Any one else finding the main page of the site harder and harder to navigate? It used to be recent articles, recent celeb birth announcements, and recent forum posts were all up top, easy to find and check at a glance. Now I have to scroll all over the main page to find what I’m looking for. Anyone else notice this?
Yes and so many ads!
Hey, sorry to hear you’re so frustrated. I’m going to move this post to the About Nameberry Forum to see if someone else can give you some more information.
I agree with this too!
I’ve been feeling the same way about the first page - I miss the blog posts on top!
I haven’t noticed the front page navigation, but the ads are horrendous. On mobile, I continuously have the same Amazon Prime TV ad come up and take over my entire phone screen. I can’t close it half the time and the other half I just close the tab and give up trying because I know it’ll just annoy me to no end trying to unsuccessfully close it out.
I really don’t like the new front page. Its unnecessary confusing.
is it just me or did the nsrn bar go away too? I already knew it wasn’t on mobile but its not on my computer now either
I believe this feature was removed towards the end of 2018, I only use my computer so I can’t speak for the mobile version.
^Yeh this. On the cellphone there’re ads that take up most of the screen and often have a delay in when they pop up to trick you into accidentally clicking on them. I mean, I get that the site needs to make money, but they’re starting to make the site unusable.
Yes, it is so much worse now. I use my phone only to visit this site and the layout had drastically gone downhill. There’s no easy way to get to most tabs offered when on a computer and now the main page is unbearable. I literally had to Google the most popular names of 2017 because there’s no way to find it straight from nameberry anymore on the phone. I only use this site for the forums now and after this baby is born I’m likely going to use a different website. Too many ads too and an awful layout, especially for mobile users.
[name_m]Hi[/name_m] all – The changes we’ve been making are an effort to make the site easier to navigate and to make features easier to discover for most visitors. We’re sorry to hear this hasn’t been your experience! We will be continuing to move elements around and testing response so if you have specific suggestions, we’d love to hear them.
On the ads, every individual sees different ads depending on their browsing patterns, where they live, device etc. [name_m]Even[/name_m] within the Nameberry staff, it can be difficult to track down a problematic ad that one of us sees because the others don’t! I for instance never see page takeover ads on mobile and I’m sorry you do. We are making changes over the next month that should address these problems so please bear with us.
Nameberry is a truly unique site in that it was individually created and is still run by a small team of writers, experts, and name-lovers around the world. We are not owned, funded, or written/designed by a corporation. The advertising is directly related to keeping us and the site alive.
It’s frankly like a knife to my heart when someone says they’re going to a different website, as if you can get this breadth and quality of name content anywhere. Of course, that is your right and if you can find an all-around better experience on another site, then that’s where you should be. But our readers are very important to us and we are trying to listen to everyone’s thoughts and needs and working all the time to make Nameberry better, so constructive ideas are very welcome.
The gigantic picture of a baby on the home page doesn’t need to be there. Not at that size, anyway. You have to scroll down quite a ways to figure out if this is even a baby name site or someone’s blog site. That cute sidebar on the right with Popular [name_u]Baby[/name_u] Names, Girls Names, Boy Names, etc. can be seen right now while I’m making this post, but is completely missing from the main page.
The main page layout is currently a ‘scroll down until you see something relevant’ design with sidebars that are filled only with ads and no other useful information. It’s fine to have ads but it currently looks like the ads have replaced the main content on the site. If I was a first time user of the site, I would immediately go somewhere else because it looks like someone’s blog that is trying to get you to click on ads.
You want to have the design of your main content be front and center as soon as the page loads. You don’t want to make the user work to find information or work to navigate the site. Scrolling down endlessly to see the content of the site is not a good design decision.
I loved the color scheme of the site and the older design. That was part of what I loved about Nameberry the most. It was fresh and youthful, now it’s colorless and lacks any personality. Now, I’m getting lost trying to navigate anywhere on the site. The only helpful thing right now is the navigation bar at the top.
I miss the ticker, but it’s fine if it doesn’t come back due to causing problems. The design of the site while the ticker was active, however, was great.
