Design

community October 7, 2014

Editing is essential: new badges and review enhancements

We rolled out three new badges last week! These recognize a pattern that sets Stack Exchange apart from the forums and message boards that came before it: answering and editing questions, the ability to not only write an answer that can be useful beyond the immediate asker but also re-write the question such that it…
Avatar for Josh Heyer
Community Manager (former)
design May 14, 2014

The Importance of Planning

[W]e should create designs and share them with peers and customers, consider their feedback, adjust and redesign, and repeat the process over and over again on the way to developing a whole product. We should build quickly but responsively. — Randy Hunt I’m not here to argue against the “Ship Early, Ship Often” mantra. I wholeheartedly endorse…
Avatar for Joshua Hynes
Senior Product Designer (former)
colored tile pattern with comment box
community March 3, 2014

Your communities list is now customizable

A few months ago, we rolled out a new top bar for all of the Stack Exchange communities. The mission was consistency: Every community gets the same Stack Exchange brand at the top, the same navigation between sites, and the same live updates about new inbox items and reputation changes But we realize that not…
Avatar for Jeremy Tunnell
Product Manager (Former)
community December 4, 2013

A New Top Bar for Stack Exchange

The top bar of a Stack Exchange site has always been a bit of an odd place. It somehow combines user info, navigation, search, and a one-size-fits-all popup that includes hot network questions, a list of 100+ Stack Exchange sites, personal inbox messages, and other system notifications (lovingly referred to as The StackExchange™ MultiCollider SuperDropdown™).…
Avatar for David Fullerton
President and Chief Technology Officer (former)
community March 6, 2012

The New Stack Exchange Beta Theme

I wanted to give you a quick look at the new Stack Exchange Beta theme. Yes, we are retiring the familiar “Sketchy” theme and rolling out a more-polished and finished design for the beta sites. Raise the curtain, cue the trumpet fanfare… Alas, poor Sketchy… Over the course of the next few weeks, we will…
Avatar for Robert Cartaino
Director of Community Development (former)
community January 31, 2012

The Trouble With Popularity

Way back in 2008, we had Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, the founders and co-creators of Reddit, on the Stack Overflow podcast. We chatted about a bunch of stuff, but one of the things they said that always stuck with me was that Reddit always took an explicitly hands-off, no moderation approach to their content…
Avatar for Jeff Atwood
Co-Founder (Former)
community December 8, 2011

Don’t Be Afraid to Use The Science

I saw an interesting Battlefield 3 question on gaming a few weeks ago. I’ve recently unlocked the EOD bot, and while playing around with it (and being hopelessly ineffectual with it) I’ve noticed that after I have driven a certain distance away I will return back to first-person view. Running towards the EOD bot will…
Avatar for Jeff Atwood
Co-Founder (Former)
community November 21, 2011

Improved Reviewing

Stack Exchange gets a staggering amount of questions and answers every day. Our goal is not only to provide great answers to the huge amount of questions, but to create awesome gems of knowledge that can be consumed by generations to come. New users on our sites need some extra TLC. Without them we can…
Avatar for Sam Saffron
Developer (Former)
community October 8, 2011

Improved Global Email Notifications

Our track record on email notifications has been mixed at best. Since early 2009, we’ve had some forms of email notification, including: A checkbox under each question you own, asking if you want email notifications for that specific question. A long since removed “oh, you’ve been away for 7 days, so we will mail you…
Avatar for Jeff Atwood
Co-Founder (Former)
community September 23, 2011

Bounty Reasons and Post Notices

It’s been a little over a year since our last improvement to the bounty system. Question bounties have been working well enough that we’re comfortable encouraging even more use of the bounty system. We used to limit people to one question bounty at a time, but now you can have up to three simultaneous question…
Avatar for Jeff Atwood
Co-Founder (Former)
community September 5, 2011

Expanding User Cards

As I’ve said many times, the reason any Stack Exchange site works is not because of the magical software bits, but because the people participating are smart, talented, and willing to teach and learn. That’s right, any internet community ultimately succeeds or fails on the strength and quality of its contributors. Shocking, I know! But…
Avatar for Jeff Atwood
Co-Founder (Former)
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