Liking the new menu bar, still room for improvement

Thank you!

One thing I'm noticing now, I get a little red dot next to my account name to indicate I have a notification. Going to the Notifications page does not remove the red dot, only by clicking on all of the notifications does the dot go away. I seem to remember on the old system that when I went to the notifications page, the red dot on the little Notifications "bell" would disappear. 

Quote from MaximusArael020 >>

One thing I'm noticing now, I get a little red dot next to my account name to indicate I have a notification. Going to the Notifications page does not remove the red dot, only by clicking on all of the notifications does the dot go away. I seem to remember on the old system that when I went to the notifications page, the red dot on the little Notifications "bell" would disappear. 

I found that while it didn't go away immediately, it did after a few minutes.

Navigating to a book directly by URL also does not add it to favorites.

Quote from Davyd >>

I do like the new menu bar, less dense, less overloaded, easier to read and navigate. My favourite part is displaying favourites in the Library dropdown. But I do have some suggestions:

• Under Play D&D, give homebrew it's own icon like My Characters, My Campaigns, and Maps VTT. There's enough space for it
• Swap Favourites and Recently opened, giving more space for the former. I feel like the average DM will be more likely to want to access their favourite books than a recently opened one so more space for more favourited books would be great
• For rules, remove the article links, shift resources over to the right side, and give the compendium options graphical assets to make them easier to access quickly
• Put articles in Community and make the Follow Us section a vertical column of icons. The horizontal spread isn't a good use of space IMO. Also match the font size of the connect column with the support column.

Otherwise I think it's a great refinement of the menu bar

Edit: Obvious RIP to my site nav muscle memory, lol

 
Sorry but I absolutely hate the way that the favourites thing is there now. I don't want that kind of stuff there. It's too easy to manipulate later into a dropdown of 'here's the things we think you use most' which then corrupts into 'here's the things we want you to read'.

The new menu bar increases clicks, increases time it takes to do the things I want to do. This then falls into the category or poor design. A design 'improvement' should never increase the amount of time or effort it takes to do something that users frequently do. This menu does that and as such breaks a long established design rule for UI and UX. Simply put it highlights the lack of thought that went into this redesign.

Things that now take longer or require more from the user which ought to have been considered:

• Takes longer to get to the Forums, sure it's 'only' an extra click, but the forums get used pretty heavily, they need to be a top-level menu item.
• Takes long to get to the library items I want. And heck no I will not be using the 'favourites'. This is fisher price design and needs to be reverted.
• Reading notifications (usually posts from the forum) is now hidden away rather than the nice obvious bell. Again there's no reason to hide those notifications behind an extra click in another drop down. 
• The site is still not compliant with accessibility laws in the USA, UK or EU. Screen readers and other such accessibility tools still cannot parse the site correctly. This is a fundamental thing and shows the low skill level of the team behind the site and its design. Accessibility tools aren't a choice in this day and age. Heck, we've had screen readers and scaling tools for decades at this point. The site doesn't even have correctly accessibly labelled buttons in its code. These are the errors of a high-school coder, not a team of professionals.

What I do think works

• The new rules section. I preferred the old version with the nice art, but you know what this does get people places quicker and can see the logic and sense. I'd rather not see the useless 'resources' list. Most of that won't ever get visited, but it's nice that it's there as quick option for those who do need it.
• The 'Play D&D' again, not to my tastes and I can't fathom why this section get some images where other sections don't but seems to contain all the stuff having to do with the actual playing with the game. Fair enough. 

Overall, much like the new 'Library' page, the menu redesign is pretty poorly thought through in my opinion. If accessibility was the goal it fails utterly and spectacularly from an objective standpoint. There are laws and regulations for a reason. They standardise accessibility approaches. So if any designer or dev of the site, or any fan wants to claim this redesign as 'more accessible' just know from an objective legal standpoint, you're wrong. The site as it stands risk legal action should those with access needs want to take such action (sadly true of most US-centric sites...there's so much money to be made from these cases being taken). I genuinely can't see the design going back now, which is a shame. It's going to divide opinion and I'll be honest has me personally seriously considering other solutions to a compendium and character builder for my players. 

Quote from DiceyDM >>

Hey everyone, thank you for the feedback! 

So right now, we are aware of a couple bugs that will be fixed as quickly as possible. One of them includes:

"Recently Opened" not updated if source was opened from favorites in nav.

I believe this is what you are experiencing, but hang tight, help is on the way! 

 Hopefully this is useful info—navigating to a book from the favorites doesn't add it to recent, whereas doing so from the library proper does.

@martintheactor I think you maybe misconstrued the point of this thread—it's not to complain about not liking the new menu (there's already a thread for that) but to provide actionable feedback on what can be improved.

The way your direct quote of my message starts with "Sorry but...." implies that I am somehow wrong in my preferences as it regards to the changes, which is a bizarre take.

Quote from martintheactor >>

 
Sorry but I absolutely hate the way that the favourites thing is there now. I don't want that kind of stuff there. It's too easy to manipulate later into a dropdown of 'here's the things we think you use most' which then corrupts into 'here's the things we want you to read'.

