I recently noticed a message at the top of my screen (logged in to the production site) that the "old" website will be retired. When will this happen, and why?
We plan to retire the old Web site sometime in January.
You asked why. There are several reasons. We’re a small company and cannot continue to support two separate code bases. The new code base is more stable, faster, and more advanced. We’ve worked hard over the past few months to make sure that all functionality on the new site is comparable to, or exceeds, that of the old site. We’ve tried to react to the feedback we’ve received - both in the forums and via private email - regarding changes that users wanted to see in the “new” site.
I know this decision won’t please everyone, but it’s driven by business realities that we can’t fully control. Before you get too sad, I really encourage you (and anyone else not yet convinced) to try the latest version of the “new” site. (If your Web browser says preview.collective2.com, you are already using the new site, as most people are directed there by default).
I think you’ll find a much improved navigation and user experience. And we’re not done yet. We’ll be rolling out some additional features – small and large – over the next few weeks.
In the meantime, if there’s something you feel is very lacking in the “new” site, let us know, and we’ll see what we can do.
Matthew
Can the C2 ticker be relegated to the bottom of the screen rather than such a prominent spot above the users systems?
Matthew, Any chance of bringing back the old site statistic breakdown? The keep after worst case slippage is a must in my opinion. My only other complaint is the site still seems slow at times. Sometimes when I enter a order it just gives me that little thinking symbol and never enters the order. Ive had times when Ive had to go to the old site to close orders because the new site is froozen up or something. Speed speed speed is the #1 thing to be focused on with so much on the line in my humble opinion. Other than that you guys are doing a great job, keep it up.
Paul
Matt, I have a lot of trouble using the new site. I can’t see but two posts in the chatter area, so it’s virtually useless on the new website. That, and I believe I pointed out to you that the admin for vendors doesn’t work in their forums. Have a look, and please try to offer a lot more availability of the chatter area on the new site.
The show more button for the chatter area is not working. I can only see three posts including my own on the site currently.
I agree. Every time I have gone into the new site, I quickly return to the old.
It still has some superiorities, that does not seem to have been addressed into the new. No one said you have to "support" the old, but the new still needs work.
I must agree with Index. In addition, two critical issues for me are the site layout and opening systems in tabs in my browser.
Have you used the beta site on a laptop? On the small screen, it’s simply an inferior layout for accessing items quickly, which I’ve pointed out when the beta site was first introduced. What a huge waste of screen space by putting in those massive white-space margins, especially along the left side, forcing me to page down more to see the same information. And I often like to open up two or more systems and then flip through my browser windows to compare stats and graphs side-by-side, but holding down control while clicking on the beta site simply overwrites the current window with the system clicked.
Just to get some clarity on the issue, why isn’t it possible to hook in the old site into the new back-end, and get the benefit of the new code base that way while preserving the option of the production site for those who prefer?
equity curve looks smoother on old site
I want to help you, Mr. Matthew Klein.
I am working with computers from 1986. That is 23 years. I am not using glasses in my 50 when I am working with computer.
I have no problem to look a whole day on monitor. It is not so usual. I am very satisfied with my situation.
But it did not happen without my merit.
I always invested to the best possible monitor and kept care about some conditions:
- the monitor must not shine (I mean there must not be visible reflexes of windows or sources of light)
- the monitor must have appropriate resolution
- appropriate contrast
- appropriate brightness
- appropriate frequency, if it is CRT monitor.
These all made and makes me comfortable when I am working with monitor.
I have a big problem if monitor is fuzzy (blurred, diffused). I have nausea within a few minutes.
As a consultant I used attend many other people in their work and many many times my first advice was: place monitor so that it will not shine and increase a frequency of video card. (Sometimes “clean your monitor” too.) Then you will have less headache, your eyes will not be so tired and you will feel more comfortable.
That was a preface.
All above is a “hardware part”. But there is also a “software part”.
You can have the sharpest monitor in the world. But in spite of all your “hardware” effort you can have nausea and you will not feel good when watching on monitor. It is in the case when someone sends fuzzy/blurred/diffused pictures to your perfect monitor.
