Brown Jenkin
First Post
KnightBrokenCross said:
Part of the problem may be that there is no way to know that exists from the front page. It may be a fine resource but unless someone already knows about it they won't ever find it.
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Gleemax Q&A
- Thread starter keterys
- Start date
Part of the problem may be that there is no way to know that exists from the front page. It may be a fine resource but unless someone already knows about it they won't ever find it.
Eccles
Ragged idiot in a trilby.
My two penn'orth:
1. As someone said above, the 'tour' is rubbish. It doesn't tell me what the site is about. It doesn't really like me or excite me about anything. The text needs a substantial overhaul and the little icons in the tours are thoroughly un-inspiring.
2. The system should be able to cope with me hitting the 'back' button on my browser, which should be a pretty common one, as I'm running Internet Explorer...
3. Big green bubble backdrop which seems to be the loading page because I see so much of it. I thought it was a lizard pattern for ages, but that might be just me. Still don't see what it's got to do with the subject, though.
4. The logos on the front page, which are essentially the 'tour' buttons. They're HUGE! And weird. A big head with a cog in it? What's that got to do with anything?
5. Arrgh! Darn it - my browser keeps crashing at the moment, and the load times mean I don't get the gleemax page up (apart from the aforementioned green bubbly / lizardy thing) about half the time.
6. Nothing personal to the guys from Gamer Radio Zero, but why in their little icon are neither of them looking at the camera, and in fact both looking in opposite directions? Just bugs me, is all...
7. As referred to above, the blogs are inaccesible, and feel like they're buried in the depths of the system. I've tried to find things two or three times on gleemax, and simply given up and stopped using it. Already. I know it's the alpha, but am I likely to go back to it as a regular resource on current usage? I'm an internet person, which makes me fickle and with a very short attention span!
8. The method of picking the forums is interesting and different, but it's ultimately a huge selection of yet more very-large icons. I'm used to forums, and nobody else uses them like this and I'm just not comfortable. (Did I mention fickle?)
9. The further I get into the forums, the more it feels like a WotC proprietary brand. Which it is. But considering it's been pretending not to be for the last 4 or 5 mouse clicks, I just start to wonder if I've left gleemax and moved onto the WotC boards. The logo on my tab has changed, for instance, and the icons at the top have as well.
10. To my immense amusement, I click on the menu path to take me to gleemax's forum on D&D. I then decide to look at 4e stuff in there, having not noticed there's a separate 4e icon a layer up. The 4e section's got a 'locked for posting' icon. I click on it anyway. The top sticky thread says 'new 4e forums open!' I select it. It's got a link. To a gleemax 4e forum. Which appears to be completely different to the 4e forums I was just in. What's that all about?
11. The 'Events' page is very dull indeed.
12. Last thing. Having an option to change the date format from US to UK would be useful. I get confused easily by having dates in an 'unfamiliar' format.
I reckon that's got to be enough to be going on with.
1. As someone said above, the 'tour' is rubbish. It doesn't tell me what the site is about. It doesn't really like me or excite me about anything. The text needs a substantial overhaul and the little icons in the tours are thoroughly un-inspiring.
2. The system should be able to cope with me hitting the 'back' button on my browser, which should be a pretty common one, as I'm running Internet Explorer...
3. Big green bubble backdrop which seems to be the loading page because I see so much of it. I thought it was a lizard pattern for ages, but that might be just me. Still don't see what it's got to do with the subject, though.
4. The logos on the front page, which are essentially the 'tour' buttons. They're HUGE! And weird. A big head with a cog in it? What's that got to do with anything?
5. Arrgh! Darn it - my browser keeps crashing at the moment, and the load times mean I don't get the gleemax page up (apart from the aforementioned green bubbly / lizardy thing) about half the time.
6. Nothing personal to the guys from Gamer Radio Zero, but why in their little icon are neither of them looking at the camera, and in fact both looking in opposite directions? Just bugs me, is all...
7. As referred to above, the blogs are inaccesible, and feel like they're buried in the depths of the system. I've tried to find things two or three times on gleemax, and simply given up and stopped using it. Already. I know it's the alpha, but am I likely to go back to it as a regular resource on current usage? I'm an internet person, which makes me fickle and with a very short attention span!
8. The method of picking the forums is interesting and different, but it's ultimately a huge selection of yet more very-large icons. I'm used to forums, and nobody else uses them like this and I'm just not comfortable. (Did I mention fickle?)
9. The further I get into the forums, the more it feels like a WotC proprietary brand. Which it is. But considering it's been pretending not to be for the last 4 or 5 mouse clicks, I just start to wonder if I've left gleemax and moved onto the WotC boards. The logo on my tab has changed, for instance, and the icons at the top have as well.
10. To my immense amusement, I click on the menu path to take me to gleemax's forum on D&D. I then decide to look at 4e stuff in there, having not noticed there's a separate 4e icon a layer up. The 4e section's got a 'locked for posting' icon. I click on it anyway. The top sticky thread says 'new 4e forums open!' I select it. It's got a link. To a gleemax 4e forum. Which appears to be completely different to the 4e forums I was just in. What's that all about?
