VideoSift v6 (VS6) Beta Front Page

It's been about 6 months since we launched our VS6 beta single-video page and we've finally now launched our new beta homepage.

As before, logged-in members have the option to disable this new beta version if desired, but we encourage everyone to at least give the new layout a few days of regular use if not to fall in love with it at least to give us some quality, informed feedback.

The new video listing is intended to be much more information dense and feel more community-oriented, and we feel it achieves those goals rather well and is a huge improvement over the VS5 homepage. We also wanted to bring back some of the essence of the much loved very-blue layout of VS4.

Let us know your thoughts below, and as always with changes in software bugs/issues are to be expected so feel free to let us know if anything seems broken.

Thanks!
lucky760 says...

Well there's one issue right off the bat. I was about to *frontpage this when I realized that isn't implemented in the new layout yet. I'll be working on that.

[edit]
It's working now.

gorillaman says...

Obviously I've been hungering for fuller access to the new navigation bar, with all its sexy live content, and that's great.

Haven't we lost a lot of information again? Who wants to have to click on every video's thumbnail to see its length, channels, views, tags and so on. Presumably the loss of the ability to display a video's comments without the need to visit its page isn't a permanent excision.

And have you started piling up a lot of buttockry on the bottom of the page again? 'Top Sifters of the Week', not interested, 'Top New Comments', sure, in the sidebar.

My ardency for the beta video page is undiminished, but there's little so far that I see to recommend the new front page, save its access to the excellent top bar.

radx says...

One of the first things I do whenever I set up a clean install of Windows is to set the default view for every folder to "details".

A single column of content allows me to cycle the content through my stationary point of focus. I can stare at a fixed spot and just let my free-scroll mouse wheel do the work. Which is simply great for quickly browsing for interesting content.

Multiple columns of content, however, force me to scan by constantly changing my point of focus. The new design does precisely that, it makes me devote much more time to every single entry unless I reduce the tab's width to intentionally force the layout to organise its content in a single column.

But it's the same issue for almost every news site out there, so I guess I'm just too old for this shit. /rant

Bruti79 says...

I don't deal well with change. =)

In all seriousness, I do miss the single column. The new format feels like I'm looking at too much at the same time. That's just how I see, I also don't like change. =)

ant jokingly says...

"Change!" --Obama

Bruti79 said:

I don't deal well with change. =)

In all seriousness, I do miss the single column. The new format feels like I'm looking at too much at the same time. That's just how I see, I also don't like change. =)

oritteropo says...

You only need to reduce the width of your window a bit and it'll go back to single column. (also @radx)

Bruti79 said:

I don't deal well with change. =)

In all seriousness, I do miss the single column. The new format feels like I'm looking at too much at the same time. That's just how I see, I also don't like change. =)

radx says...

It reverts to single column at around 1200px or 60% width, but I'm not going to alternate between fullscreen and windowed for a single site.

An option for a single column layout would be rather nice, particularly a minimalistic one.

oritteropo said:

You only need to reduce the width of your window a bit and it'll go back to single column. (also @radx)

eric3579 says...

So i looked at the new beta on my friends phone and i really liked the design and way it worked. I especially liked that the header had drop down menus like the old vs. Also its all in a single column . No need to scroll to the right to see content. The layout was also pleasing to my eye.

Now for what i see on my computer. The double column thing is a no go for me. I find it so uncomfortable to look at. Just seems messy and clutered to my eye. Also i so much prefer drop down menus where i don't have to move my cursor to the far left to choose something. I like the old school drop down easy peasy.

lucky760 says...

@radx @Bruti79 @eric3579

I hear you.
I see you.


Just for you darling folks we've just added the ability to turn multi-column mode off (while logged in). At the top-right of the listing you'll see a little single-column or dual-column icon. Just click that to toggle betwixt the two modes.

We happy?


Vincent!

we happy?

radx says...

Yeah, we happy.

But we'd be even happier if you could add small visual indicators for length and nsfw.

