#There are many good UX reasons to opt for a vertical layout instead of a horizontal one

[honestlyvan]

As someone who doesn’t use Twitter and hasn’t used it since 2016, at this point I feel like every even slightly Twitter-esque (let alone overt Twitter-esque) design choice Tumblr makes gets yelled about because People Really Just Fucking Hate Twitter whether they realise it or not.

Which, like. Fair ‘nuff. I also hate Twitter, which is why I don’t use it. But nobody ever really gives these design decisions any time to percolate on this site in favour of kneejerk “they changed it and we hate it” reaction. Public likes are not new. Multiple tabs on a dashboard (some of them not things you opted into seeing) are not new. Having to block ads with external tools is not new (and it’s a big deal that photomatt said the words “ad blocker”, like, you couldn’t get that shit on any other profit-driven site, everyone is too scared for their precious monetisation)

The new sidebar, also, I think is pretty ugly right now but it’s probably going to go through a few iterations. I, personally, really wish they’d put the search bar literally anywhere else (maybe group search and discovery together IDK I’m not an UX designer) and I think accessing sideblogs has been too complicated for a while now, but none of those are the same as “this looks like The Other Blue Site”.

Like I’m not a graphic designer. I am certainly not a fucking UX designer, and I think those people are either all nuts or all geniuses. I’m pretty sure the new layout is being extensively heatmapped rn, and what changes it’ll undergo are gonna be done based on that, based on comments that are along the lines of ‘this change would make me more productive’ and less on “WEEEEEH CHANGE IT BACK CHANGE IT BACK CHANGE IT BACK”. 

Your animosity towards change is not meaningful user experience information. You misclicking on shit more *is*. If this layout is really *that* bad and terrible, Automattic’s research tools will demonstrate it as such. The developers now are actually much better versed in Web 2.0 design, for better and for worse.

#van stuff #Also like yes I also hate the touchscreenification of desktop sites #as someone who does not have and does not want a touch screen computer #but that's not a design trend I get to dictate as I am in fact a minority user for this site #and the complaints I am tired of seeing are also coming from other legacy minority users of desktop #There are many good UX reasons to opt for a vertical layout instead of a horizontal one #and I think the majority reason is so that people who are on mobile and desktop simultaneously don't have to have two different brainmaps #for their muscle memory on this site #but like... the vertical sidebar is not the same as 'randomly swapping 'Close' and 'Post'' lol #the top of the screen horizontal bar still does things and there's way less empty space there now #and I get wanting negative space and less screen clutter #like... that's the ONE criticism of this update I can agree with #but that's STILL NOT THE SAME as 'arbitrarily fucking over the muscle memory of EVERY site user' #how many people on this site *ever* move out of their dashboard? I know I do! #but I think it's the minority of people considering the user-curated model of propagation this site is still #*actively* promoting #This site looking superficially more like twitter doesn't change that! #like the sky is not falling call me when they eliminate the ability to browse the tags in favour of a flat search #AGAIN #remember when we had that? Remember how *BAD* it was? #remember how much easier finding stuff became when we got 'browse tags' back as the default search?