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I'm curious...

Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
What do people think of the main homepage of TheSite.org?
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Comments

  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    It's a good kid, always polite. I don't have anything bad to say about it. :)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Feel free to think of something - go on, rip it a new one ;)
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    Well, the only thing I could say is that the red border around the articles doesn't fit in very well with the colourful thing above. But I'm the one who didn't like the new red look anyway :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think it's too cluttered still. The main page that is. It coul djust be me using firefox but everything is down the left hand side leaving a big white gap to the right. It needs to be centred or stretched.

    I also think there is too much white Jim. The rest of the colours are not too bad on the eyes they're easy going but it needs an injection of colour i reckon.

    It feels like there is too much wasted space on the front page, partly due to all that white empty area.

    I can't remember, was the main page meant to reflect any of the boards themes Jim ?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    No man, the very bottom uses the colour of the community section, the homepage itself doesn't reflect the boards
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    I've noticed, however, this tendency to gather everything on the left -is it just for lower resolution screens? Even the "normal" themes for the boards leave a large space to the right.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    *goes to have a look*
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Yeah it's to meet the AA W3C web accessibility standards and guidelines - pages all need to be designed in 800 width and then making them expandable means it becomes only impossible to put together a CSS that can handle other accessibility requirements.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    It is bright like a toddler's toy box.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Oh and here's some fucking around we did around quick changes (that wouldn't require full on design) that might help highlight content, etc. I know it looks hacked together (it is) - but it's the principals of the changes that'd be interesting to hear views on.

    This, of course, is no where near final.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think it's great. Just enough use of colour so that it looks pretty, but not too much that it isn't clear to read :)
  • Indrid ColdIndrid Cold Posts: 16,688 Skive's The Limit
    Jim V wrote: »
    Oh and here's some fucking around we did around quick changes (that wouldn't require full on design) that might help highlight content, etc. I know it looks hacked together (it is) - but it's the principals of the changes that'd be interesting to hear views on.

    This, of course, is no where near final.
    What would the difference be between "top content" and "community"?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    i don't think its obvious that there are discussion boards. you need a big link that says "join our community" or "ask advice on our discussion boards" etc. i just think the links you have now blend in.

    when i joined the site 4 (!) years ago it wasn't so i could read a silly rant. why are they the main headers? sorry no offence! but i think the main thing you should focus on are the boards because thats where people go to get the advice they need.
  • **helen****helen** Deactivated Posts: 9,235 Supreme Poster
    What would the difference be between "top content" and "community"?

    Top content will be "featured articles" from across the whole site - so factsheets, interviews, a new podcast... anything like that.

    'Community' is content that you would only find in the community area - such as the 'real life' content including true stories, rants and diaries.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    **Helen** wrote: »
    Top content will be "featured articles" from across the whole site - so factsheets, interviews, a new podcast... anything like that.

    'Community' is content that you would only find in the community area - such as the 'real life' content including true stories, rants and diaries.


    I like the mock up site. The normal front page doesn't work on my work computer. Would top content be rotated randomly? There's so much cool stuff on the site that a lot of people probably don't know about so it would be good to have random articles pop up on the front page.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What's being discussed (and bear in mind we're looking to do things we can relatively quickly - but hopefully it will be possible) is that we'd return to the old style of new content, which would be 3 (or however many) featured articles rotating out of a bank of around 10-12. So yeah, you'd see random stuff, and not necessarily the newest, just the ones we wanted to highlight.

    For those who mentioned the boards - importance, etc - obviously for the community team that are central to everything we do, but from a point of view of web traffic here's our stats for the month of December -

    Unique users (individual browsers, not clicks) on TheSite.org as a whole - 446,893
    Page impressions (the number of clicks) on TheSite.org as a whole - 2,130,770

    users (browsers not registered users) on the boards - 133,111
    page impressions on the boards - 986,430

    So as you can see, although the boards are hugely important to us, and important to everyone working for TheSite - there are also about 3/4 of users who current look at other content on TheSite.org who need to be catered for as well. It's always one of those things it's difficult to balance in any new design.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    PussyKatty wrote: »
    The normal front page doesn't work on my work computer.

    If you mean it was just showing a blank page - its because I fucked up the bolton's (the things on the right hand side), it should work now.

    Definately a clever idea - ask people to look at your homepage then start messing about with it. :yes:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    What I mean is, it does work, but it's long and there is loads of gaps in the content. But that is probably down to my computer (an old iMac).