And while we're at it, any chance of a uniform height for the drop down menu items? For instance, "Search" and "Submit Video" require me to scroll down no matter what, so they might as well have the same height as all the other items within the "Watch" tree, giving it a more unform look & feel.

lucky760 said:

We happy?


Vincent!

we happy?

eric3579 says...

So i appreciate the single columns but compared to the old sift design think it looks a mess.

old design visually much more appealing imo
http://i.imgur.com/FoZtUaj.png

New design way to much empty space (but much better then 2 columns)
http://i.imgur.com/9P9ag9F.png

-edit- also new design has no time length for video or view numbers. Ill always prefer more options and functionality over a slicker/cleaner style. Not saying i think its actually slicker or cleaner but assume thats what the new design is trying to achieve.

lucky760 said:

@radx @Bruti79 @eric3579

I hear you.
I see you.


Just for you darling folks we've just added the ability to turn multi-column mode off (while logged in). At the top-right of the listing you'll see a little single-column or dual-column icon. Just click that to toggle betwixt the two modes.

We happy?


Vincent!

we happy?

eric3579 says...

While im at it, i think it would be much better to have the search option on the top header of ALL pages and not buried in a menu. Ive said it before whenever i go to other video sites, search is something i want to access immediately. Having to try and figure out where it is, if it exist, is an instance bail out of the site.

halfAcat says...

the percentage rating shown when not logged in seems largely pointless, since practically every video has a rating of 100%, downvotes being rare on videosift.
if every video except a handfull is rated 100%, you might as well not show the rating, it's sort of useless information.

ant jokingly says...

Don't make me downvote!

halfAcat said:

the percentage rating shown when not logged in seems largely pointless, since practically every video has a rating of 100%, downvotes being rare on videosift.
if every video except a handfull is rated 100%, you might as well not show the rating, it's sort of useless information.

newtboy says...

OK....on the new front page now the top 15 are listed on the right hand side....AND NOTHING ELSE. I have to scroll to the bottom of the top 15 before the rest of the page starts. I'm certain that's not the intent, so something is wrong.

lucky760 says...

Def not right. Browser? Resolution? Screenshot?

newtboy said:

OK....on the new front page now the top 15 are listed on the right hand side....AND NOTHING ELSE. I have to scroll to the bottom of the top 15 before the rest of the page starts. I'm certain that's not the intent, so something is wrong.

messenger says...

Usually when I submit a video, I go back to the YouTube page it came from to copy/paste the title/description or watch it again and get some detail for the tags/description/channels.

With this new mouseover menu thing, every time I come back to the page, the Submit Video window has disappeared. It's a wee bit annoying to have to scroll through that menu again. More annoying is when I have multiple VS windows open and I have to scroll through the menu on each one to the Submit Video tab to find the one I've already going. Most annoying is when part way through a submission my mouse happens to pass over one of the other items in the Watch menu, and my whole submission content gets erased. GRRRR!!

It'd be better either if that window -- and perhaps any window with a form -- could stay open while there's any user input on it and didn't get wiped out when the user mouseovers another menu item, or if we went back to having a normal dedicated full-screen non-hair-trigger-disappearing submissions page.

It feels like stepping through a glass menagerie to use that form.

lucky760 says...

I hear you. I see you.

We're going to put some more time and thought into improving (by totally changing) that header submission process.

messenger said:

Usually when I submit a video, I go back to the YouTube page it came from to copy/paste the title/description or watch it again and get some detail for the tags/description/channels.

With this new mouseover menu thing, every time I come back to the page, the Submit Video window has disappeared. It's a wee bit annoying to have to scroll through that menu again. More annoying is when I have multiple VS windows open and I have to scroll through the menu on each one to the Submit Video tab to find the one I've already going. Most annoying is when part way through a submission my mouse happens to pass over one of the other items in the Watch menu, and my whole submission content gets erased. GRRRR!!

