unnecessaryfiddlingwithwhatalreadyworks
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And the green is gone. :) If you’re still seeing the green color on your stats page, try refreshing or clearing your cache:
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Just noticed this morning … and it looks SO much better. Much easier to read. Even my countries with fewer views are easily see in the pale yellow. Much appreciated! :)
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Glad to see we can now “mouse over the stats and get the info. The info box is indeed in a much better position below the columns but why the awful gray with an illegible white font? It’s unattractive visually as well. The original white with black text was a better choice.
The classic layout was perfect. You could see at a glance the proportion of visitors to views without using a calculator. It was one of the best designed and attractive stats feature I have seen on any other site.
Why not merely upgrade the original with the new repositioning of the info box and then you’d have a a stellar design.
It is clear that the developers ARE working on the stats page, but why is it necessary to overhaul everything, even the good features? The stats columns were excellent.
I still have my original question …. Why are these updates being done? It is clearly not to correct faulty elements in the original layout.
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I was so pleased to see the map with a much more readable “red-range” numbers indicator. But this morning I see that it’s now a pale watery orange … which once again vanishes into an illegible pale cream for the smaller/less visitor countries. Where is the effective red? I’m presuming it’s probably a bug.
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Hi nikkitytom,
Shawna is out over the weekend, so I’m taking a look at her tickets which have come in so nobody has to wait too long for a response.
You mentioned that the map had been changed to a deeper red color and now is showing a pale orange for you. Is the pale orange for the most-views originating country? I ask because I just verified on several test accounts and while I do see a variety of paler orange shades, those are for lesser-view countries (further down the spectrum). The higher the views the darker the shade, just like in the original stats (this even uses the same color options).
Let me know if your own stats are showing something different!
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Wow … you guys are really prompt in replying. Thanks so much!
Yep … I just checked BOTH versions of the stats. The view range was 65 views to 1 … with the indicator bar color ranging from what I’d call coral/tangerine to a very pale and watery yellow.
Unless you’ve assigned a specific number to a specific shade …. I’m assuming that this bar shows the view proportion for the individual blog date.
The map is an “extra” really … but I would suggest that the indicator bar range from a true red down to a bright canary yellow … the paler colors just don’t show up in the huge expanse of whiteness. Unless of course you have a VERY popular blog :) … and the entire world is viewing you.
I know this is a repeat comment …. but “proportion/ratio” is very important to serious bloggers. We’ve lost that stat in the new skinny visitor column stats … we get pop up numbers but no direct visual access to the ratio … very frustrating. Please bring back the double color graphic. ” Dieting” columns in this case lost an attractive feature. You could see ratio of visitors to views in a wink in the classic version.
The map offers us another important ratio … views by country.
Why are these changes being made? The original was so very well designed with easy access to everything in a nano-second? No one can seem to give me an answer, only that we’re going to lose the classic version eventually.
Thanks again for the speedy response. Nikki
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Hi Nikki,
I checked and your previous concerns have already been recorded and sent up the proverbial flagpole.
In regards to why things are changing? WordPress the software is over a decade old now and WordPress.com is not far behind it. By no means is this a statement that everything old must be changed or replaced, but both technology and design aesthetics moves along. Things are possible now which weren’t even a dream a decade ago when the original software was designed. The changes which we are making site-wide are to help bring further usability to all of our users; not just the ones who have been with us for years and typically use a desktop, but also mobile phone users, those who may have impairments, etc.
I hope that explains things a bit in a satisfactory manner.
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The changes which we are making site-wide are to help bring further usability to all of our users; not just the ones who have been with us for years and typically use a desktop, but also mobile phone users, those who may have impairments, etc.
@amightywp
There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. 4.0 billion of them own a mobile phone, but only 3.5 billion of them own a toothbrush. 60 Second MarketerIn the last 10 years I have witnessed the once ad-free blogosphere, which was once full of high quality original content that could not be found elsewhere, become a huge ad-covered marketplace full of mobile packing microblogging, rebloggers, clicking like buttons and posting selfies, as well as, publishing text that if printed would be suitable for use in my house only as puppy training pee paper. Perhaps the adage that shit always rises to the top is accurate. Or maybe not. Maybe there is at least a ray of hope for our future as desktop users who actually publish unique content. I’m trying to remain on the sunny side but it isn’t easy. My inner cynic keeps demanding attention. ;)
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Thanks again … for lightening response!
I work with graphics … intensively … and welcome new tweaks and improvements. But sometimes tweaks are made which just aren’t improvements. One of them is GIMP’s brush sizes. The newer version offers an amazing expansion which allows me to create huge poster sizes. I was delighted when I first saw it. Then realized they had inexplicably removed the smaller sizes which have to be calibrated now by hand and in frustrating increments. It was and is a disaster. But fortunately I was able to keep an original GIMP version., which I use for the more detailed work. I was at least given the option. There have been a lot of complaints over this and promises given that it will be “looked into”. But meanwhile we do have the olption. I use both versions.
