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DerekL1963
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Joined: 14 Jan 2015
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PostPosted: Wed Dec 13, 2017 1:38 pm Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
Chrome's behavior is to take the user back to the previous page that the user loaded, not the previous page that the browser loaded. Sometimes, when pages auto-redirect, I find this extremely frustrating when I want to go back to the interim page, but in this case it's exactly what I want.


I don't quite understand this... You want the extra articles loaded (for some unfathomable reason), but you also want the back button to go back to main page rather than the interim page? What's the purpose of creating the interim page in the first place then?
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Haterater



Joined: 30 Apr 2006
Posts: 1727
PostPosted: Thu Dec 14, 2017 1:45 am Reply with quote
Laethiel and Shiroi Hane have described it exactly of what I'm trying to say. I'm using Firefox 52 ESR.
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Tempest
I Run this place.
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Joined: 29 Dec 2001
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 3:41 pm Reply with quote
DerekL1963 wrote:
Tempest wrote:
Chrome's behavior is to take the user back to the previous page that the user loaded, not the previous page that the browser loaded. Sometimes, when pages auto-redirect, I find this extremely frustrating when I want to go back to the interim page, but in this case it's exactly what I want.


I don't quite understand this... You want the extra articles loaded (for some unfathomable reason), but you also want the back button to go back to main page rather than the interim page? What's the purpose of creating the interim page in the first place then?


There are two possible ways that the back button can work. Depending on the browser.

1: It takes you to the previous page that you intiated. Either by typing in the URL, or by clicking a link.
2: It takes you to the previous page that the browser visited, even for a brief second.

On ANN, as you scroll down, the URL changes, but these changes aren't initiated by you.
On most websites, when you click on an ad, it first goes through a tracking URL, and then you are forwarded to the actual destination
On some websites (eg:twitter), when you click any link you are first directed to a tracking URL then forwarded to the actual destination.
On some websites, when you land on your desired destination, you are automatically redirected to another URL that you don't want to be at. This can be the case of errant advertising, or perhaps the publishers redirecting you for some reason.

It's in this last case, where the interim URL is the actual desired destination, that I find it extremely frustrating that the back button takes you back to the origin URL.

But in the other cases, when the back button takes you from your current page to the origin page, it's exactly what you want. You don't want to end up at the interim, tracking URL.

The above cases are what I was talking about. My point was that the back button can't know what you want and has to be configured one way or another. Unfortunately whichever way it is configured, it won't be right 100% of the time.

As for ANN's case, I feel that the back button behaves properly (in Chrome at least). If I scroll down, I can go back by scrolling up. If I click a link, I can go back by clicking back.
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Fri Dec 15, 2017 3:51 pm Reply with quote
Laethiel wrote:
What Haterater is describing is this: start on article 1, browse down to articles 2, 3, 4, click on any link, then click the Back button. You'll be on the page for article 4, with article 1 nowhere to be found.


Ahh, I get it.
I've tested it and see that's exactly what happens. Definitely not optimal. Optimally it should reload the last page exactly as you had it.

The biggest annoyance here is that if you want to continue reading to the next article, it restarts at the first article. Also annoying that you can't just scroll up.

The challenge is that we want the URL to point *only* to the article you're actually reading. That way if you bookmark it, or cut & paste it, it will bring you to that article and that article only. So what we want is different behavior when you're clicking back versus linking to the URL. Might be hard or impossible to implement.

I'll point this out to Daniel's team and see if there's any way we can figure this out next time we work on this feature.
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Daichi09



Joined: 11 Oct 2008
Posts: 20
PostPosted: Fri Dec 29, 2017 8:05 pm Reply with quote
I'm not a fan of the autoloading and the breaking of my back button. I only want the article I clicked on (or the one that was shared to me), I can go back to the main page if I want a different article or find something I like on the sidebar. Same reason I don't want auto-playing video, I want to initiate it myself.

I don't appreciate a website trying to be smarter then me and failing at doing so, let me make my own decisions please.
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CycloneSP



Joined: 26 Aug 2013
Posts: 31
PostPosted: Sun Jan 07, 2018 10:19 pm Reply with quote
It's been over a month now. where's the promised ability to disable the feature?

With each passing day I grow more frustrated by this stupid auto loading and wish to see it gone asap.
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Mon Jan 08, 2018 1:45 pm Reply with quote
I don't have an eta yet, sorry.

