User blog comment:Rupert Giles/Global Navigation Update/@comment-5645428-20141204065951

I'm sure everything negative about the new header bar has been repeated many times below. I'm sure all my proposed suggestions would also have been brought up too. Instead, I found an image that someone had posted on the original blog post of the topic of a new header bar:

~ posted by Lythronax

Isn't this the logical progression? And with it the ability to change its colour (if only through the Theme Designer)? While I would rather it be shrunk down to a height of 40px (up from the old 35px, down from the excessive new 57px, able to fit a 20px search bar), if at least the Microsoft Office 2013 visuals were replaced, then perhaps users would find it more tolerable to have streaked across the top of the screen at all times. That in itself makes a branding statement to anyone who visits a wiki that "this one is a Wikia wiki".

I cannot help it, because I really want the header bar to be improved.
 * Change the search "this wikia/all of wikia" button to be togglable with a single click rather than having to select from a dropdown menu.
 * Notifications should be restored to the previous version (as well as making the blocks a lot smaller like they used to be). There is no need to bury it within a menu and create an additional step to access it. Two buttons was fine.
 * I don't know whose idea it was to make the avatar on the header bar circular, but avatars don't look like that anywhere else on Wikia, neither does it fit well with most people's image choices. It should be slightly rounded like the search bar (personally I think the search bar could be rounded just a bit more).

The header bar was improved by fixing it to the top of the screen, nesting a search bar on it, and updating the global wiki items, but that is about as far as the true improvements from the old bar goes. The response is prominent and the feedback is clear, Wikia. Collaboration and Community have always been the magic words. Please keep them meaningful.