As graphics person, I see changes in the stats page which have nothing to do with “technological improvements”. “Design Aesthetics” is a questionable concept at best. The only conflict I see here is that obviously you want to encourage cell phone users … and are trying to reduce the format of the pages. But then I would ask why you include that site menu on the left hand side which pulls us right back to the original width. Why all those clickable tabs. Why? And you can’t even go directly from the stats to Home without more clicks. That’s a basic requirement. In BOTH versions.
How do “impaired” users profit from all that scrolling and clicking? This makes no sense to me at all.
Why is it so hard to keep the color ratio in the column stats. Why is that feature now obsolete?
And above all what I cannot understand is why the “classic” isn’t being retained as an option. This is the most important question.
Again thanks for your speedy reply … Nikki
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The changes which we are making site-wide are to help bring further usability to all of our users; not just the ones who have been with us for years and typically use a desktop, but also mobile phone users, those who may have impairments, etc.
I fail to see much additional usability for desktop and laptop users at all—in fact, the new UI is an enormous retrograde step for those of us with larger monitors for reasons that many of us have elaborated on time and time again. Incessant scrolling and clicking is hardly conducive to productivity—or to accessibility.
I’m curious to see how WP.com manages to balance the needs of serious bloggers with those of the lightweight Tumblr hordes timethief alludes to (like her, I’ve watched the blogosphere largely degrade into a blizzard of vapid, narcissistic content). There are probably more fine long-form writers then ever; unfortunately, they’re often drowned out by the tweets, selfies, and reposts.
Serious bloggers make up the heart and soul of WP.com. They were here long before the twittering tweenagers, and they’ll be around when the tweens migrate to something else as they hit adolescence and adulthood. The question is, will many of the serious bloggers still be here?
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I simply don’t understand why two platforms cannot be accommodated. Programs are routinely created to be compatible for various versions of Microsoft and Apple to cover as many users as possible. Nor can I accept the excuse that these changes are for those with “impairments” … which I will soon join if I have to continue clicking and scrolling. I already wear a wrist brace for the hours I spend at the piano.
The bottom line is that a blog is not a “tweet” … and that no one writes an blog article on their cell phone. And I doubt many people are checking their stats for a tweet.
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It seems that fashion has replaced thinking and – indeed – quality of writing.
It is surely WordPress’ unique selling point that writers are enabled to write long articles/stories of quality on the platform? WordPress is, indeed, not Twitter/Natter/Headbook/Tumblr. And if someone wants to join the hordes of, ‘U follow me and I’ll follow u back kiss kiss kiss’ hordes then there are certainly all these awful (in my view) places to go.
But if WordPress wants to retain a reputation for quality of content, then it is madness to alienate and irritate those of us who simply want a highly usable posting platform and a premium statistics page – utilizing legible colours and giving full and accessible information.
So concentrate WordPress. Concentrate very hard on who you want your principal users to be. And then try to meet their needs. You cannot please all of the people, everywhere, on all of the IT devices, all of the time.
Evangeline -
I have noticed this with the Google guys as well. I think it is the CODE > DESIGN issue.. like the head telling the heart what to do. It does NOT work that way. The eyes get the visual input on the basis of which the heart/mind DECIDES. The coders do not FEEL enough so they keep fiddling with their abilities to show off their newly acquired what**??
I am going to launch an eLearning company and I am going to give the coders a sandbox to try out their skills. What goes on the live interface will be decided by the users. We will change the interface ONLY if our users tell us to do so. Otherwise, it’s like one morning you open up your front door and realize that the town planner decided to change the route of your driveway and you are stuck with your 4×4 SUV. Then an e-mail arrives on your inbox saying “please buy/use a small electric car” We have decided to go GREEN. Ah! How environmentally sensitive.. but you just broke my heart.. making me feel like breaking your coffee mug. Sic.. sic.. sic -
& btw, I get different results when I use WP on Firefox and Firefox on Ubuntu. At present I am typing on Chrome on Windows7.. if that helps?
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I went and read more of this thread (wasting time that was supposed to be spent capturing my audio notes that are waiting on my mp3)..
Don’t try to engineer too much.. else WE will become UnHAPPY!
OK?
:-)
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Good news … there have been some nice changes to the stats page. Two columns of info have solved the scrolling and clicking problem beautifully. Now about two pages bring up all the information very efficiently. I’m sure I’m not the only blogger who was pleased to see this today. A big thanks to the developers for this.
Now two more small tweaks would cover the small deficiencies still remaining. We really do need a visual ratio on the stats columns. The two colors … visitors and views … is so much more convenient than fumbling around with a calculator. The new numbers pop up box is great … but would be much more legible in plain white and black. The gray is hard to read. But the new position below the columns is much better than previously.
I personally feel a great loss in not being able to click to see the previous day’s stats. This was a wonderful feature and I used it constantly. It is one place where that extra “click” was worthwhile.
The overall stats for the blog is missing. I suspect that this was an oversight, since this is a crucial stat for every serious blogger.
But the new changes are really really welcome. And although I do miss the larger screen, this does suffice and can satisfy both the computer/PC and the Iphone camps.
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