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Least Favorite Skin Trends


Morrigan
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^This! As someone who uses super obscure FCs, some of which who don't even have gifs unless I make them, any sites that require them or more than like 3 or 4 images in general are a hard pass.

 

To add onto the image thing, skins where, if I use an image that's the wrong size, everything will break or the aspect ratio of the images gets warped. Specifying dimensions and sticking an 'object-fit: cover;' in the CSS isn't hard. You've already got all sorts of filters and hovers on your images (in most cases), so why not save yourself and your members a whole lot of headache and include 6 words.

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Candide: An original dystopian RPG

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  • 2 weeks later...

Dark themes with no light options.

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Commander Gabriel Reyes

Commanding Officer, USS Tesla

TF72, Obsidian FLeet

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Giant headers are a no-go for me. I'll AdBlock your header banner if it's giant and I have to scroll by it every time! It feels like such a case of aesthetics over practicality. That pretty image will blur into the background in time, but scrolling a screen's worth to get past it will have to happen every time.

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  • 3 weeks later...

When I can’t read the mobile version. 😢 

Reality is an illusion. 


 
 

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Been seeing a lot of skins with micro sidebars in addition to large pictures that take up the whole screen, where you have to scroll down a way before you get to the actual board. It's a hunt to find the scroll and then it seems a pain to have to scroll to the boards you want because each row is so huge and it loads slowly. This personally drives me nuts.

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I’ve seen custom cursors around a few times and I’m not a fan of those.

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Tiny tiny fonts. I'm partly blind enough without turning the zoom on my computer up to 300 just to read replies to threads or basic site information.

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Giant banners. If I have to scroll at ALL to see your content, the banner is too big. Also banners with names I can't click on to get back to the home page, who designed this? So awful. ALSO tiny little fonts or overly flowery fonts. If I have to struggle to read your titles I'm out. Or massive, cluttered sidebars and footers. If the site doesn't look pretty clean, easy to navigate, and easy to decipher as a complete newbie, I will lose my mind.

 

Give me a dark skin option, give me my words to read, and let it be that simple.

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9 hours ago, Fao said:

Giant banners. If I have to scroll at ALL to see your content, the banner is too big. Also banners with names I can't click on to get back to the home page, who designed this? So awful. 

The giant banner trend is getting worse and worse imo, and I cannot wrap my head around it. So often they are solely decorational, too. It has reached the point where I either overwrite the css with a browser extension or then just forget about the site. 

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  • 7 months later...
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I don't know why this one has returned but its starting to drive me nuts!

 

LEAVE MY SCROLL BARS ALONE!!!!!!!

 

I didn't used to be affected by these because FF doesn't normally let you fuck with it but there appears to be work arounds now (fortunately not everyone has figured them out) but I really loathe this.

 

People that mess with them always make them inaccessible. I mean:

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That thin ass line is the scroll bar on one site.

 

Maybe its been there a while and I'm just now noticing it because I use Chrome at work. Its a terrible practice to not only blend them in with the site but to make them inaccessible.

 

RETURN MY SCROLL BARS!!!!

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Profile set made by myself and original Artwork by Fae Merriman, my daughter.

 

 

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When I cannot click on the scrollbar....its too tiny or thin or overlayed with other code and If i need to go down I have to click on the site and hit the down arrow on my keyboard.

 

Also when there's a box around the skin. I mean a bar to the left, right, bottom, and top so the forum is within the box which doesn't move. Typically the scroll bar is hidden within the box and i just won't check the site further. 

 

NO NO NO STOP IT ....

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I'm with the original post mentioning large banners, but I'm also really bothered by skins that have a tendency to be overly minimalist in details. I like being able to find navigation links easily, and it bothers me immensely when sites have hidden sidebars or navigations that are tucked under nearly invisible buttons or not clearly located. 

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Tam'nýer—a' is an 18+ Premium Jcink Original Fantasy World

Operated for 3 Years - LGBTQIA+ Friendly - POC Friendly - 3|3|3 Rated

Custom Races, Original Flora and Fauna, Lore and Story Driven

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On 3/26/2021 at 5:52 AM, Hades101 said:

I'm also really bothered by skins that have a tendency to be overly minimalist in details.

 

Me too. I have a severe hate for sites that don't, at minimum, show the last post date on the forums.

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Profile set made by myself and original Artwork by Fae Merriman, my daughter.

 

 

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I don't necessarily have a specific design pet peeve, and even as a seasoned graphic designer, I acknowledge that designing for any rp forum (jcink especially) is an incredibly singular skill that has to be learned and practiced - it's not even comparable to other types of web design. It has very specific uses and design needs for and catered to roleplay. I just designed my first site in collaboration with our more coding oriented admins - and let me tell you, it was hard. That said, even the prettiest skins and experienced jcink designers these days are falling into trends that are making sites borderline frustrating to navigate and use. 

Sites, I've noticed, have had a lot of similar issues in common. Typically, it's usability and accessibility. The trend is extreme aesthetic choices. Small fonts. Large Spaces. Menus that might be visually intriguing, but not intuitive. These choices can make sites impossible to read or browse. I often can't tell where I am in the forum (re: the trend of putting the main forum nav really tiny, and vertically oriented all the way on the left side of the browser), or I just can't move through the forum easily to find basic information - or - one of the biggest and worse common ones I've noticed, is scrolling forever and ever through immense amounts of padding to get to the forum I'm looking for. 

I like forward thinking design that is made with purpose -  and I do think big aesthetic choices CAN accomplish this, but it's not easy to do in any setting or project. Start minimalist (or 'basic'), start easy, start familiar. Or go big, do user testing, and strip back.

Personally,  I just like color schemes that are easy on the eyes and fonts that are well curated, but more importantly, easy to read. Forums that are easy to browse with information that's easy to find - with enough padding and spacing that helps make content easily distinguishable, but not entirely separated. TLDR: A skin should be usable first, and evoke a mood / setting second, with the former never being sacrificed to achieve the latter. 

 

 

Edited by MegHanSolo
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