Hands up everyone who wants to try out the BRAND NEW MUMSNET MOBILE SITE

[RowanMumsnet]

Hello comrades

As lots of you will know, we've been developing a brand new, souped up version of the Mumsnet mobile site for seven geological eras quite a long time now.

We can now exclusively reveal that the new mobile site is... TOTALLY AND UTTERLY ABOUT TO BE RELEASED, LIKE, ANY TIME NOW.

We've tested it on loads of MNers ( to those who have helped out) but inevitably there will be glitches that only reveal themselves once tens of thousands of you dive in and start using it - so please use this thread to let us know about those (with the usual info about browsers and devices).

And if you like it, please pass along and to ShamTech, BrunoTech, JessicaMumsnet and all the other techs and MHQers who have been working their digits off on this.

The new improved apps are coming, honest... but in the meantime, if the old apps are driving you bonkers, do please take the new mobile site for a test drive.

Still no word on 'hide' or 'flip'.
Really?
You just ditched them?

Actually not too bad on my iPhone 4s. I have got rid of my blue toolbar but need to be rid of the ad, that may mean I can actually see more than 2 posts.
I also want rid of the sharing buttons.

And you need to do something about all the white. It fecking hurts and I'm not epileptic, dyslexic nor do I suffer from migraines I may get migraines if I keep using this

Bookmark is not working and it is sloooow scrolling through.
You also need to sort the TIO issues out.
But, I really like the smilies/text stuff.
It also looks alright, BUT it is no good to look at while you're using it, if that makes sense, ie I open page, thinks mmm that's looks clean and tidy, but then I try to scroll/read and it horrific.

Oh, I can zoom in ok. I can also preview

Rebecca why won't you put it back how it was? It seems like MNHQ think there are just a few " glitches" that can be put right and all will be well and that isn't the case.
Softening the white won't help
It's the whole layout that the problem, far too much white, posts seem to run into each other, the font, the flickering adverts.
The whole mobile site is just awful
It really is. Please will you explain why it can't go back to how it was admit this wasn't a good release. And then if you feel it needs changing start again with a lot more input from users. Thanks

My final post on this topic:

LOCAL TALK - what the chuff have you done to it?

It now takes SIX steps/taps to get to my local page where it took TWO before.

And when I get there, there is NO MAIN BOARD any more - just a confusing mess of different topics and active conversations and no way of seeing any of them properly. Really, it's truly awful and I can my imagine people using the local sites at all now. Those sites are meant to run using advertising revenue and local promoter links, so you have just killed them completely (and my local site was one of the busier ones and it still didn't get that much traffic). It is totally unusable now without the main local board.

Did you run your mobile site past the local editors? Or think about the fact that lots of people may use local talk on the go, esp. for day out suggestions, etc.?

It really is unusable now. :( Very sad :(

The desktop site is white too and the old mobile site had a white background with black copy.

I looked at the site again this morning, having had to log off last night as it was giving me a headache and making me feel sick, and I lasted about two minutes. I was going to post on a thread I have posted on before, but I wrote a sentence and began to feel ill again.

I am holding my phone with active convos against my desktop screen and they are two different colours. The desktop looks a kind of grey/blue tone white and the mobile site is absolutely flourescent white. I can't read it; it makes me feel sick.

I switched to the Guardian mobile site afterwards this morning, as I like to have something to read, and it is not bright white, it has a greyer tinge too.

I have no known medical conditions, if that helps, Mrs V, so it is not just you being whiny at all.

It needs thicker lines to break up each individual message. It just seems so muchhharder to read. Also the pale blue highlight when you click on a thread is too pale, you can't really tell if you've clicked on it.

I've tried changing to the desktop site but it keeps crashing my internet.

The icons are easier which is good.

I've spent about 5 minutes on here, catching up on this thread. The glare/eyestrain is terrible.

Rebecca - can you tell us if there will be an option to use the original mobile site?

That would be good, an option to use the old mobile site.

For me this is what I like and what really needs fixing or including:)

like

• The icons in a box instead of having to type, same as writing style and the save space picture button.
• The shortcut bar at the bottom and icons in corner.
• The tab that holds the report/message etc.

what needs changing

• Threads I'm On needs recent posts back on to save on hassle for users.
• That stupid number beside TIO needs to go.
• Colour change needed to show which threads we've viewed.
• Navigation buttons at the top so we don't have to scroll ALL THE WAY DOWN to go to the next page.
• The style. It's plain. No identity. And there's no colour. Why?!
• We need the option to colour posts again, not just the OP.
• The social media buttons need to go.
• We need the option to hide threads!!
• The option to go back to the old mobile website layout.
• Needs a message on post that tells us whether MNHQ have commented and if it's a zombie thread.