I'll bring it up next time we have a dev meeting to see where it can fit on the dev calendar.
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Violynne



Joined: 09 May 2014
Posts: 128
PostPosted: Wed Jan 24, 2018 8:47 am Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
Very few web-publications offer their readers the number of options that we do. When a small number of readers didn't like the layout for the front page, we added a layout option tailored to them (that very few people use, we have the statistics). When a small number of people complained about the text width of our articles, we gave them an option to change that (which very few people use), etc... Most websites would simply tell you "the next article auto-loads now. That's our layout, hope you like it, we're sorry if you don't."

My apologies for arriving to the discussion a tad late. I haven't visited the site as often as I used to due to work travels.

I'd like to address the statements above, because I feel there's a disconnect between "statistics" and viewer readership.

When I arrive to the site, I don't immediately log in. This, I believe, is a disconnect between users and site developers. Adding "options" behind an account log in is what makes it difficult to find a balance between changes and options.

This leads to frustration, at least on my part, because it's clear the website is very dated as compared to "other" sites. To see ANN mimic features of other sites can also lead to frustration, because I feel there's a belief of "if everyone's doing it, it's okay". Ask people what they feel about popups, sliders, and auto playing videos, and it's likely fewer appreciate these elements than like them (but are forced to deal with them).

I don't disagree there will be a vocal outcry when changes occur, but at the same time, some changes are too blatant to ignore and can cause issues with how people use the site, not the change itself.

I speak for myself, but I cannot visit this site on my mobile device. I won't go into details, but to say the site's design is overdue for a change is an understatement.

This interaction, with the non-optioned changes, is where I find myself with a challenge.

The "statistics" you mention above are probably the result of either users unaware of the options or behind a log-in wall before they're applied. If many visit the site as I do, then the "default" layout is what we contend with.
(For me, it's just better to deal with the layout than log in, because I generally come in to take a quick look at the news, maybe an article, then off to another site.)

I understand the developers can't consider every possible option for its visitors, and some change can be accepted in time, but if the developers are "chasing the next big thing" without considering their viewers, the outcry is going to be much more vocal.

I'd be interested to see how many people visit the site as a "guest" vs. being logged in. This could be helpful to determine how to design a page.

I'd like to show you this site: http://arstechnica.com.

It's a site I visit daily, also as a "guest". Note the "hamburger" icon in the upper right. I hit this every time I visit the site because I don't like the default layout. This option is cookie based, so I have to use it every day as I flush everything when I close my browser.

The option accessible to everyone. Those who log in get the design layout of their choice and those who visit can easily change it.

More importantly, note how the options are offered. It's an overlay, not a push-down drop down which ANN uses (and I find extremely irritating, by the way).

Little things like this make a difference and I hope the site above helps influence the future changes to ANN. Although I don't visit as often as I used to, I'm looking forward to seeing the site get updated.

Before I go, I'd like to present another issue I have with "statistics" and why I feel they shouldn't be the measurement to determine options.

I'm 51 years old, and I use my phone's settings to adjust the font size. This can have an adverse affect on some sites as "text bleed over" can result, pushing text outside the bounds of the page design, making articles difficult to read.

It's likely I represent less than 1% of ANN's viewership in this regard, which is why "statistics" generally don't apply to visitors like us.

As the new design is in the works, I humbly ask developers to enable this setting during testing on their mobile devices to ensure bleed over doesn't occur.

Thank you for being open to feedback regarding these matters. It's refreshing than the alternative "take it or leave" approach now too common on the internet.

Thanks for reading and have a great day. Smile
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Tempest
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 5:34 pm Reply with quote
Violynne wrote:
When I arrive to the site, I don't immediately log in. This, I believe, is a disconnect between users and site developers. Adding "options" behind an account log in is what makes it difficult to find a balance between changes and options.


You'll be happy to know that we decided these options will be cookie based. This is largely because people want things displayed differently on their desktop/laptop/tablet/mobile. So each device can have it's own cookie & settings.

Thank you for your other feedback. It's very useful for us to hear from people, and you had some good comments.

-t
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DerekL1963
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PostPosted: Thu Jan 25, 2018 6:00 pm Reply with quote
Tempest wrote:
You'll be happy to know that we decided these options will be cookie based. This is largely because people want things displayed differently on their desktop/laptop/tablet/mobile. So each device can have it's own cookie & settings.


Good, because it's causing loading problems on my tablet when I come to messages (such as this one) via the notification emails.
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Thorfinn





PostPosted: Fri Apr 06, 2018 10:39 am Reply with quote
After barely using the website over the past few months because of this change, I accidentally opened up an article here and I noticed the loading next article thing is gone, but I want to ask if this is only temporary. Any updates on this "feature"?

Edit: It was only temporary, sadly. I'm outta here.
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