Why DU3's home page was a better design for a Democratic community than DU4's. The news and our responses.

[highplainsdem]

This discussion thread was locked by EarlG (a host of the General Discussion forum).

Last edited Thu Feb 29, 2024, 10:41 AM - Edit history (1)

EDIT: THIS OP IS MORE THAN 4 MONTHS OLD NOW, FEBRUARY 29, BUT APPEARED ON THE LATEST PAGE BECAUSE OF THE 75TH REPLY BELOW, A MILESTONE REPLY. BECAUSE OF CHANGES MADE TO DU4, THIS DISCUSSION IS NO LONGER RELEVANT, SO PLEASE DO NOT POST NEW REPLIES. WHOEVER YOU REPLY TO NOW WILL GET A POSTS NOTIFICATION, BUT THE THREAD WILL NOT BE KICKED.


I can't post a screenshot of DU's old home page, but I can link to one at the Internet Archive: https://web.archive.org/web/20231016063621/https://democraticunderground.com/

It looks a bit odd to me because of the large blank spaces, typically filled with ads for those who are't Star members - ads and blank spaces I never saw if I was logged in - but it still illustrates something very basic about DU that DU4's design seems to have lost sight of.

DU is all about the news.

The news, and our response to it, and our favorite commentators' responses to it - both text and videos.

DU's most important function, for many here, is as a news aggregator, and a place to put that news in perspective.

The top LBN stories at the top of the home page were always the first thing I skimmed down when I logged in.

Trending Now and Greatest Threads, to the left of the LBN column, would usually give me a quick sense of how DUers were responding (with some more personal messages mixed in). The column of videos to the right typically included commentary from favorite pundits as well as additional news stories.

It was like a snapshot of DUers looking at and reacting to the world, and sharing others' reactions. You could get an instant sense of how things were going.

The Left Column and all the most recent threads from various forums are too prominent now and were better placed well down the page, as they were on DU3.

And that righthand column of most recent videos on DU3 worked much better and conveyed more at a glance than the scattered videos in the right column now.

LBN stories on the home page need the sources and especially the snippets - not just the headlines that are all that's showing up now, at least for some people on DU4.

But most of all, they need to be central, and at the top of the page. Many of us count on DU to have the latest breaking news of importance to Dems at the top of the page. And it shows newcomers where our focus has always been.

On the news that concerns Democrats, and the various reactions to that.

Not just whatever threads happen to be in The Left Column at that moment.

Please put the home page back the way it was with DU3.