs. Or just use breadcrumbs.

Also, why this placement of the forum link? In this design, the forum name is spatially divorced from the topic title. Why do that? The two have a hierarchical relationship.

Exposing the hierarchical organization is also important for wayfinding.

Why the truncation of the link text? Some people are going to be very puzzled by abbreviated forum or sub-forum names.

Have any usability studies been done on this kind of navigation? Please post references.

[Rikki]

What you are seeing is the mobile (responsive) view. It's designed for phones, and as such space is at a premium. The design of the header is intended to be consistent with other mobile interfaces.

[crabpaws]

I am on a desktop (Firefox on the Mac), why am I seeing the mobile view?

For mobile devices, putting the major site division links above the site header is intended to eliminate scrolling down lower to find navigation. If one is looking at a topic, you're already at least at the level of topic heading.

Putting the nav link above the topic heading rather than the site header makes sense in that situation. Why should someone have to scroll up to find the nav link to the upper level in the hierarchy?

Still, only two levels of nav are supported, whatever is in that little truncated nav link and whatever the logo represents (in this case, the forum list). What about the intermediary levels, as in subforums?

The truncation is confusing. If someone is vaulting in from the Web, that person is going to be utterly mystified about their location. Something like IPS Comm.... for nav doesn't help. For example:

Different location, same nav IPS Comm.... link as the page we're on now. How disorienting is that?

[Charles]

You have posted these same issues in 3 different topics now

Your resolution is 1024x768 which is really quite odd for a desktop so you are going to probably see mobile view since that is a tablet-sized resolution.

I would suggest you not post issues or feedback about interface issues until you first consider you are seeing the mobile view. Thank you.

[crabpaws]

How the heck would I know I'm seeing the mobile view when you're field testing a beta, Charles? For all I know, this is the new universal view. Or maybe it's buggy.

Aside from that, I'd like to discuss the navigation in the mobile view. Ironically, my resolutions limitations allow me to check that out, too.

 

 

[Charles]

You're on a desktop with mobile-like resolutions. I'm not really sure what to say about that

[krocheck]

Admittedly, I was about to agree with the OP but then I started dragging the browser window size.  My mind was blown as all the elements changed, moved, flowed, etc. dynamically.  Absolutely beautiful, and you see how the jump points make sense.  Yes, its a simpler view for 1024x768, but the layout makes sense in context.

I suppose my comment is: it would be nice to show the full text instead of "IPS Comm..." until size dictates truncating.

Keith

[SJ77]

I get that the OP is using mobile resolution on a desktop so things are getting goofy but I don't think the thought going into this concern should just stop there.

What about the fact that Samsung has previously said that it hopes to have smartphones with 4K 3840 x 2160 displays on the market by 2015?

QHD is right around the corner and Samsung has already revealed the 2560 x 1440 Galaxy Note 4

This is going to cause all kinds of confusing things to happen. I don't want the full version of the site on my Galaxy S6 when it comes out. Despite having 4K resolution on a phone, it's still going to be really small relatively speaking and I am going to need the mobile view. Conversely people using desktops should get the full version should they not? (regardless of resolution)

Isn't there a way to detect based on the OS? However, even that will be an issue when Windows 10 strikes as the same OS will run mobile and desktop.

UGH, this is a difficult situation to tackle.

 

[querschlaeger]

I get that the OP is using mobile resolution on a desktop so things are getting goofy but I don't think the thought going into this concern should just stop there.

What about the fact that Samsung has previously said that it hopes to have smartphones with 4K 3840 x 2160 displays on the market by 2015?

QHD is right around the corner and Samsung has already revealed the 2560 x 1440 Galaxy Note 4

This is going to cause all kinds of confusing things to happen. I don't want the full version of the site on my Galaxy S6 when it comes out. Despite having 4K resolution on a phone, it's still going to be really small relatively speaking and I am going to need the mobile view. Conversely people using desktops should get the full version should they not? (regardless of resolution)

Isn't there a way to detect based on the OS? However, even that will be an issue when Windows 10 strikes as the same OS will run mobile and desktop.

UGH, this is a difficult situation to tackle.

 

​Mobile browsers do not use physical display resolution in viewport. My Nexus 5 has Full HD (1920*1080) but I see mobile responsive layout here. 

[Ryan H.]

​Mobile browsers do not use physical display resolution in viewport. My Nexus 5 has Full HD (1920*1080) but I see mobile responsive layout here. 

​Yeah. Smartphones already handle this cleanly. Unless you tell them otherwise, they'll render everything as if it were ~320px wide (varies slightly). If they displayed everything at physical resolution and desktop DPIs, phones would be unusable. The physical pixels are used for subpixel rendering and making everything really crisp.

If it were my call I'd put another responsive breakpoint at 480px so phones can render more detail in landscape vs. portrait mode--but all in all, I think it collapses quite well.