What has changed on the new-look Head for Points?

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• Jon says:

  19 Aug19 August 05:49

  Hi Rob, couple of thoughts – hope it’s useful feedback:

  1. If you click the magnifying glass to open the search field, but then change your mind about needing to search (or if you clicked it in error), you then need to move the mouse a long way over to the left to close it again. Ideally allow a second click of the icon to close the search field if nothing has been entered in it.

  2. Italics. No. 😉 Much harder to read on screen. Fine for a emphasising a few words, but not good for large blocks of text, as above. Also not sure why the list needs to be indented like that – am I missing some bullets that are supposed to be in there? (iPhone & Safari on Mac desktop) If this copy must be indented for hierarchy, better to have visible bullet icons and plain text. The bold first word or two is good though – helps with scanning.

  3. Possibly could better highlight the current page in th

  • John says:

    19 Aug19 August 06:50

    I don’t have a problem with the italics – maybe it’s your browser’s font?

    • Jon says:

      19 Aug19 August 10:53

      Nah. Not really a subjective issue 😉 There’s an absolute ton of research out there showing that large blocks of italicised text are harder to read, particularly for those with certain disabilities, eg. dyslexia. And bearing in mind accessibility is a legal requirement… 😉

      Pretty much any decent design system or style guide will advise against too much (or indeed any) use of italics on-screen, and similarly upper case.

      • Rob says:

        19 Aug19 August 11:11

        We have ALWAYS indented and italicised blocks of text. Nothing has changed, except potentially the new font may not italicise as well.

        • Jon says:

          19 Aug19 August 11:30

          Not convinced it’s the specific font (it would be much the same in most fonts, I think), but I can’t say I’d particularly noticed the issue before, so either it is that, or maybe this particular article has an unusually large amount of italicised text? But either way, good if you can take the opportunity to remedy that – for accessibility reasons if nothing else you really shouldn’t be having large blocks of text in italics.

        • Rhys says:

          19 Aug19 August 11:38

          There is a lot of italics in this article – the majority

  • Rob says:

    19 Aug19 August 08:34

    Bizarrely our new editing system does not allow indentation – the articles today were written in the old system – so you’ll be seeing less of that unless we are updating an old article.

    Thanks for the first point – that’s the kind of little ‘user experience’ point we’d like to fix. I’m a firm believer of the idea that if you crush 100 annoying little things like this, none of which on their own make much difference, it will vastly improve how people use the site.

    • Jon says:

      19 Aug19 August 10:42

      Yeah, it’s the little things that make all the difference 😉 As I mentioned elsewhere, if you can, get someone to set up a formal usability testing session, with some actual users (ideally a mix of new and regular readers, and different ages and (dis)abilities etc), and observe it (via video or one-way glass) from another room. It’s amazing what you can uncover – issues that you might otherwise have never even considered or noticed…

      • Jon says:

        19 Aug19 August 10:58

        PS not sure indenting (or layout in general) should ever really be done through the editing system, so it’s probably a good thing if the new system doesn’t allow it 😉 Mixing up content with presentation – best to keep them separate. Let the author specify the purpose of the content (heading, paragraph, list, pullquote etc) then let the style templates handle the presentation of that. Manually indenting copy should never be needed, and will cause you all sorts of pain down the line 😉

      • Rob says:

        19 Aug19 August 11:12

        We decided it was cheaper to launch it anyway and let you lot do the work for free 🙂

        • Jon says:

          19 Aug19 August 11:31

          LoL, I guessed as much 😉

        • Jon says:

          19 Aug19 August 11:33

          Rob: “We decided it was cheaper to launch it anyway and let you lot do the work for free 🙂”

          Ah, did I just hit a comment-nesting limit? 😉 My ‘LoL’ reply just now to your comment quoted here seems to have bounced back out to first-level indent… In case anyone wonders why it looks out of sequence 😉

• Roger" says:

  19 Aug19 August 05:51

  Thanks, Rhys, for the comprehensive explanations. While I felt there was an element of change for change’s sake, the balance is positive.

