Because the look is inconsistant and honestly is a major kludge.

--S

I think it's called the XBOX

--S

Here's a great customer-centric feature idea. Produce the re-design in say 7-10 different color themes. Allow for the user to choose their color theme via their account settings.

The current "hot red-orange" isn't consistent with Elliots statement that brand shoudn't dominate over content. The redness essentially alerts the user to the redness before they see the content. I can almost bet you that in a usability study of users, and specifically their eyes, that they see the red before they see the content. Again, in support of a more neutral color of green or brown.

SB

I actually like this feature a lot. I feel like posting a listing to a tribe is basically useless right now because everyone goes straight to the discussions, and doesn't bother with the listings.

Sure, at first it'll look like my tribes are all spammy because of those people who post their listing to every tribe they're on, but I think that behavior will die really fast when people are actually looking at the listings. It'll also cut down on that thing that happens where people start threads announcing their events because they know that nobody's going to see their listing.

So, once it's widely deployed and people are used to it, I think it'll work really well. Right now, it's sort of annoying.

I do miss being able to see some of a tribe's photo album on the main page, though. Without that, I think the photo album feature becomes a lot less useful.

Also, while the big buttons at the top of the page make sense from a usability standpoint, you might consider making them, err, less big. I use tribe on an older Mac laptop with a 1024x768 display. There's not a lot of room for large graphics, and it'd be nice for more of that real estate to be occupied with relevant information.

try our new wide variety of flavours:

vanilla, vanilla, and new for spring;


... VANILLA!

If it's so great and useful as a replacement to tribe, what are you still doing here?

--S

David: $60/year(minimum) isn't free, ya flippin' tease. Go back and find one that is free and isn't easy for hackers to destroy your computer.
Some peoples kids, I swear, lol
Shadow

Wade et all, I like the cleaner look and easier, more simplistic usability on the proposed mock ups; job well done. However, even though I like the new design and iconic style I do believe that with the logo and icons being red the site carries an Oracle tone to it (To corporate and not enough community friendly). Then again, back in 98 when I designed the Oracle EDU site I was knee deep in themed brand red too, so this feedback could be bent by the Oracle Red spoil factor.

Regardless of me having an Oracle Red spoil factor or not, I suggest a slight brand spin. Hopefully, if you take what I am about to suggest to the tables, Tribe won't have to consult with a media brand equity firm to decide if this is a strategically sound move or not (We all know how much a profesional brand co. costs).

When designing, and especially for a community based site, it is best practice to look at the community/user demographics. While this can be acheived via statistics, surveys and other metrics in measurement, I use here a very basic analysis to find the most commons in the Tribe community mind set. Below resides a list of Tribes and their membership levels.

Christian Talk - 100
Gnostic Way - 147
OSHO - 240
#!#The Cult of the BEARD#!# - 318
weed smokers - 260
Tripping in Nature - 264
Buddhists Just Wanna Have Fun - 822
Pagan - 764
Zen - 669

I don't like to assume, but with a Christian president who refuses to sign the Kyoto agreement, and the knowledge that Pagan's respect Mother Nature, I assume that by the numbers presented above Tribe has a community base that follows a more Green Party basis than not.

So ultimately I must ask the question: does tribe have a more "Red" focused community of people, or does Tribe have a more "Green" peak in interests? I think that the numbers make clear that this site has a more "Green" membership.

Finally, my counsel to the Tribe design team is that you heavily consider in the new re-design a change in the color of the logo, and a change in the proposed icon theme. From red, to green. After all, Red means STOP, and Green means GO, and I believe the tribe community to be more of the "GO!" belief and mindset. I whole heartedly hope that you consider this analysis and counsel as you execute the update.

This comes to you from a designer with over 10+ years experience in designing customized web applications and sites. I fellow that has sat on multi-million dollar branding boards such as the once little start up known as Lucent. Founder and CEO of Silicon Valley based Intrawork - www.intrawork.com. And he challenges the Tribe team to question the very color theme within the brand. I suggest, "GO GO GO!"

I trust in that I have been of help,

Scott Bruno

It's interesting the new logo looks like a video game controller. Kinda reminds us we're all being controlled.

Greetings,
I'm a graphic designer and I'm very disappointed in the changes. I hate to be so negative, but you've taken something that was simple and easy to navigate and made it "spaced out" and less tribe user friendly. It requires too many clicks and going back and forth to get where you're trying to go.

1. I do not like that the pictures of my friends are lost on the home page and require a separate click. THE BIGGEST LOSS OF ALL.

2. I do not like the shortened list of my tribes and the way they're reorganized. I REALLY DISLIKE THIS. VERY FRUSTRATING.

3. I do not like the insertion of suggested Tribes at the top. Takes up way too much space for something that I don't find helpful.

4. I do not like the suggested people at the bottom. I find people to know just fine.

5. I do not like that the "views on you" and number of friends being completely gone from the homepage.

Quite honestly, I cannot find one thing that I like about the new design. I really wish I did. Again, as a designer, I know the effort you must have put into this. The existing design is tight, integrated, easy to navigate, intuitive and it just plain works great as it is now.

I'm all for change if it's going to improve user friendliness. But changing something that works well is a mistake.

This is a design blunder. Well-intended. But a complete blunder. I implore you not to implement the new design! I beg you not to. I know it means tossing aside the time and effort you put into recreating it, but it would show respect for your users to be able to say, "Judging from your feedback, we realize we made a mistake. We hear your complaints and will honor your request to leave well enough alone."

Thank you for hearing me out. I hope you choose wisely to keep Tribe as is, and I look forward to coming back to the Tribe I'm quite comfortable with and find so easy to use.

Sincerely, Kat