And here we are: http://preview.collective2.com
I saw probably thousands of www pages but I can not recall if I saw pages which are so eye-straining, so hard to read, so hard to use and from which I had so bad feeling. I simply can not use preview.collective2.com, because I have a headache after a while.
The new design of Collective2 is an ergonomic horror.
Mr. Matthew Klein you are a clever man. Genius founded this great site, excellent programmer, wise in interpersonal communication.
Also an novel writer. You know many things. But no one in this world can know all. Please take a break in your hard work and devote two or three days to reading a basics of ergonomy and use some of findings from this science in design of your new www pages.
A new design is simply bad and your visitors will not feel comfortably on Collective2. Believe me or ask them in some poll.
I have not any ergonomic education. But I have a healthy eyes because I always took care about ergonomy.
Look at your old and you new pages. Place them side-by-side on your monitor.
On which one you are feeling better? Ask your visitors please.
There are some rules which is always good to keep.
The first - light gray text. Especially: light gray text using small font. This is the successful direct attack and successful direct hit to everybody’s eyes. Uncomfortable, eye-straining, bad. Nothing what someone can love.
Who is able to read names of trading systems in running ticker, lift hand!
Next - colours. Go to the private messages list. Look on that light blue messages titles.
Do you see them sharply? Compare your feeling with black-on-white text. Try it with all other light blue text on your site.
You know: The human eye is relatively insensitive to blue frequencies of the optical spectrum and is not able to see blue things as sharp as other colours. Blue is great for background but not for foreground. When started a computer era, monitors were bad. In that times Borland’s Pascal editor and Microsoft Basic editors used a yellow fonts on blue background. It was the combination which particularly eliminated a bad hardware.
Light blue color for text is simply bad choice. The result is eyestraining and no comfort feeling.
Well, the green is just besides the blue in the optical spectrum. Look at your light green text. Is it as readable as black on white? What is easier to read? What is your feeling when you read light green colored thin font of your “Gainers this week”?
Ok. That was light gray, blue and green (or more precisely light blue and light green).
Now the red colour. Perception is good. But Matthew, we are still animals. The red color is the color of blood flowing from gaping wound. The colour of danger. The colour of disquietness. The color which attract the attention to the important things. From this point of view the most important thing on your main page is the “Losers this week” and systems losing attention.
Please tell me: Are the “Losers this week” more important that everything other on your main page. (I think that appropriate colour for a cemetery is black.) :-))
I know: these colours are carrying information and are chosen from standard colors of financial market.
But this choice is simply bad here.
Look at your “System Finder”: light gray graphs on a pink background? Wow! Some kind of “Fog day” design?
The work of a mad designer? How do you feel driving your car in fog comparing it with normal circumstances?
How quickly you can ride? Are you fresh or tired when you are at home finally? What about your eyes? Tired or fresh?
And what is the logic of this page? What is purpose of selecting extreme systems like “Long-term trades” and “Short, rapid trades”?
Where are “Normal trades” please?
“Order Entry” page design? Are you joking Matthew Klein? Try to use it for you trading for longer time, please!
There are many more recommendations how to create www page. For example do not use too much different fonts, too much different sizes of fonts, too much type face design. Please look at trading system description page. Again, you are trying to use different type faces and different sizes for information differentiation. But is that so important? Is that so important if you loose the good feeling from that page? If the visitor feels uncomfortable? Why it is necessary to make this page so hard to read?
(And I am not repeating here the wrong usage of colours in this page.) The layout of trading system page is simply bad. Please think once more again, what information is important and what is not. Where is the place for important thing and where is the place for less important things and what is an unsubstantial ballast. There is too much information there.
A human brain must devote too much attention to the form HOW the information are presented.
But we need simply read WHAT information are there.
Do you understand me? That is the ergonomy: not to give too much of energy to make your work and do your work comfortable.
In this case it is the brain energy and subconscious feeling.
In this case the brain must work to filter out presentation of information in different types of fonts AT FIRST and THEN must find information. Why such obsctructions? Is it really necessary? We all need to get information in the easiest possible way.
Please remove the reason of this obsctructions and people will feel much better there.
Matthew, many of things I am talking about are subconscious.
An ordinal visitor feels uncomfortable but can not tell you why. Visitors will not like your pages but can not tell you why.
