New Look to Astrobin AstroBin Platform open discussions community forum · Tim Ray · ... · 42 · 486 · 1

Thanks Tony for the response. I have had this solution since 2017 and familiar with the limitations it may have. However, doesn't answer why today it is not enough while yesterday it was.

Cheers

Just to give a little background on myself. While I live and work in a rural environment now, I use to live in a big city and was in the IT industry. I am a Cisco CCNE and CCDA also a  Microsoft MCSE and held the title of Master Novell Engineer when Novell was the NOS during the 90's. I was on the team that designed the NOC for American Airlines that now runs the global air and hotel reservation systems and one the network engineers that designed the Datacenter for the IRS in the United States. I am also one of three people in the world to have the title Master Electronic Engineer from the EEIA in France. It is not my first rodeo. (a saying from the States….)

While I am thin on web site design and architecture. I am a skilled internet plumber! There is a reason Google's home page has not been changed since the company's start. The user experience! Something they value greatly. I think Astrobin as been very caviler about changes to the user experience on a website that has paying members for that experience. If it was free (Public) then this would be a different conversation.  And frankly, not very pleased that its assumed that a user (me) should have to change the way I surf this site when I am the Customer. I also my be an advertiser in the near future and I am curious how others with less that high speed internet  (I am sure there are many) have found this site since the new GUI roll out.  I do know if I was just seeing the site tonight for the first time and had this experience I would have never signed up for a membership. I have been here too long and too many Astrobin friends not to renew my membership, but I wonder how many potential members you are leaving on the table with the new GUI. I hope Salvatore fixes the speed problem. 

CS

Salvatore Iovene:
For the infinite scrolling on the astrophotographers list, rather than numbered pagination, that's a little bit on purpose. I don't think it's healthy to check whether one is in 1000th or 999th position for any of the metrics. You can see your values by searching for your name on that page.

This begs the question: if its not healthy to check these metrics, why have them at all?

The description of the Image Index is "The Image Index is a system based on likes received on images, that incentivizes the most active and liked members of the community." Based on that description, not having pages to go directly too makes it quite cumbersome to scroll to the lower indices to look through images of users that might be further incentivized by having more likes. The rate at which images fall off the front page means that a newer user, or one that has other life duties, lesser financial means or weather constraints that prevents them from producing dozens of images to keep their work rotating through the front page has little to no incentive by the Image Index definition. That is, unless they can be found without a significant amount of scrolling. Even photographers with indices of 100, which is somewhere in the top 10% by user population requires way too much scrolling.  

So, yes. Sometimes I go to page 50, or 75, etc. and find a user that is active but seldom viewed to provide a little encouragement. There really are some quality images at that level. I'm less likely to spend time to get there now.

Thanks Everyone for the responses.  I eagerly await any tweaks Salvatore can do Monday. Thanks for getting into the details about the your roll-out.  Still why the infinite scroll on the AP list is a required change vs pages? We rank everything in life from the quality of Hospitals, automobiles, sports, etc. I find it odd the the fragile astrophotographer should be shielded from this information. Astrobin is a global platform with members spanning many cultures and languages.  Still avatars next to names on list are too small to be useful. They are something else that needs to be loaded. The pages are getting "fatter" hence taking long to load. I spoke to 6 members on the phone last night. 6 of 6 did not like the new AP list page.  Can't pages exist with the infinite scroll? Still, information I could access and view could be repeatably accessed without a single click of the mouse in the previous version. Now it takes 8 clicks from a mouse to get to the  same "spot", or type a name into a search box. I am not sure I pay a membership fee to Astrobin for "health" monitoring. I seek out health advise from a doctor or mental health specialist. I also don't ask that person how to color balance an astrophoto. If I pay less money, can I go back to the older, "thinner", unhealthier version? That worked for me.  Once again, was there a big push for these changes from the membership? I have never used the list for discovering a user. I do that by viewing the stream and clicking on an image that catches my eye.  None of that is done at the AP list. Its not like you couldn't search for a member before when you used pages. Besides the avatars, what is new on the AP list page.  Are you displaying the users last picture next to the name, an up or down arrow indicating movement on the list? Nothing of that nature. The user experience changed for no real reason. no real benefit or introduction of significant capabilities (such as processing user data - free or for a fee). I like change, but it needs to be meaningful change. While your numbers say that users like the new look. great and congrats on that. But I wonder, were these same users unhappy and now happy or just they were happy before and still happy now. I bet they were already happy. Others, like myself, were happy before and not happy now. Looking at the stream page with different sized thumbnails, I'm sure is great. However, now with different sizes, takes longer to load and most pictures show a broken link with the pic name. I get why they do that on a phone, saving space on a small display. But on a computer monitor it looks awkward and visually confusing to me. I most likely will stop surfing the streams but that is on me. 

Once again I hope Salvatore can solve the timing issues he spoke of early in this thread. All these changes have really not offered anything significant to the site, it's not like you can now put a pair a VR goggles… That would be significant. Instead, for someone with slow internet, pages are longer to load, more clicks to navigate. I know I am a small demographic, however my membership fee is the same as everyone else and it worked before!!!!!!!

In summary, I now take many many seconds and many many clicks to get to the same spot on a page that literally took ZERO clicks to get to before, most likely will surf the steams much less, pages are slow to respond if they respond at all. If I had something good to say I would, I am a glass have full type person. That is why I have been silent until now… but enough is enough… STOP.

