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Message: <blockquote data-quote="isaacv" data-source="post: 4119239" data-attributes="member: 52993">Gleemax = Poor Usability = Poor WebsiteHello 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</blockquote>

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