"Here's the things we want you to read" is the way it was before, where they decided which items appeared as "featured" and which didn't. Now, you get to decide which things appear in the "Favorites" section.

Quote from Davyd >>

The way your direct quote of my message starts with "Sorry but...." implies that I am somehow wrong in my preferences as it regards to the changes, which is a bizarre take.

 
No, what it means is 'sorry to disagree with you, but here's my opinion'. It doesn't invalidate your opinion, it is offering a counter opinion. That is all. Frankly, to me it seem bizarre that such a common expression wasn't understood. Though this is a platform with a global audience so differences in comprehension should be accounted for I suppose.

Thank you, thank you, thank you for changing the drop down menu from hover to click. As someone with a movement disorder this will make my life so much easier.

It would be nice if the Encounters link was to My Encounters, rather than the encounter builder, perhaps it's just me, but I use the former far more often than the latter.

I think I'm blind. Where is the search for homebrew button?

Quote from Wysperra >>

I think I'm blind. Where is the search for homebrew button?

 What "search for homebrew" button? I don't recall any such button previously. There was My Homebrew Collection and My Homebrew Creations, both now accessible from Play D&D > Homebrew > top right. There were also the individual create X buttons and browse X buttons which are accessible from the same page

Quote from Wysperra >>

I think I'm blind. Where is the search for homebrew button?

 You would search via Play D&D->Homebrew->View for specific type of homebrew.

Quote from Davyd >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

I think I'm blind. Where is the search for homebrew button?

 What "search for homebrew" button? I don't recall any such button previously. There was My Homebrew Collection and My Homebrew Creations, both now accessible from Play D&D > Homebrew > top right. There were also the individual create X buttons and browse X buttons which are accessible from the same page

 Sorry, I was asking about how to find other people's homebrew, not mine, and not how to create new ones.

Quote from Wysperra >>

Quote from Davyd >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

I think I'm blind. Where is the search for homebrew button?

 What "search for homebrew" button? I don't recall any such button previously. There was My Homebrew Collection and My Homebrew Creations, both now accessible from Play D&D > Homebrew > top right. There were also the individual create X buttons and browse X buttons which are accessible from the same page

 Sorry, I was asking about how to find other people's homebrew, not mine, and not how to create new ones.

Go to Play D&D > Homebrew. Each type of homebrew thing is listed with a "View" button and a "Create" button. The "View" buttons are what you're looking for.

Quote from Wysperra >>

Quote from Davyd >>

Quote from Wysperra >>

I think I'm blind. Where is the search for homebrew button?

 What "search for homebrew" button? I don't recall any such button previously. There was My Homebrew Collection and My Homebrew Creations, both now accessible from Play D&D > Homebrew > top right. There were also the individual create X buttons and browse X buttons which are accessible from the same page

 Sorry, I was asking about how to find other people's homebrew, not mine, and not how to create new ones.

 Click the View Homebrew X on that page. There's one button for each type of homebrew

I do think this iteration of the updated menu is better than last time. I do have some feedback to add to what people have already said:

1. Clicking on "Encounters" brings you to the encounter builder, not to your current list of encounters. I would much prefer that it direct to your list of encounters, where you can then decide to create a new one. The mobile version of the website is also currently incapable of navigating to your list of created encounters in its current configuration.

2. The favorites listed in the library dropdown seem to be ordered by how old they are. So while I have both Xanathar's and the new PHB favorited, Xanathar's (and most of the older books) are displayed first, and I can't even see the newer books without navigating to my full list of favorites. I'd like a different way of prioritizing which books are listed first in this dropdown (I know you can change the sort order on the favorites page itself, but that doesn't seem to apply to the dropdown).

I do appreciate the fact that the menu doesn't swoop down and cover 40% of my screen whenever I accidentally move my mouse within earshot of it. Though I would like there to be better use of space and a bit more visual styling to it, as it is a bit too much empty dark grey for my liking.

For example, under the Rules section, there is absolutely no reason that both the Compendium and Resources sections can't be two columns each with a bit of art included for each subject. A small horizontal banner image above/below each title would go a long way to remove some of the blandness of the grey blob that the menu has become.

I'd also prefer if the designers could be more consistent with their use of font sizing across all the menu items, I really don't like that each section appears to have its own thing going on. Especially on the Community tab where the items under Support and Connect are totally different.

Another thing that I think needs to be made way more visual and eye grabbing is the Create a Character link in the Play menu. With the size of the current three images & headings for characters, campaigns and maps, there is more than enough room in that menu area to shift everything to the right and slot a fourth visual block for directing people to create characters. I almost didn't see the text at the bottom of that menu area to create a character.

If you are hell-bent on keeping the link to create a character as it is, please remove the arrow to the right of it... what is it even pointing at? The endless dark void that your many unused characters will end up in?

Much like Wagnarokkr, I want to see Party Wizard's return! I miss him dearly.

If not returned to the header of the page, at the very least I'd love to see the easter egg's functionality restored-- maybe in the bottom banner?