This is what my screen looks like on PC when I first come to the page. It barely looks like a website. It looks like 4 giant ads with no main content. I don’t know where on the screen to click. There’s no indication that there’s any information if I were to scroll down. This might be really misleading to new users. That is a super adorable baby, though.
This is absolutely right. I had the same thought about absence of color on the home page. I’ve been a member since 2013, and Nameberry was by far the best name site out there. I’m staying put because I still don’t see any other site as superior, but I miss the Nameberry of yore. I miss the running ticker. I miss the grouping of pink and blue names that people were currently searching. I miss the sections for recent forum posts and names being commented on. I miss the celebrity birth announcements right on the home page. For me, on my kindle, it took over a month to find the advantage search feature. I can’t see the horizontal bars when my device is horizontal, I have to rotate it vertically. Also, the blog posts used to be at the top of the page, now it’s buried somewhere in the middle. The old Nameberry format was better looking and easier to use/navigate.
Nameberry’s web design team doesn’t strike me as knowledgeable in the field. Definitely no usability testing for this site. Users have complained about the glitches, layout issues, and ads for years. Nothing ever changes. The problems get worse. POOR [name_m]WEB[/name_m] MANAGEMENT!!!
As a user of the site for the past 6-7 years, I’ve got to say, this is the worst I’ve ever seen it. I know I commented once previously on this thread, but I’ve now taken the time to make note of all the negative aspects that I now find hindering the site’s usability.
Full disclosure - I’ve used the site on Google Chrome, Safari and Firefox, both mobile and webpage and found the issues to be nearly identical on both, so I’ve ruled out the browser causing the issue. Also, any other name site I’ve visited, even non “expert” sites - blogs created with blogger, or lower budgeted creators, haven’t caused me an issue. Literally just Nameberry.
Let’s start with the homepage. The navigation, quite frankly, sucks. Oh, and let’s not forget that little pop-up nonsense video that, sometimes is an ad, and sometimes is an attempt at mom-centric comedy (what happened to the site being welcoming to name-nerds? This just tells me you’re gearing to, or subliminally trying to, attract an audience that focuses on new moms. To me, the fact that Nameberry welcomed name-enthusiasts is what set it apart from the literally hundreds of other forums).
The fact that the previous taglines of “baby names, only adjective” has been replaced with just an off-centered, honestly, too small, headline text reading “[name_u]Baby[/name_u] Names” makes it appear more like an unfinished template. The site’s name has now been shoved to the top left corner, and it’s so small that, if you’re a new user who clicked on a redirect link from Google or elsewhere, it’s not clear what site you’ve entered. The new tagline - “From [name_u]Avery[/name_u] to [name_u]Zephyr[/name_u], Nameberry is the complete guide to thousands of amazing baby names.” is also way too small in comparison to most sites, and looks arbitrarily thrown in, adding to the idea that it’s an unfinished template. Furthering that point home and making it look more and more like a high-schooler’s half-finished essay template, is that giant, off-centered (again) photo of a baby.
It literally only gets worse from here - the further you scroll, the more plain and disorganized the site appears. It looks like someone hurriedly typed text in to plan out the design and then just mistakenly posted it. There’s no differentiation in the header text other than a slightly bigger size and bolder font. I could literally fix this myself with a quick HTML code - a job that takes less than 10 minutes.
Then, eventually, you reach the “browse by letter” section and the “[name_u]Baby[/name_u] Name News” - two features that, I would say normally set Nameberry apart from literally any other website. They’ve been pushed to the very bottom and honestly, most people are going to be too lazy or not enthused enough by the first glance of the page to scroll down to find that. [name_m]Even[/name_m] the “Top 1000 Names on Nameberry” section has been shoved to the bottom - where is that interesting, unique, professional quality content that Nameberry seems to be so proud of?
Also - that stupid embedded video player - literally did anyone ask for this? It’s perhaps the most irritating thing about the whole layout changes. Please, just make it go away. I don’t want to hear “Scary Mommy”'s recipes, attempts at comedy, comments about how scary pregnancy can be, etc. Not that I can even watch the video, it’s CONSTANTLY interrupted by ads. The ad bars at the top and side of the page are already loud and obnoxious looking enough at some points - this one is just overboard.