I feel there's more but these are a few main points. Why was it changed/destroyed in the first place??

And I've got a headache again. I'll check back later for an answer.

The lawn needs mowing, anyway.

If you are using ios7 and having flickering - go into settings on your device - then into general - make sure reduce motion is on.

Screen too white? Again ios7 - settings - general - accessibility - increase contrast - you then have another 3 options one is to reduce white point. This takes away the glaring white and doesn't make other sites a lot darker.

Mnhq - can you not support dynamic type, this way users who want larger type can adjust with their device settings?

This is just AWFUL. so hard to read, navigate, the tool bar and the adverts are so intrusive. I can barely use it.

If you are at the top and want to go to bottom just press the add post button...

Bless you, Romeyroo.

I just cannot understand why it was changed when I didn't see any posts complaining about the old site ?

I have seen several threads and most mnetters are not happy.

We were told by Dawn last night that Tech would be on to answer questions and put issues right. So far, it's been poor RebeccaMumsnet that has bore the brunt of my whinging, bless her.

I am surprised there are not more here trying to explain why it is just so wrong, from the posts yesterday.

I can only surmise that perhaps for some mnetters, the mobile site is their only way of mnetting, and they have not come back because it is so awful.

There was one I read last night from a poster who said she is dyslexic, and it was making her struggle and feel awful about her reading again.

I feel for her so much, far more than for me, because I can always just turn it off.

I can imagine if you struggle with reading and spelling, never mind the spelling, grammar and paragragh police, it must be awful to be struggling with something you enjoyed so much previously.

Where's the top button gone after every post?

This is utter shit. Instead of trying to be cool and hip why couldn't you just leave it the fuck alone.

That tacky as at the top is pissing me off too.

On an iphone there's literally about 3 max replies you can't see.

Why didn't you try this out before sending it 'live' and embarrassing yourselves?

You failed.

I never used the mumsnet app - just mobile site on iPhone Safari. I would actually rather pay than have to use this crap.

Why i don't like the moving toolbar, it gets stuck and covers the text!

Also still unable to see when I've posted. I press post message, it appears to do something but my text stays in the box & doesn't show on the feed. Then if i flick back to desktop site its posted 3times!

Coloured posts for OP & my own posts is still working for me though.

An update from HQ Would be good!

Can people actually post from the new site? I'm on iphone 5, safari, and it just has the waiting icon after I press post.

Oh and the advert at the bottom is the most annoying style.

Just spent 5 minutes here reading the updates and I'm leaving again with an awful headache.

I've had no problems posting, but I seem to be a bit of an outlier on here

Oh MNHQ this is all just a bit of a fuck up isn't it?

Why don't you revert back to the old version quickly before social media gets wind of "MN has buggered up its mobile site and don't know how to fix it".

Have you tweeted this thread, BTW?

cakedays makes an interesting point:

it really is going backwards if you take functionality that used to be one step (one tap, easy and intuitive) and introduce another step (two taps into a drop-down) to do exactly the same thing. It might not matter as much if it's a little used feature. But something like the top button on posts and the top page jump bar were used routinely on every page by a lot more posters than I suspect MN thought

Ok, this is probably delving a little too much into MNHQ's internal development methodologies, but it seems like the following steps were missed when designing the mobile site:

1. Adding per-click analytics to the existing mobile site to understand how many users were using each feature (cross referenced with specific users, to understand the difference between frequent mobile users and casual lurkers)
2. Designing the new mobile site such that the most frequently used features (as supported by analytics evidence) became easier to use.

The current analytics used by the site in both desktop and mobile version already tracks browser types and usage, so that information is readily available to the design team, however I think that it would have been useful to cross reference it with the pool of most regular users.

I'd be very happy for MNHQ to say that they followed a evidence driven methodology in coming up with the new UX, but instead it feels like it was more driven by what the tech team thought would be "fun new tech to play with" (sorry tech team, I know what that's like!!)

I agree with Zach.
This is a MAJOR MN Fuck Up. That they seem to be conveniently ignoring.