    Could you have a text only version?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jim V wrote: »
    What's being discussed (and bear in mind we're looking to do things we can relatively quickly - but hopefully it will be possible) is that we'd return to the old style of new content, which would be 3 (or however many) featured articles rotating out of a bank of around 10-12. So yeah, you'd see random stuff, and not necessarily the newest, just the ones we wanted to highlight.

    For those who mentioned the boards - importance, etc - obviously for the community team that are central to everything we do, but from a point of view of web traffic here's our stats for the month of December -

    Unique users (individual browsers, not clicks) on TheSite.org as a whole - 446,893
    Page impressions (the number of clicks) on TheSite.org as a whole - 2,130,770

    users (browsers not registered users) on the boards - 133,111
    page impressions on the boards - 986,430

    So as you can see, although the boards are hugely important to us, and important to everyone working for TheSite - there are also about 3/4 of users who current look at other content on TheSite.org who need to be catered for as well. It's always one of those things it's difficult to balance in any new design.
    But can't those stas be influenced by what lipsy said, namely that the boards aren't visible enough?

    I agree the boards aren't everything though, just making a point.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    No i don't think so. It's because the actual pages have more content that will be picked up by search engines than the board does.

    So someone looking for advices on say, drugs would find the articles on thesite.org rather than the forum.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A text only version isn't a bad idea - but it's unlikely to be something we'd do as part of this - more as a consistent text only version of the whole site as part of a redesign
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    bluewisdom wrote: »
    But can't those stas be influenced by what lipsy said, namely that the boards aren't visible enough?

    I agree the boards aren't everything though, just making a point.

    Yeah, though I'd question the level of visability - from the six main quotes on the homepage, through to the prominent positioning on the community homepage

    Though it is an interesting point, and certainly not one I'm dismissive of, just that it's always a balance between different user needs - and certainly there are things we can do to make the links more obvious or stand out more.
  • **helen****helen** Deactivated Posts: 9,235 Supreme Poster
    Jim V wrote: »
    its because I fucked up the bolton's (the things on the right hand side), it should work now.

    You mean bolt-ons. Without the hyphen it sounds like you fucked up the dodgy town you come from :p
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    **Helen** wrote: »
    You mean bolt-ons. Without the hyphen it sounds like you fucked up the dodgy town you come from :p


    Helen NO NO NO NO NO!

    Lancashire and Bolton is good! Leave the poor town alone!
  • JsTJsT Posts: 18,268 Skive's The Limit
    Naaah, Helen knows the Score! She knows which side of the Pennines is the right one - the East Side!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I think its way to crowded! I can never find anything on it
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    I have to say Jim i like what i see in your hacked-together attachment. Those little changes, in my opinion, make quite a difference.

    I can see where people are coming from with the remarks about the boards but equally i can see where you are coming from.

    I don't know, but when i go to the main page at www.thesite.org.uk all i see are quotes of threads from the boards and links to said threads along with the " In The Community " feature. Though what i'm saying is probably not a " quick " thing to do nor something your probably looking at doing, but personally i think that the page needs more content from across the various sections of www.thesite.org with links to articles in those sections and not just a broadcast of solely the discussion boards.

    Perhaps a shortened down version of what is currently there along with little snippets from the various other sections like Relationships and Home, Law & Money or the Work & Study section.

    I know that's probably more than you either want or asked but just my two cents. I feel the main page needs more, not less, not cluttered just some more information about the general areas of the site.

    Of course.. none of any of that might even be possible with the web and whatnot other constraints you may have on you.

    D'ya get me ? .. No? I didn't think so :p I'll go back to the corner now :razz:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Jim Jim Jim, if you don't want people moaning then no asking opinions hehe! And as for changing the homepage imo it looks cool as it is so don't make more work for yourself, leave it to it, its rite (as us fantastic northerners would say)!!!
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Oh don't worry Ashlee, I want people to rip it to pieces - I just responding to the points people raised.

    Edn1 and Amira :p - one problem we have is of course the amount of content -

    Just looking at sex and relationships for example you've got

    the main sub area (sex & r)

    7 sub sections (singles, couples, having sex, family & friends, etc)

    16 sub sections within these (for example singles contains single life, on the pull and dealing with dates)

    with 229 articles and 156 sex q&a's and 158 relationships q&a's divided between these.

    And that's just 1 of 6 sections - not to mention the real life, games, etc in community.

    What we used before was a general text description of the different sections, what's been suggest in the revision, in addition to the top articles, is to use our rss feeds to show the latest 2, 3, or however many articles in the sections, in place of the short discriptions.

    The hope would be this would be more dynamic, and provide a better link to lower level content, so people realise how much is there with quick browsing.
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