Comparing Plusnet Lithium and BT Lithium

[#1]

By way of a comparison I thought I would look at the BT Community Forum which also uses Lithium and in my opinion it is far more professional and user friendly

[#2]

Much of that has to do with spacing which we've all moaned about and will continue to moan about. One thing that stands out though in the particular images you've shown is the balloons, we need some of those adding to show where there are Unread posts in particular to make easier for people with Visual disabilities. Whilst an enhancement has been added here for mobiles, I haven't thoroughly checked out the extent and to exactly what it's been added.

Having mentioned mobiles, I'm not sure the BT Forum has yet been "adjusted" for mobiles, but whatever, that does not excuse or need all the wasted space that's been added here.

[#3]

Do you want their light touch moderation too?

[#4]

That is a totally irrelevant and unhelpful comment 

[#5]

I totally agree @Oldjim

I said something very similar to this a couple of days ago

I think one of the things that shocks me most though is that both PN and BT are running Lithium. One looks professional, the other with all the images... looks more like something someone knocked up using a WP template. Far too many images and whitespace

and

IMHO it looks unprofessional, more suited to a kids forum than a technical help forum due to the overuse of distracting images  

I'm finding the site difficult to navigate on a desktop - it may well be ok on mobile, but it most certainly not user friendly when on a PC.

Without a doubt the BT site looks professional, this one just makes my eyes hurt and I struggle to read useful content.

[#6]

Hi kitz, I agree with what you've said. I did make remarks about it not looking too professional and something along the lines of it being akin to a kiddies playground at some point during testing

I'm finding that navigating round whether it be desktop or mobile can be a pain because of all the scrolling. Cutting down the white space and etc. would help a lot. Having said that, navigating round on a desktop is better when one gets to know ones way around, it's so different from SMF it felt very alien to start with.

Apart from the bug fixes - the real irritating ones that have appeared the day after launch (which I know they are looking at) and others that limit usability in some things, there are a few enhancements that we are pursuing which we are hoping will return some of the functionality that is missing compared to SMF.

[#7]

---

@dvorak wrote:
Do you want their light touch moderation too?

---

Sarcasm at it's best

[#8]

@kitz - For me, this site does not look good or function very well on my iPad, I don't have a mobile phone so can't comment on that. I know it's not what we're used to but to me a good choice of phrase would be 'bloated'.

I also forgot to say 'noisy' as well.

[#9]

---

@Anotherone wrote:

---

@dvorak wrote:
Do you want their light touch moderation too?

---

Unhelpful Sarcasm at it's best

---

corrected it for you

[#10]

I fully agree with Oldjim & Kitz.
The new PN forums are not as good as the BT forums.
PN appear to have priotised the display of distracting graphical cruft over the actual CONTENT of the posts.
The BT forums look better on my mobile and load faster...

[#11]

@Anonymous Bloated is a term I've used frequently    @Townman can probably give you lots of tips and tell you about bugs he's found using an iPad - apart from his fat finger problems of course but then we all suffer from those on touch screens

[#12]

I have to agree with @Anotherone @Oldjim, @Anonymous, @kitz

I like many of the new features, but the combination of bad layout and the plethora of 'bugs' and anomalies is making the Usability suffer greatly.  When attempting to use a new feature it's hard to differentiate between my lack of understanding and identifying yet another possible 'bug'.

Hopefully PN will soon publish some timescales for getting the more critical issues resolved.

M

[#13]

---

@Anonymous wrote:

@kitz - For me, this site does not look good or function very well on my iPad, I don't have a mobile phone so can't comment on that. I know it's not what we're used to but to me a good choice of phrase would be 'bloated'.

I also forgot to say 'noisy' as well.

---

Hi @Anonymous,

Care to mention any specific iPad issue - as opposed to there's a lot to be scrolled on any viewport?

I did an extensive amount of testing on both iPad mk2 and iPad mini.  There were a small number of platform specific issues, but they were well masked by the generic issues, some of which were resolved during testing ... others remain on the to do list.

Fat fingers - someone always finds a dig!

[#14]

Fat fingers - someone always finds a dig!

There was a there and I did say

but then we all suffer from those on touch screens

[#15]

@Townman - I'll post an update about this tomorrow just in case it can be attributed to driver error! I normally don't use it (the iPad) until I'm in my bed, and it's to far to the bedroom to get it now.