11. The 'Events' page is very dull indeed.
12. Last thing. Having an option to change the date format from US to UK would be useful. I get confused easily by having dates in an 'unfamiliar' format.
I reckon that's got to be enough to be going on with.
keterys
First Post
The Compendium is often on the front page... in fact, this moment is one of the few times it's not. It is shown if you log in, but it only shows 3 things at a time if you're not logged in and it's the 4th item.
I've got a request in to avoid that problem... but in the meantime, we should clean up some of those featured posts, yes.
I've got a request in to avoid that problem... but in the meantime, we should clean up some of those featured posts, yes.
KnightBrokenCross
First Post
I've cleared away the Gleemax Q&A blog so people can see the Compendium.
Here's a link of interest on the topic of Gleemax independence.
Here's a link of interest on the topic of Gleemax independence.
Gleemax = Poor Usability = Poor Website
Hello EN World,
I run a small successful startup business and a huge part of that is designing our website - both look and feel and UI. In doing this over the years, I've read many articles about web design. I've read books about it. I've gone to tradeshows and sat in on meetings about web design and usability.
All of those sources (along with my own instincts) tell me that Gleemax does pretty much everything wrong. It constantly baffles me how a relatively large company like Wizards, owned by an even larger company, can consistently put out such poorly designed websites.
The basic Wizards site is terrible. I can't think of any other site I visit regularly that offends my design sensibilities so heartily. It's buggy, it's a memory hog, and it's ugly. All of those things could possibly be forgiven if it was at all easy to use, but it's not. It horrifies me that I'm going to have to access DDI content through that site.
Gleemax is even worse. I followed the Gleemax project with interest, and then when I saw the pre-Alpha monstrosity they published, I immediately lost interest.
One basic tenet of good web design is making sure that every part of your website contributes something to the consumer's experience. This is critical Web 2.0 stuff. If it's on your site, it better be adding some useful functionality. Gleemax is a mess of large graphics, all of which take up space, none of which really add anything to the experience (especially not if you were born with a single graphic design bone in your body, and thus despise Gleemax' graphical theme).
Another basic issue which Wizards hasn't seem to have thought about is navigation design. The methods for navigating your site and finding the content that your users want has to be crystal clear. Sites like Amazon, YouTube, eBay, and other huge names are constantly fiddling with this, trying to get it right. As far as I can tell, Gleemax doesn't try at all. At this point, I don't really know what's on that site, and I don't want to take the time to find out. This leads to my next point:
Education. A well designed website teaches its users about its features and how to use them. Facebook is an excellent example of a successful educational website. Facebook has a massive amount of available functionality, but it's extremely successful because it quickly shows its users the basics, and then guides them through using those basic features. Wizards has many grand plans for Gleemax, but right now it's completely intimidating for a new user.
I apologize for the rampant negativity of this post (what a great first impression!), but it comes from my disappointment with what I see Wizards building in Gleemax. I think RPGing and strategy gaming in general could benefit hugely from a well made, dedicated social networking portal, and I hoped Gleemax would be it. From what I've seen in this Alpha, it will not be.
That being said, here are my suggestions:
-Lose the giant graphics everywhere. They take up room to no purpose, and some of them go so far as to be confusing (the giant green "button" in the center of the top graphic looks like it should do something, but doesn't). I don't need to see brains and crap floating around everywhere. I shouldn't have to scroll down several times just to see all the options under "My topics", and I do because all the graphics are huge.
-Go for a more typical, more laid back, Web 2.0 social networking look and feel (again, Facebook comes to mind - it's not beautiful, but it is functional). I don't know what this site looks like right now... alien abortion? I suppose it could have a couple of fans out there somewhere, but it's certainly not a universal graphical theme that everyone can get behind. Even if they kept the same theme and just toned it down a lot, I think people would be more willing to visit even if they had forgotten their sunglasses.
-Add explanation of functionality and features across the board.
-Completely overhaul navigation. Make sure it's consistent across all pages (meaning - build a better top menu, or add a side menu). Make sure you can hit the back button. Make sure users can quickly and easily find the things they're looking for.
-From a programming standpoint, I'd say step back from all the .NET stuff and look more into AJAX. Pages like this shouldn't be refreshing all the time. That's so two years ago. For cues on this, look at any big Web 2.0 site - Google has a lot of good ones with nice AJAX. This would also (if well implemented) let people customize their user page more, so if they didn't want a big ol' calendar right at the top, they wouldn't have to have one. Use some iFrames. Get with the times.
-Clean up the code so it isn't so ghastly slow.
-Featuring the Wizards blogs and Wizards announcements and Wizards products and Wizard product themed Google ads everywhere very much makes it seem like a Wizards of the Coast site, not for anyone else. To fix this, make the front page a lot more community oriented, and let the user tailor what they see in that space.
Aaaand, I need to get back to my own website.