Next - the navigation. That bar is great and all, but it’s kind of a pain on mobile. Neither version looks very eye-catching, which normally would be fine - but given how the homepage doesn’t provide any kind of clear indication on how to navigate the site, it’s bad. What I find weird though, is that the navigation sidebar once you’re on the forums, is perfect. The highlighted banners depicting the key features - if we kept that on the homepage, at least PART of the problem would be solved.
Side note - why isn’t your Name Generator highlighted better? It’s a competitor to Nymbler (or old Nymbler anyway, they’ve since taken a more updated approach to mimic Tinder - much more user friendly), and should probably be made a focal point for visitors.
Now, those damn ads. I’ve touched on them previously, but real talk - why? Why does there need to be SO many? You have two ad bars (which again, are not centered or sized properly) on every page, do we really need pop-up ads and ads that open new webpages? I feel like I’m in 2000 every time I get a stupid pop-up, lol. And don’t get me started on how slow these ads make the site - literally some days a dial-up connection was faster than the site is. It slows everything right down. I’ve waited upwards of two minutes before for the site to load - and it’s definitely the site, as I opened up a new tab and loaded SIX different sites in the time it took for Nameberry to load.
On mobile, I had, until yesterday, an Amazon Prime ad that would literally eclipse my entire screen and wouldn’t let me close it out. I had complained previously on [name_f]April[/name_f] 28th about this same ad, and it took two weeks for anything to be resolved? I understand it does take a while but it’s so infuriating for users when an ad takes over and literally locks us out of using that tab. Also, the volume level on it was deafening.
Now, the mobile ads are pop-up bars that take up a quarter of my screen, and if you try to click the microscopic “x” to close the page out, it almost always results in the ad opening up. In the time it’s taken me to write this, I’ve battled an ad on my phone, and tried in vain to close it out - each time it results in opening the ad in a new tab. Normally, I just give up. I don’t want to waste my data, or my time trying to fight your constant, persistent ads.
In short, Nameberry needs a serious overhaul. I personally find the creator’s response to be a bit ridiculous - there are plenty of sites run by a private, small team of creators. You don’t need to be written or designed by a corporation to still have a good site.
Regardless of content or quality, I’d almost prefer them to a site that attacks my phone or laptop with ads constantly to the point where I just give up and walk away. I don’t use Nameberry for anything other than the forums anymore, but even then, that’s becoming increasingly harder to do.
Please just get your crap together, Nameberry. There’s been a serious lack of care or effort to fix any of our concerns that we’ve voiced over the past 5+ years. The only reason people will go to a different, better quality/designed site, is because the empty promises of resolution will push them there.
I use a laptop so the ads don’t really bother me too much. Whenever I’ve used my phone in the past there’s definitely been an issue though. As for the layout, I quite like the top bar and I think it’s much smoother and smarter. The front page is probably my biggest dislike. Having recent articles right at the top was much more helpful and easily accessible, and I loved seeing the names of the latest celebrity babies. Honestly, I don’t even bother looking for them now. I definitely won’t be going anywhere else anytime soon though because of the amazing community here.
However, I understand and appreciate that Nameberry is a small-run website and that issues can be difficult/take a long time to fix. I hope that a solution will be found soon.
I also quite like the new top bar on my laptop but it’s not as smooth on my phone. Something that really bothers me on my phone is that the drop-down menu drops down whenever I want to type somewhere, whether it is in the search bar, the log-in screen of in the forum. Whenever I select a box to type in, the drop-down menu gets in the way and I accidentally click it a lot.
No disrespect, but I much prefer the old home page, from several years ago. It was much easier to access the blog posts. I also find it difficult to post on Nameberry on mobile now, because of the glitches (I’m having the same issue as @rouverture).
Nameberry’s home page looks terrible. Why is there a poorly sized and positioned photo of a baby at the top? Why are blog posts buried beneath a bland wall of text links? I’ve never seen anything like this. Between the nonsense layout and the ad problem that’s never going to be resolved, I get the feeling this site is not a priority for its creators. Behind the Name has always had a more accurate and informative database, and blogs like British [name_u]Baby[/name_u] Names and Namerology produce higher quality content. Nameberry’s issues have been driving users away for years now. I hope the site will be given some attention soon.