A few updates to Mumsnet 🎨

[LizzyMumsnet]

You might notice things are looking a bit different today. We’ve given Mumsnet a colour refresh, based on feedback from you in our surveys (thank you!).

We’ve also moved a couple of things around to reduce clutter and make things easier to find:

• Watch now sits under the OP post
• Report has moved into the meatball menu (the three dots on posts)

As ever, we’d love to hear what you think, so please share your feedback below.

Me too and it's super annoying.

Mine has been doing that too - really annoying! Doesn't do it on other sites.

Mine does that sometimes too, but it appears random so I can't figure out why.

Thank you for taking onboard the concerns and responding to them.

They’ve said that they’ll enable us to remove them following changes made by next week.

Not going to lie, there's far bigger problems in the world right now. A colour of a free website is not one of them. *Yawn.

And yet you still felt the need to comment on it...

The shocking "brightness" of it all has made me reluctant to use MN.

I tried the dark mode as some suggested but doesn't suit my eye condition.

So as suggested up thread and dimmed down my screen both brightness and contrast.

All other web site now look like they are floating behind some mist, but the moment I opened mumsnet it was like staring into spotlights.

Cant work out why the blue is so "vibrant".

So uncomfortable to use, it has a will limit how often and how much time I bother to use the site.

I'd be very interested to know who commissioned these changes; what their impetus was; the precise brief; who was employed to do the work; how were they chosen; what are their qualifications and experience; how much were they paid; and what is their connection to the existing MNHQ team.

My only interest here is to continue to suggest that the previous colours and configurations should be made available AS WELL AS the new ones, so that users can set their preferences by what they prefer and not by what someone who doesn't know them nor their medical conditions has decided they ought to prefer. Then the consultants will get their pay and the board-users will not be made unhappy.

Oh, and the thing labeling individual posts as "my posts" instead of "my post" should be done away with; quite apart from the domestic abuse risk, if the colours are worth having so that one's own and the OP's posts can be readily identified using them, the labels are not needed.

Oh my goodness, WHY? It's just a colour refresh, the kind of brand tweak businesses do all the time in an attempt to stay fresh and present in people's minds. Given that MN is a wholly online business it will have a whole load of experienced staff and agencies that specialise in web design. Why would you need to know the humdrum details of how they go about their jobs?

What is the big issue here? Any change to a site you use regularly is going to be a bit discombobulating for a few days. Then it's not. It's hardly Watergate.

Have you not read the posts from people who are unhappy about these changes for health reasons? Presumably their health does matter to those users, even if it doesn't to you.

(Have you ever had a migraine?)

They will have complied with web accessibility guidelines around visual health and disabilities, as they are legally required to. They can't tailor the colours to mitigate the colour sensitivities of each one of their users.

They could however provide colours which do not adversely affect people (and I decline to call those who find the new scheme unpleasant and painful "liars") by the simple expedient of providing their shiny new ones and also the ones a lot of people have stated they prefer, thus giving everyone a genuine choice rather than none.

Why is it so great to change things for the sake of changing them, anyway, and then tell people they asked you to do it? The people who say they saw the survey say they were not shown what was on offer, so how can they have asked for what has been foisted on us all?

You assume they will have complied with the guidelines you mention. I am not convinced: I know plenty of places where guidelines such as legal requirements are ignored, including schools and the NHS. And I know of no guideline suggesting that people should be very obviously identified as the authors of posts, when such identification might put them at risk from an abusive partner.

Yes. Yes, I did.

I have been on MN for ages now, @ProfoundlyPeculiarAndWeird - I remember when it were all trees and fields round here - and have seen a number of changes implemented, but this is the only one where I have seen lots of people talking about the colours causing migraines/headaches/eyestrain. Obviously not conclusive data, but it does suggest to me that there’s a problem with the new display colours.

I've been here for ever too, @SDTGisAnEvilWolefGenius . My recollection is that people always get intensely angry about all site changes every single time that they happen.

@ProfoundlyPeculiarAndWeird completed accessibility check did they?

Attached a screenshot as the quote doesn't show it.

... that doesn't preclude the complainers being right once in a while.

I tried the dark mode as some suggested but doesn't suit my eye condition

I don't have any particular eye condition apart from needing glasses the past few years, like a lot of people. I cannot, however, look at dark mode for more than
a few minutes without the onset of eyestrain. I find white on black very difficult to read and the discomfort stays around for some time even when I've had enough and look away.

The forest green and mauve I had before were so restful and easy on the eye.

Yep, together with the softer, darker blue they gave a structure to the page - now everything seems to fall off the edges of the thread, in light mode, because the new 'green' (?biscuit) & 'grey' (?blue) are too pale. The 'blue' is for MNHQ, so why include it, the 'magenta' (salmon) is bilious & the 'white' is pointless. Was it designed by someone who's never actually seen or used MN? I can't think of any other explanation for it - particularly the apparent ignorance of blue being MN's colour for posts.

Sowingbees' quote and screenshot is very helpful on this, but I recommend also going back to look at Lefwyns original post for the whole set of pics of her testing. There are multiple fails, not just the page in the screenshot.

If MN does indeed have "a whole load of experienced staff and agencies that specialise in web design" then something has gone profoundly wrong.

Are you not aware that it's perfectly possible for people to be concerned about all the 'bigger' problems that are affecting the world right now, and at the same time, be put out by the smaller problems that impact their lives as individuals?