[Announcement] Introducing: The New BHW

[Zwielicht]

Those of you who are posting short positive or negative responses, it's important to elaborate on why you like or dislike the theme.

• "I like the new theme" - That's good, but what about it do you like? Do you find it easier to use, do you like the colours, maybe the new layout?
• "I hate the new theme" - Good, it's important to voice your opinion on this, but what do you hate? Is it the navigation, the change in colours, something about the new layout?

I'm responding to what I can in this thread, but as I don't have all of the answers on why this or that is in the new theme, I can't respond to everyone. I am making a list of posts I couldn't respond to so that someone who was involved in the design process can get back to all of you. I just don't want anyone to feel like they're being deliberately skipped over because they voiced their opinion.

Yes, color psychology on CR isn't as black and white as most think and very much depends on context.
Red CTAs can very much work, if it aligns with the brand.

A good portion of my business revolves around CRO, and my biggest client currently has been a multi-million euro (annual revenue) bakery. Helped them increase CR on B2B contact inquiries by 370%.

In my limited experience, the red sign-up button in this context/branding just feels odd.

Though, I'm not a fortune teller with a crystal ball nor do I have the data on what the actual performance is, so what do I actually really know.

It just still feels weird, for me at least, to press a red button to do any actions (such as posting this reply) on this forum.

I understand this very well. When I was learning internet marketing, It was a general rule to avoid red CTAs as they can come off as alarming and to use orange CTAs instead.

Of course, as you mentioned, colour psychology isn't black and white. Whilst I don't know the specific reason for the red in certain elements on the forum now, I've chalked it up in my head to it being "chocolate themed". Seriously, when I was asked the write the announcement thread for the new theme, I looked over the new design and wanted to make several comparisons to the dark theme using dark chocolate, caramel chocolate, and ruby chocolate as a possible inspiration. However, as this was just meant to be an announcement rather than a review thread, I felt it was best to simply describe some of the new features and to limit most of my personal interpretations in regards to the designer's inspiration.

Heh, how about NO

Poor @Zwielicht catching strays

I wouldn't quite say that. I'm not the designer of the new theme, although some people have erroneously thought that because I posted the announcement thread.

It's more like some people are throwing shots in the dark because they don't know who to be angry at.

But really, come on, there'd be at least some purple if I designed the theme. I thought people here would know this by now!

I agree
The text should have better contract with background. At the moment text color and background color are too close, it's hard to read the text this way.
On dark theme, the text should be lighter/whiter
On white theme, the text should be darker/more black

Which theme are using at the moment, out of curiosity?

I checked the text colour on the white theme using inspect element and it's #0b0b0b. That's pretty close to #000.

Maybe get quoted text even darker; it's quite hard to differentiate between a quoted message and a response.

Can you post a screenshot of what you're referring to?

Can we go back to the previous theme? It was much better and clean layout.

Give us option to retrieve the previous theme. Its look very odd now like other forum which you can't understand where is the conversation started and where ended

The forum owner answered this question here: https://www.blackhatworld.com/seo/announcement-introducing-the-new-bhw.1585112/post-17648961

There's an FAQ thread in the opening post. I'd recommend to everyone to read that before posting.

 

[xReminisce]

But really, come on, there'd be at least some purple if I designed the theme. I thought people here would know this by now!

omg, you got me



But here is another issue that probably needs to be fixed for both White and Black
Although white is way more blending in than dark is
Hovering over the numbers gives a darkish light gold that is basically non-visible with a weird red border.
Purple would of been great (DD probably would hate it tho )

It's more like some people are throwing shots in the dark because they don't know who to be angry at.

Very true
Need a scapegoat and you are probably the scapegoat for making the announcement it

 

[Zwielicht]

But here is another issue that probably needs to be fixed for both White and Black
Although white is way more blending in than dark is
Hovering over the numbers gives a darkish light gold that is basically non-visible with a weird red border.
Purple would of been great (DD probably would hate it tho )

Looking at the code, that might by design as there's a very specific line in the CSS file for "border-color", which was set to #a02e2e. You can open up inspect element and see this as well.