They do not know exactly why. But they have their feeling. And visitors feeling is directing their behaviour.
And I see a danger for your business here: people will not feel well on your pages. Think about it: will YOU, Matthew Klein, return to the www site where are you not feeling comfortable? Think please.
I believe that you want to conduct your business so that you will be successful a long time. I wish you be successful forever.
But Matthew, with your new design it will be easy for your competitors to smash the ball.
Unfortunately not into your basket, I am afraid.
I want to help you, Mr. Matthew Klein.
I wholehartely agree with your post. I tried several times to get used to the new site but I get dizzy with eyestrain and feel a great relieve when I return to the old site.
I regard the post of Tryingtohelpyou Matthew a masterpiece in pinpointing the shortcomings, actually the grave faults of the new site and beg Matthew: If you have to drop one of the sites please drop the new one. You can incorporate some of the new ideas into the old site but keep the format of the old one - I think most of the long time users will agree.
He has a point. I started to use the new site but went back to the old one because I just found it easier to use. Part of that is familiarity and knowing where everything is but it definitely affected how active I was, only by returning to the old site did I find myself participating again such as in forums, chatter, or reading reviews.
I did not look at the ergonomics that much until I read your post… I was concentrating more on the speed of execution of orders and from that point of view, I must say the new site is definitely an improvement…
Sometimes, like today some of the stock orders did not go through in the very end of the order queue (6 or 7 stocks), but I just replaced them with the very same order and it went through. Needless to say they were not filled at the open, so there might be issues with volume in real-money trading.
Nevertheless, I am satisfied with the functionality of the new site. Also I like the free forex quotes and ease of use of the order entry compared to the old site. Sometimes, the quantity and symbol I entered into the order entry screen seem to disappear all of a sudden as the page updates or refreshes periodically. Needless to say this may cause one to make mistakes in order entry, but it does remember the last order entry details and retains it when trying to place a new order and this speeds up order entry considerably. Some functionality seems to missing compared to old site, but the most important functionality, namely the speed of execution has been improved. Christmas Gift I received from C2? Thanks MK. Keep up the good work. I’m grateful, as usual…
This is my first post on Collective2, as I had to jump in and say that I strongly agree with the comments made by TryingToHelpYou Matthew. Collective2 is a great concept, but the new site is hard to read and not inviting to spend a lot of time on. Just my two cents.
PS: I just remembered, that the buying power is not being updated as fast as the order is being filled. This is a major concern as we need to know the buying power accurately at all times to avoid a margin call. It was off by over 300% which is completely unacceptable…
Imagine the shock you receive when you find that the buying power has been reduced to nothing compared to when your orders were just being executed and when it has finished executing and C2 did not update the buying power immediately after the order has been executed and took an inordinate amount of time to compute the final buying power. This needs to be fixed with high priority… Everything else can wait…
Well said, I log in from time to time on a touch screen windows mobile phone and navigating and reading information on the new website is extremely difficult… navigating and reading on the old website is much easier.
[LINKSYSTEM_38885500]
An option for the whole site to look like the sign in page might help.
An option for a similar look to the old site might be even better.
Or combine both of these as an option.
The new site as is, is difficult to use and hard on the eyes, needs to be softened at the very least. Or the option to soften.
Hey, buddy, why are you using the “old” Collective2 Web site?
I’ve checked out the “new” site and I’ve used it well enough. Problem is I haven’t used it enough to integrate the finer features that have been improved upon. Upon cursory look these don’t seem to be that HUGE (fine and refined detail improvement).
That being said (I use that phrase often, huh?), I use the “old” site because “navigating and reading on the old website is much easier.” as someone said above.
The “old” layout is simpler and easier to read and get around - which is GREAT from a user standpoint. Being in the biz, Matthew (and I am a Silicon Valley engineering transplant), I’m sure you wanted to make the site look like what “modern” sites do, but. . .
MK has a concept in place like no other. Not sure if there is a disconnect between him and his programmers with industry (website) standards and/or if he just needs to pull in a consultant to get things looking and feeling tip-top!
gA
Then again I am not 30 - so God help me if I am getting "set in my ways".
I have this sick feeling this is all going to be ignored.
