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I'll agree with the link thing Blais. It's driving me nuts trying to poll and not be able to tell where I left off sad

Yes, thank heavens that some of the polls are numbered in some of the guilds I belong to or I would lose my place.

Waaah no I don't like it at all gonk Why do they have to keep changing everything just when I get used to it... razz

there is a little bit TOO much white now, but, if you look in the announcement for this re-design, there is a feedback forum specifically for the re-design so post your comments there.
they certainly seem to take on what people have to say, i'll say that for them.

i've gone through them all, chilidog picked cool, the blue home items look very nice against his red carpet and pale walls, a proper bacholar pad!

peachy picked warm, bit disappointed with the brown that those turned out to be, neutral is my fave i think, i LOVE the little gustavian style side table and the fern is a bonus too, and the rug makes a HUGE difference 3nodding

This is just really strange. I'm still not sure if I like it or not.

Change is not always a bad thing... but it does need to be done well, and the Gaia designers have broken some serious design rules with this redesign.
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These issues (at least) should be addressed (basic usability):

- links should always have (default) color indication

- font size should not ever be overwritten to "tiny" by default

- the lost space at the top of the page is just bad design and could be fixed pretty easilly, to be honest. It should be condensed and yes, this can be done without losing the "openess". You should not have to scroll down the page to get to the actual content!

- all those silly landing pages are meaningless and annoying. They should be made to disappear, or at the very least we should have a *real* way to navigate around them without ever having to see them again; They are wasting everyone's time and trying everyone's patience by forcing us to land on intermediate pages constantly.

- top navigation bar really needs to have rollover link functionality. Actually, it just needs to *work*; rollovers would be nice but are not really necessary. Please tell me if you're having different experience with the top navigation, but on all three of my browsers this top nav just takes up space - it simply does not work. It needs to.

- text should Never be centered (poll text, the boxes in the marketplace, etc.).

- personal preference: I don't like the tiny avatar at the top; it seems contradictory to the whole "point" of this site...

- personal preference: the more horizontal spacing just gives me more work to do... more screen area to scan in order to read the page.

- personal preference (kinda): there is no where for the eyes to "rest"... all this white will add to eye strain. I'd like to see that blue section back on the right to help break up the white space, condense the page width, and give me a place to look once in a while.

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... I've been on, or run (managed) numerous re/design projects and the above are just basic things that must be in place before releasing a design. There's more, but I'm not going there... unless Gaia hires me in a professional capacity (yes, I offered. I don't expect to hear from them, though). And the feedback thread is open to everyone with an account - kids and adults who *think* they know what they're talking about. Without a dedicated Usability person on staff to guide them (this is *not* the same thing as a Designer, btw), Gaia is still left sorting through the full gamut of comments and will have a tough time discerning "good" from "bad".

K... 'nuff said from me. burning_eyes Just thought I'd post these observations here, but I'm getting tired of thinking about it (since I'm not getting paid for my work wink ). We'll have to see if they make adjustments...