-Isaac
Hello EN World,
I run a small successful startup business and a huge part of that is designing our website - both look and feel and UI. In doing this over the years, I've read many articles about web design. I've read books about it. I've gone to tradeshows and sat in on meetings about web design and usability.
All of those sources (along with my own instincts) tell me that Gleemax does pretty much everything wrong. It constantly baffles me how a relatively large company like Wizards, owned by an even larger company, can consistently put out such poorly designed websites.
The basic Wizards site is terrible. I can't think of any other site I visit regularly that offends my design sensibilities so heartily. It's buggy, it's a memory hog, and it's ugly. All of those things could possibly be forgiven if it was at all easy to use, but it's not. It horrifies me that I'm going to have to access DDI content through that site.
Gleemax is even worse. I followed the Gleemax project with interest, and then when I saw the pre-Alpha monstrosity they published, I immediately lost interest.
One basic tenet of good web design is making sure that every part of your website contributes something to the consumer's experience. This is critical Web 2.0 stuff. If it's on your site, it better be adding some useful functionality. Gleemax is a mess of large graphics, all of which take up space, none of which really add anything to the experience (especially not if you were born with a single graphic design bone in your body, and thus despise Gleemax' graphical theme).
Another basic issue which Wizards hasn't seem to have thought about is navigation design. The methods for navigating your site and finding the content that your users want has to be crystal clear. Sites like Amazon, YouTube, eBay, and other huge names are constantly fiddling with this, trying to get it right. As far as I can tell, Gleemax doesn't try at all. At this point, I don't really know what's on that site, and I don't want to take the time to find out. This leads to my next point:
Education. A well designed website teaches its users about its features and how to use them. Facebook is an excellent example of a successful educational website. Facebook has a massive amount of available functionality, but it's extremely successful because it quickly shows its users the basics, and then guides them through using those basic features. Wizards has many grand plans for Gleemax, but right now it's completely intimidating for a new user.
I apologize for the rampant negativity of this post (what a great first impression!), but it comes from my disappointment with what I see Wizards building in Gleemax. I think RPGing and strategy gaming in general could benefit hugely from a well made, dedicated social networking portal, and I hoped Gleemax would be it. From what I've seen in this Alpha, it will not be.
That being said, here are my suggestions:
-Lose the giant graphics everywhere. They take up room to no purpose, and some of them go so far as to be confusing (the giant green "button" in the center of the top graphic looks like it should do something, but doesn't). I don't need to see brains and crap floating around everywhere. I shouldn't have to scroll down several times just to see all the options under "My topics", and I do because all the graphics are huge.
-Go for a more typical, more laid back, Web 2.0 social networking look and feel (again, Facebook comes to mind - it's not beautiful, but it is functional). I don't know what this site looks like right now... alien abortion? I suppose it could have a couple of fans out there somewhere, but it's certainly not a universal graphical theme that everyone can get behind. Even if they kept the same theme and just toned it down a lot, I think people would be more willing to visit even if they had forgotten their sunglasses.
-Add explanation of functionality and features across the board.
-Completely overhaul navigation. Make sure it's consistent across all pages (meaning - build a better top menu, or add a side menu). Make sure you can hit the back button. Make sure users can quickly and easily find the things they're looking for.
-From a programming standpoint, I'd say step back from all the .NET stuff and look more into AJAX. Pages like this shouldn't be refreshing all the time. That's so two years ago. For cues on this, look at any big Web 2.0 site - Google has a lot of good ones with nice AJAX. This would also (if well implemented) let people customize their user page more, so if they didn't want a big ol' calendar right at the top, they wouldn't have to have one. Use some iFrames. Get with the times.
-Clean up the code so it isn't so ghastly slow.
-Featuring the Wizards blogs and Wizards announcements and Wizards products and Wizard product themed Google ads everywhere very much makes it seem like a Wizards of the Coast site, not for anyone else. To fix this, make the front page a lot more community oriented, and let the user tailor what they see in that space.
Aaaand, I need to get back to my own website.
-Isaac
Last edited:
Haffrung Helleyes
First Post
You got some really good advice from Isaac.
If you implemented every bit of it, I think it would go a long way to solving your problems.
Of course, you'd still be stuck with that horrid name.
Ken
If you implemented every bit of it, I think it would go a long way to solving your problems.
Of course, you'd still be stuck with that horrid name.
Ken
KnightBrokenCross
First Post
mrisaka said:
This went straight to Community Management.
Thanks A LOT for taking the time to give us your thoughts!
OchreJelly
First Post
Everything Isaac mentions I have agreed with. My only concern is that this sort of feedback is perhaps desired a bit late. It would take a very aggressive development schedule to get even half of the suggested features that folks here have suggested incorporated for launch, presuming that's in June (?). Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that they are reaching out to this community looking feedback. Being a developer myself, I can't help but think of development schedules... 
KnightBrokenCross
First Post
Beta rolls out in the Summer (if all goes according to plan), but I think they plan on improving on it further (it's still "beta", after all).
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