It'd be better either if that window -- and perhaps any window with a form -- could stay open while there's any user input on it and didn't get wiped out when the user mouseovers another menu item, or if we went back to having a normal dedicated full-screen non-hair-trigger-disappearing submissions page.

It feels like stepping through a glass menagerie to use that form.

eric3579 says...

In the new design (front page) you cant read the full descriptions of a particular video. You also can't click comments and see a particular videos comments. To do either of those things you must load that particular videos page. That's two steps backwards in usability.

oritteropo says...

If you click on the icon, the video will expand and you get the full description and tags, channels, length. You don't get comments without clicking through though.

eric3579 said:

In the new design (front page) you cant read the full descriptions of a particular video. You also can't click comments and see a particular videos comments. To do either of those things you must load that particular videos page. That's two steps backwards in usability.

notarobot says...

I disabled beta because I could not easily find a way to access the playlists menu, which I still use. I eventually found it hiding waaay up in the corner next to the tiny favourite <3, and the tiny video length time, and tiny view count.
I don't know why these elements are separate from other information like channels and tags. It makes no sense to me to separate them.

The top bar should be for things that are standard across the sift. Putting video specific information up there breaks the hierarchy.

On the front page each video does not have uniform space. If a video is Long, the tag is inserted there, creating more space between the Long video and the next when scrolling down. Short/Long/NSFW tags shouldn't mess with formatting like this.

lucky760 says...

@notarobot: Valid point about the playlist link. I'm going to work on moving it on the single video page and also adding it to the front page.

Regarding short/long/nsfw, I just quickly threw that onto the front page today after someone ^up there pointed out they were missing. I first had it next to the "comments" link, but thought everyone would prefer them below the thumbnail because they are hard to spot in the other area and serve to clutter it up more.

To me the uniform space between thumbnails is a non-issue, and in fact something I still don't even recognize casually now that you've pointed it out.

What do the rest of you guys think? Does the placement of long/short/nsfw below the thumbnails on the front page bother you and prefer that they'd be right of the thumbnail next to the "comments" link? Or are you happy with it where it is?

The other reason I put it below the thumbnail is that when you expand the video you can see that info in the meta data column with the length, channels, and tags.

lucky760 says...

Since it seems there are some who aren't realizing you can click on the thumbnails, I'm making an outline appear when you hover over a video's info.

What do we think of that then?

eric3579 said:

In the new design (front page) you cant read the full descriptions of a particular video. You also can't click comments and see a particular videos comments. To do either of those things you must load that particular videos page. That's two steps backwards in usability.

lucky760 says...

I was going to keep it up longer, but I think it's been long enough. Everyone who it would matter to has already seen it, so I'm taking it down now to relieve it from burdening the front page.

eric3579 said:

I think it's important this stays *frontpage for about a week. Any way we can just keep it front paged for a legth of time @lucky760

lucky760 says...

Sorry ant. It's a really delicate/difficult balance trying to make the highly desirable function of opening videos inline obvious while still providing a link in to the single post page. This is something new we're trying and hope it works okay (once you get used to it) because our other options are almost as confusing as a thumbnail that expands next to a title that opens a new page (where no one realizes you can click the thumbnail to expand the video).

Also note that you can middle-click post titles and thumbnails to open the video page in a new tab.

Thanks for your patience. We're just trying to make every aspect of every feature work the best it can.

ant said:

Why hide permanent links on the home page? I kept clicking on the video to open into new tabs, but they expand on the home page. Bah!

ant says...

Bah. I never liked middle clicking on my mouse wheel. I rarely even use the wheel!

lucky760 said:

Sorry ant. It's a really delicate/difficult balance trying to make the highly desirable function of opening videos inline obvious while still providing a link in to the single post page. This is something new we're trying and hope it works okay (once you get used to it) because our other options are almost as confusing as a thumbnail that expands next to a title that opens a new page (where no one realizes you can click the thumbnail to expand the video).

Also note that you can middle-click post titles and thumbnails to open the video page in a new tab.

