The humongous Checkmates banners, do you hate them too?

[ICSI]

Let's say you're in an emergency and need to get from point A to point B. While trying, you encounter a bunch of tiny obstacles that initially seem manageable but become increasingly annoying as you move forward. Under pressure, these tiny things become a source of frustration.

The humongous Checkmates promotional banners are my equivalent to this example.

They cover half of my browser screen, and every time I change a topic or move from one forum to another, I have to scroll halfway down my screen to keep surfing. I find this super annoying and am surprised nobody has said anything. If someone did, why are they still there? I wouldn't be surprised if most people who come to Checkmates don't participate partly because of that unfriendly layout.

From my personal point of view, I see them as intrusive and careless about me achieving my goals, like collaborating in Checkmates by participating in forums or researching solutions. It feels like Checkpoint is saying: "CheckBlockYou-mates is a marketing tool and YOU are here to LISTEN TO ME."

Please vote and agree with me that these banners need to be moved to the sides or made 20% smaller.

[PhoneBoy]

Appreciate the feedback.
This is something I've been meaning to look into and address.

[ICSI]

Yes, this would be nice to address. I am sure your graphic designers can just reduce the height of their new graphics by one-third, and everything will fix itself. However, moving the graphics to the sides would be much better for people who are browsing different forums. Sticking to one topic and reading comments and replies is not a problem, but changing topics is annoying.

[the_rock]

I never really noticed lol. Give a good example of something in particular?

Andy

[ICSI]

@the_rock  this is invisible for Ninjas 😁 but more mortals like me... here is an example, infamous huge banners, zero taste! 

[the_rock]

O that? Honestly, never bothered me lol.

Andy

[the_rock]

Have a look at 3 things I attached, screenshots from community pages of 3 other major vendors, PAN, Cisco and Fortinet. Its literally SAME size of the banner. I totally agree with the points @_Val_ has made, they all make sense to me.

Andy

[ICSI]

I feel we can do better.

[ICSI]

I will refer to CheckMates as CheckBlocksYou until I see a change.. 

[_Val_]

@ICSI Now, I am quite curious. Did you get a new PC with a smaller screen? Or just having a bad day?

[ICSI]

I am uploading three diferent videos, to get my point across.

No, its not a bad day, is that I am up to my neck of work and I want to be fast and efective, but scrolling over and over it does not feel like helping but stopping me. 

[_Val_ · Accepted solution]

Thanks for your feedback. We appreciate your passion and expressiveness. 

Before I ask my question, here are some notes for the matter:

1. This banner size is a common practice for similar communities, cybersecurity ones too.

2. We do not sell anything in the community, so I find your message a bit unfair

3. If the banner is annoying, you can just scroll the page.

Now, the question. Oscar, you are a member of this community since 2021. What triggered you now? 

[ICSI]

replied with videos, thanks for asking.

[G_W_Albrecht]

No.

[ccsjnw]

Yes. They are dreadful! 
Another vote for making them go away.

[the_rock]

I vote NO : - )

Does not bother me one bit.

Andy

[Lesley]

Never noticed it untill now, thanks for that 😁

Same on my Phone. Anyway to big or to small leave it up to the website designers, you could argue it is a different ''taste'' in design. 

Extra tip. If you want to search something during a critical outage moment on the community you can also use support.checkpoint.com no banners there. (See screenshot)

[ICSI]

I can not live with this any longer LOL - I want to improve my surfing experience in Check Mates. Look at my videos above.

[G_W_Albrecht]

Sorry to see you go !

[ICSI]

LOL - I am not leaving to the contrary, I uploaded a new video at the end of this threat. 

[CaseyB]

I'm more annoyed with the insane amount of whitespace / discussion replies & navigation layouts than the banners.

[ICSI]

also!! and I am sure the designers can make a better use of it, instead of hammering my eyes with the five banners.

[ICSI]

I am taking the time to make CheckBlocks better, as a Check Point partner I should be focus into bringing more clients answering their questions, when I come here to CheckBlocks, makes my practice harder, instead of practical and easy.

I am uploading here three video screen recordings to make my point acroos. 

Screen 1 Resolution 2560 x 1600

Screen 2 Resolution 2560 x 1080

Screen Resolution 3 1920 x 1080

[the_rock]

I guess we will have to agree to disagree 🤣🤣

Anyway, I uploaded a video proving my point, which is that banner is literally the same size on every major vendors' community page. Anyway, as far as Im concerned, this is such a trivial "problem", if I can even call it so. Im just super grateful for all the help this awesome community provides.

No further comments from me on this.

Have a great day!

Andy

[ICSI]

No more comments from my side also, I already make my point. 

[Henrik_Noerr1]

And I totally agree 🙂 It's like when SmartConsole spammed us with all these popup messages on login on some new great offering.

[_Val_]

Thank you for sharing your thoughts. I did not get an answer to my original question, but no matter.

You've been a member of this community since 2021, and if aspects of your experience here have been frustrating, it would have been helpful to hear from you sooner so we could try to address them together.

We truly welcome constructive feedback—it’s an important part of how we grow and improve. That said, we do ask that such feedback be shared in a respectful and constructive manner. Unfortunately, your original message came across as more adversarial than collaborative, which makes it harder to engage in a productive discussion. Still, I believe your concerns deserve a proper response.

Regarding the banner size specifically: this has been a recurring topic of discussion within the team since the community's founding in 2017. We’ve considered various perspectives, and the current design reflects those collective decisions.

From the responses so far, it seems this may not be a widely shared concern. Personally, I see it as a relatively minor issue, but I respect your right to bring it up. If you’d like to continue the conversation in a more detailed or private way, feel free to reach out to me directly at vloukine@checkpoint.com.

[ICSI]

I missed your call!! thank you Val for calling. emailing you now.

[Alex-]

I agree a quick scroll makes the issue go away.

We're more annoyed with the lost space left and right on CM/SC in larger screen resolutions. 😀

[Nik_Bloemers]

I have to say I do agree.  They are a bit much. They are well over a third of a full screen browser in the still common 1080p resolution. The actual forum content doesn't start until about the bottom ~20% of a browser window. That is rather excessive in my opinion.