I'm obviously biased, but purple would've been great.

Who am I kidding though, purple wouldn't have suited any iteration of the forum.

Very true
Need a scapegoat and you are probably the scapegoat for making the announcement it

Hey... wait a minute...

But really, I wanted to post the announcement. It's a major change to the forum, and given both my starting point here as a regular and the fact that I've been here so long; it felt appropriate for the announcement to come from me.

 

[ashish2112]

Much better on eyes, though will take time to adapt

 

[proxygo]

@Zwielicht will the collapse category on the main forum return?
on the old forum you could close up sections of the
forum you didnt use, now that option has gone and the whole
forum has to be viewed. also posts txt seems tiny + blurry

 

[Zwielicht]

@Zwielicht will the collapse category on the main forum return?
on the old forum you could close up sections of the
forum you didnt use, now that option has gone and the whole
forum has to be viewed. also posts txt seems tiny + blurry

I'm sorry, I saw your post, but I don't have the answer for that.

Your post was in my list of posts that still need a response from someone who can provide it.

I'm responding to what I can in this thread, but as I don't have all of the answers on why this or that is in the new theme, I can't respond to everyone. I am making a list of posts I couldn't respond to so that someone who was involved in the design process can get back to all of you. I just don't want anyone to feel like they're being deliberately skipped over because they voiced their opinion.

 

[GooogleDev]

also posts txt seems tiny

ctrl + [+] = zoom in
ctrl + [-] = zoom out
Ctrl PLUS + sign
Ctrl PLUS - sign

 

[UnusualSubstance]

This theme is good.

The theme is brilliant.

(There is a gun pointed at me, help.)

Seriously tho, it's sort of growing on me a little.

 

[10zen]

This dark gold/olive(whatever color) and black don't contrast much, making it seem very washed to the eyes. Old dark theme was very contrasting and easy to read, easy for the eyes.

I don't understand why the need for the change. Is it not the motto of any marketer, business owner, "if not broken, don't fix it"? Was it majority demand from the members to have this change or was it just done on a whim?

We have learned, it doesn't matter if it's ugly or whatever if it is doing well and gets the job done.

 

[10zen]

The black theme cause my eyes to hurt. The white theme is more readable....

White theme was already available and I understand there are many who likes white theme.

I am mentioning about default dark theme. It's not contrasting enough to make easy for the eyes. Any good developer would've seen this. I don't understand how it got passed them or even for the need to change it when it was working.

 

[vuvanthuan170696]

How can we enable it?

 

[florinovic]

harder to read and focus ... new theme sucks, maybe next time hire a real UX designer?

 

[soa0611]

White theme was already available and I understand there are many who likes white theme.

I am mentioning about default dark theme. It's not contrasting enough to make easy for the eyes. Any good developer would've seen this. I don't understand how it got passed them or even for the need to change it when it was working.

a lot of people here expressed this opinion but seems BHW stuff not in a hurry to change it back
let the person who is responsible for colors post his position here

 

[MrDenz]

How can we enable it?

What exactly?

Light theme?

 

[sternburg]

Well, thank goodness they changed that awful black design!

 

[Diamond Damien]

@Zwielicht will the collapse category on the main forum return?
on the old forum you could close up sections of the
forum you didnt use, now that option has gone and the whole
forum has to be viewed. also posts txt seems tiny + blurry

Thanks for your post.
Yes the collapse will return to the forums page. This is one we simply missed.
We’re reviewing the text size at the moment.

 

[MrDenz]

@proxygo ^^

 

[Diamond Damien]

any way to make post txt bigger? its so small when reading
that im squinting and its kinda blurry

Yes we’re currently reviewing the text size options.

 

[lucky.sparks]

I do enjoy new theme from phone, finally i can use forum from it as old one was hard to browse using mobile devices.

(That doesnt change fact that desktop is done bad and should be reworked)

 

[jeanfrank]

Hmm, if the theme is white, that's called WhiteHatWorld