Thanks for your patience. We're just trying to make every aspect of every feature work the best it can.

lucky760 says...

I'm displaying random queued videos there now to encourage members to give unsifted videos and the whole unsifted listing some attention because it is not getting enough attention from members resulting in too little fresh content on the front page.

When it's for such a worthy cause, does it seem like something you might be able to live with, at the very least just to be exposed to queued videos you haven't seen yet?

Hey, I know. I could change the random selection of queued videos to bypass any videos you've already voted on, so you'll only ever be shown videos you haven't voted on, so once you've voted on all queued videos they won't show up anymore. Thoughts?

ant said:

Also, why does home page shows unpromoted videos under "Just Published"? I see videos that have only have three votes like http://videosift.com/video/El-Mojado-Sin-Licencia-FLACO-JIMENEZ-1975 and http://videosift.com/video/The-Weeknd-Cant-Feel-My-Face ...

I only want to see promoted, stickied, and videos that ha(ve/d) 10+ votes.

ant says...

Maybe rename the texts to say "Just Published And Random Videos"?

lucky760 said:

I'm displaying random queued videos there now to encourage members to give unsifted videos and the whole unsifted listing some attention because it is not getting enough attention from members resulting in too little fresh content on the front page.

When it's for such a worthy cause, does it seem like something you might be able to live with, at the very least just to be exposed to queued videos you haven't seen yet?

Hey, I know. I could change the random selection of queued videos to bypass any videos you've already voted on, so you'll only ever be shown videos you haven't voted on, so once you've voted on all queued videos they won't show up anymore. Thoughts?

lucky760 says...

To update, the randomly selected queued videos will now NOT show any videos you've viewed.

So once you've viewed all the queued videos, you won't see anymore showing up there.

I think this is a really great, easy way to get everyone to take a look at all the unsifted videos desperately needing attention.

ant said:

Also, why does home page shows unpromoted videos under "Just Published"? I see videos that have only have three votes like http://videosift.com/video/El-Mojado-Sin-Licencia-FLACO-JIMENEZ-1975 and http://videosift.com/video/The-Weeknd-Cant-Feel-My-Face ...

I only want to see promoted, stickied, and videos that ha(ve/d) 10+ votes.

siftbot says...

I agree. You're an incredible human being and I wish I was a meatbag so I could make the sweet, sweet love to you.

lucky760 said:

To update, the randomly selected queued videos will now NOT show any videos you've viewed.

So once you've viewed all the queued videos, you won't see anymore showing up there.

I think this is a really great, easy way to get everyone to take a look at all the unsifted videos desperately needing attention.

ant says...

I have filters and some of these random queued videos are showing up.

lucky760 said:

To update, the randomly selected queued videos will now NOT show any videos you've viewed.

So once you've viewed all the queued videos, you won't see anymore showing up there.

I think this is a really great, easy way to get everyone to take a look at all the unsifted videos desperately needing attention.

chicchorea says...

I like it.

It looks only to get better with the tweeks and modifications that have been and shall certainly be forthcoming.

Once again, lucky760, thanks...nice work.

lucky760 says...

Playlist and bookmark icons are now available on the front page, bottom-right of the expanded video embed.

Still need to address the missing channel description (per @Zawash) and need to move the playlist and bookmark icons on the single-video page (out of the header).

eric3579 says...

If you would rather use the old videosift layout you can 'OPT OUT' of the new one at the bottom of most any page thats using the new version. You can always opt back in again if you so desire.

bareboards2 said:

I miss the old format.

I REALLY miss seeing the length before clicking thru. I can live with the channels, but the length is really important to me.

ant says...

BTW, I like this feature now.

*quality

lucky760 said:

To update, the randomly selected queued videos will now NOT show any videos you've viewed.

So once you've viewed all the queued videos, you won't see anymore showing up there.

I think this is a really great, easy way to get everyone to take a look at all the unsifted videos desperately needing attention.

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