I think the reason why this change is so great is that it helps answer the most important question when deciding whether to open a topic.
I got this feeling somewhat as a hunch, but tried to work through why and I think it has to do with the hierarchy of the decision tree when determining whether to read a topic or not, which I’ve attempted to outline below.
How I decide whether to read a topic.
Wait, have I read this whole thing already?
yes:
ok, well you probably don’t need to open it
no:
Is it a topic I’m tracking?
yes:
ok, then I probably want to read it
no:
Is it currently active or popular (near the top of latest)?
no:
probably won’t read it unless its linked to or in a search result
yes: have I ever opened the topic before?
yes
was it interesting?
no
skip it.
yes
ok, let’s check it out again
no
is the title interesting?
yes
check it out
no was it created in the last two days?
yes
well, it’s likely to be relevant anyway, so if you’ve got nothing else to do…
no
old and uninteresting… but if you’ve really got nothing better to do…
So it seems that rather than an indicator to show ‘newness’ I actually just want a more sublte indicator to highlight topics I have never opened. I can already set my preference for the new indicator to behave this way, but if I do so, I’d like to tone it down along the lines in the mockup linked.
Something along these lines:
And I would argue to make this the new default preference for the indicator…
It sounds like you want the classic browser “visited” state back, meaning
Show this topic as visited if I have ever clicked on it
Whereas from past user feedback here and elsewhere, users told us they wanted
Show this topic as visited only if I have actually read everything in the topic
In other words, a topic with new replies was not “visited” to them. But in your case it would be.
I think the latter definition is a) more correct b) more reflective of what users intuitively expect to happen and c) encourages reading, which we want to do anyway.
Not a huge fan of rewarding people with a visited state just because they clicked on something once.
Anyway, you’re correct – if you want an indicator to tell you “have I ever clicked on this”? Then is your huckleberry. It’s just a question of how long a topic can reasonably be considered “new”.
Remember that this setting also includes “and it was not created before I signed up”. On the other hand, “no topic_users row” is probably easier to check.
+1 vote for just a dot. • new I believe is too visually distracting to see on nearly all topics when you haven’t visited in a while. Especially in an otherwise largely monochromatic interface. As you outline here and here there is definitely modern precedence for that.
Maybe a bigger blue dot? Perhaps the same size as the # new indicator but without the number inside.
I would imagine you would need to declare New Bankruptcy at least once via the Dismiss New button if you change new to be “until visited” after the fact, anyway.
I use “new when not viewed yet”. My daily read-flow goes:
Land on Latest and immediately skip past it to Unread.
Read everything in Unread.
If time allows it
Read what interests me in New, then Dismiss New, if time does not allow it;
Come back tomorrow and start at 1 again.
When it comes to Meta, I don’t want to miss out. If I’m offline for a couple of days, I’ll have a much easier time skimming past New than the entire Latest list.
is your huckleberry. It’s just a question of how long a topic can reasonably be considered “new”.
but without the number inside.