If you want to change things here is a short list to focus on…

- message your followers as a group or allow users to make groups from there followers. 
- Allow me to move my images on my page. to move my top picks to the top of my page, or galaxies during galaxy season…  
—– I know you will say I can already collapse them into groups with the new GUI - not the same. I move on from users that do this. I scan the old style page and then click on something that catches my attention. I will not surf all of those little groupings to see if there is something worth clicking on. 
- Maybe a creation of a user focus groups to float these changes
- Maybe actual end to end testing in the world. Not in a lab. Once again, it was snappy before with my slow internet connection, now once a page actually starts loading it takes noticeably longer to load. 
- Find a way to have pages and infinite scroll to coexist on the AP list page, or stop having it reset to the top of page when it is in a browser tab on launch. If it would display the last displayed location on the list without having to scroll down every time would be the same functionality as the previous paged version.  Maybe something like that would have been suggested in the user focus groups…

CS

Ian McIntyre:
At the moment, both of those paths have become impractical for viewing all but the top users without the extreme amount of luck of ones image being on front page at the exact moment a user/visitor opens or refreshes the site.

You make valid points but I don't understand "at the moment". The logic to display images on the front page has never changed. Images with activity bubble up to the top. When activity wanes, images get lost in the deep belows.

Ian McIntyre:
I'm sure the logic has not changed, but certainly the traffic level has as the site grows. Which results in increased rapidity of relegation down the order. The speed the images cycle through has perceptively increased (I'm willing to accept a certain amount of my own confirmation bias to this perception. Again, I am not privy to data and analytics for the site). This is absolutely an expected condition.

Yes indeed, the traffic has increased, as well as the user base has grown. I do agree with your point of view, actually, that we need a better home page to allow for better discoverability, better connections amongst users, and perhaps some optional clustering by interests, geography etc.

However, most people dislike algorithms that prioritize content by engagement, often for good reason (it's something that usually can be played, and on large social networks it can be toxic).

I need to find a way to get the best of both worlds, avoiding the stigma associated with "the algorithm", and leave the power to choose what to see to the users.

I will need to tackle this problem sooner rather than later, as AstroBin is growing.

Thanks!
S.

Hi Tim,



Thanks for your detailed feedback. I understand that these changes haven’t worked well for you personally, and I want to take a moment to address your concerns.



Performance & Load Times


• I’ve increased the timeout before retrying requests for API calls that take longer than 3.5 seconds. This should help in cases where responses take longer on slower connections.

• The redirect issue has been fixed, so if you prefer the classic UI, you can continue using it without being forced into the new one.

• Across the board, I have strong performance metrics showing that the site is faster now than before. I understand that this may not be the case for you given that you’re on a slow internet connection, and while I can’t change the realities of network speed, I’m considering adding a low-bandwidth mode to help by reducing page sizes.



Considering a Low-Bandwidth Mode



To better support users on slower connections, I’m evaluating a low-bandwidth mode that would:

• Load lower-quality versions of images by default to reduce page size and improve load speeds.

• Keep full-quality images available in zoom view, so detailed viewing remains intact.



Why These UI Changes Were Necessary



These updates weren’t just for aesthetics—they were needed for technical and long-term sustainability reasons:

• The site has been gradually migrating to a modern, more efficient tech stack to improve performance, flexibility, and maintainability for future features.

• The new system enables faster navigation since AstroBin is now a single-page application (SPA), reducing load times between pages.

• This update is a step toward a native mobile app, which will allow the platform to grow without a complete rewrite.

• The classic UI, built 14 years ago, is not sustainable for future improvements and was holding back development.



Astrophotographers List: Infinite Scroll & Avatars


• You can still access your ranking instantly by bookmarking the search page with your name pre-entered—this eliminates extra clicks just like before.

• Infinite scroll is now standard across AstroBin for consistency and performance reasons. It’s faster and more accessible, as it doesn’t require users to fish for the correct page number. Maintaining both pagination and infinite scrolling isn’t practical.

• Avatars: Yes, they are small, but they aren’t a performance bottleneck. They are cached efficiently, use lazy loading, and their file size is minimal. While they may not be useful to everyone, some users appreciate the visual cue.



Feature Suggestions & Next Steps



I do appreciate the feature suggestions you shared. Some, like group messaging for followers and manual image arrangement on profiles, are interesting and will be considered for the roadmap based on overall priority.



While I always welcome feedback, at this point, I’ve provided all the context I can on these changes. My focus remains on improving AstroBin for the entire community, and I’ll continue making enhancements that balance performance, usability, and sustainability.



Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. I appreciate the time you took to outline your concerns, and I hope some of the upcoming improvements help make your experience better.

Thank you very much also for your kind words in your latest message. I’m very happy to hear that astrobin has been valuable in your journey into astrophotography!



Best,

Salvatore

I just got home from work and tried the bookmark suggestion. Is it possible for the search result to take you to the location on the list vs just displaying my name. The number on the left is visible on the master list (sometimes) and is a # sign on the search result - can the left number be displayed in all scenarios?

Thanks

Tim

Thanks, I have never used the search before in the user list and was unaware of its previous behavior. Also clarification of what the number is on the left…. 

Tim