Where the #$%$^ is Stuff on D&D Insider?

[2WS-Steve]

They actually do have a fair bit of content -- 10 articles in the last week alone.

The problem is that it all gets jammed into one tab on that small middle box. If I want to find out what's on the D&D website, it's actually better for me to come to ENWorld's front page -- otherwise it's easy to miss something that skipped by, or an article that happened to be under a different middle-box tab when I checked in.

Anyway, web front-end is relatively easy to switch around if you've actually got funding, so I figure any problems won't last too long.

 

[Morrus]

If I want to find out what's on the D&D website, it's actually better for me to come to ENWorld's front page

Ah, right, you just make me look at the site for you!

 

[hexgrid]

..then the tabbed box in the middle, which strikes me as the most useful item on the page, but way too small.

You gloss over it, but this box is the core of the home page, and it does everything you're asking for.

It gave me trouble at first, though, because the fact that it had tabs wasn't immediately obvious to me. It also seems to changes tabs on it's own if you let it sit, which I don't think is a very good feature.

Has the concept art even been posted to D&D insider? If not, searching for it probably isn't a good test of the site's navigation.

 

[2WS-Steve]

You gloss over it, but this box is the core of the home page, and it does everything you're asking for.

Yah, the box works well. I just think it's what the entire middle column ought to be.

 

[Glyfair]

Has the concept art even been posted to D&D insider? If not, searching for it probably isn't a good test of the site's navigation.

No it hasn't (only was available in the flash drives they gave out at the announcement). So, no it isn't.

That doesn't mean some constructive criticism isn't appropriate, though. I haven't had the problems that the OP has, but this doesn't quite do the job for me.

 

[Jer]

You gloss over it, but this box is the core of the home page, and it does everything you're asking for.

It gave me trouble at first, though, because the fact that it had tabs wasn't immediately obvious to me. It also seems to changes tabs on it's own if you let it sit, which I don't think is a very good feature.

My biggest complaint about the layout of the page is that the "tabs" on this box are completely unnecessary, given that there are buttons on the left side of the page with the same names that SHOULD take you to the same content as the tab buttons. And automatic changing of tabs is EEEEVIL - my browser shouldn't do things content-wise that I'm not telling it to do. If I'm in the middle of reading a paragraph, it shouldn't suddenly switch to a different page

Plus, as you say, the center box IS the page - it SHOULD BE THE FOCUS. A slightly larger box could hold more than 6 article titles in it, and right now 6 articles is less than a week's worth of content.

Beyond that, the 4th Edition banner across the top is singularly unhelpful, given that they don't seem to update it when they add new 4e content. If it linked to the 5 most recent 4e articles I could see why it was there, but it's static and mostly links either to things from the Gen*Con announcement or to categories of things that may or may not be new.

The rest of the layout is just basically the old D&D page shuffled around - the same content is there, but it seems like a differet style sheet was slapped onto it or something.

I mean, I'm not going to complain too much given that it is a FREE resource, it just doesn't make for very good advertising for their proposed "pay" resource in my mind.

 

[helium3]

Eh, it's not just Gleemax. Most websites these days are way to complicated. Since I'm not in the web-design "industry" I can't speak as to why this is. It does seem like people have forgotten that webpages are about dispersing information efficiently.