  I admired the Corrections page, partly from an accuracy p.o.v. and partly as a measure of how few there were and hence how accurate the site’s info is.

• Jon says:

  19 Aug19 August 05:51

  Ah that damned character limit strikes again 😉

  As I was saying…

  3. Possibly could better highlight the current page in the comments pagination links. At the moment the only indication is the underline (which is ironic, as underline traditionally indicates a link, and this is the one item in the list that does not need to be a link 😉 Making the current page number a different colour, bold, or bigger, may help.

  But all fairly minor points really. Overall, nice job 🙂

• Jon says:

  19 Aug19 August 06:15

  Oh, one other thought, Rob… I see quite a few people are asking for the return of the ‘Latest Comments’ section, and your response that very few people used it.

  I think you may be misinterpreting that 😉 Just because people may not be clicking on the links in there doesn’t mean they’re not reading it or getting value from it… The way I used to use it for example was to give it a quick scan, quite regularly, to see what was being commented on, and by who, then more often than not I would go back to the main articles list and click something in there. It was quite rare for me to click on a latest comment, but that didn’t mean I wasn’t finding the information in the list useful.

  Worth reinstating the feature if you can find somewhere for it, I think.

  • Jon says:

    19 Aug19 August 06:23

    Ah… one way you could make room for it (and I think I may have just realised why my first impression of the new design – see my comment on the other thread – was one of clutter)… I’m not sure you need thumbnails on the ‘Latest articles’ list in the right-hand column. With all the adverts above and below, I’m finding the thumbnails just cause it all to blur into one big visual mess. Maybe just me of course 😉 But I wonder whether having the articles list as text-only would help to create a better distinction between editorial content / navigation, and paid advertising, when scanning down the column? I do think there’s a stronger argument for the thumbnails in the body column, but maybe less so in the sidebar. Just a thought.

    • Rob says:

      19 Aug19 August 08:32

      Possible. We could ask the IT people to give us the option to toggle it so we can try it both ways.

  • ADS says:

    19 Aug19 August 11:04

    I wonder if there’s a better way of implementing something similar ?

    Maybe a list of articles with recent comments with the date/time that they were last commented on ?

• Martin Lewis says:

  19 Aug19 August 06:34

  I like the new format. Like all change, it will take a little time to get used to things like the re-naming of tabs etc. but I’m sure that will come with practice. I appreciate that HfP has a long history with Avios and its therefore not surprinding that you have a dedicated tab for all Avios related info but I would have thought that the time had now come for a dedicated Virgin Flying Club tab to be added too.

  • Rob says:

    19 Aug19 August 08:31

    There was a Virgin tab in the original design. The problem is that we don’t have much ‘organised’ Virgin content. There is no equivalent of the ‘Avios Redemption University’ series etc. This meant that the tab was just containing random articles about the airline which didn’t make much sense.

• Lesley says:

  19 Aug19 August 06:40

  First, I’d just like to say how much I’ve always enjoyed HfP.

  I agree with the previous commenter about the use of italics.

  I’ve just realised that I don’t receive all articles via email, so will subscribe to the Saturday issue as well to be on the safe side.

  The HfP logo looks a little dated as does the shade of blue used. The picture of an Amex card or the Nutmeg logo at the head of the last couple of articles makes me think I’m looking at advertising blocks (which I suppose I am) but it also means it doesn’t draw me in to read the article on the site itself.

• Marc Loterijman says:

  19 Aug19 August 06:45

  The white lowercase letter f in the new blue square HfP logo looks uncannily like the Facebook app logo on iOS. Is the uppercase H mean to look like an aircraft wing? The letter P looks far too stretched widthways compared to the skinny lowercase f. Just some thoughts.

• Dev says:

  19 Aug19 August 06:53

  I am looking forward to seeing the new Qatar Airways aircraft picture replacing the previous Flight Sim version!

  On a serious note, the website could do with a few more colours to separate the various sections displayed on the screen … at the moment, it looks like the website version of an Eurowhite livery!

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