D&D 5E Why is the wizards site so hard to navigate?

[Tzarevitch]

I got a survey from WotC about the organization of the website. I pretty much told them that it was horribly laid out. I also told them that the only way I can even find new content is to come here to the news page on EnWorld and use that link back to the appropriate place on WotC's site. The 4e version of the site was not bad, nor was the 3e version. The 5e version is awful.

 

[Scrivener of Doom]

It strikes me that their site looks like it was designed by people in marketing, not by anyone with experience in UX design or usability. I've seen similar things when marketing folks who are primarily focused on print media try to do web site design, they think of each page in isolation, not how the user will navigate between the pages.

A couple of years ago, links were posted to an American "rate your employer"-type of website which revealed, inter alia, that WotC cannot afford to pay decent salaries to their IT staff so, as a result, they don't end up with the best people. So maybe the marketing/brand team is now responsible for the website while they're waiting for the movie to drop....

 

[Wycen]

I got a survey from WotC about the organization of the website. I pretty much told them that it was horribly laid out. I also told them that the only way I can even find new content is to come here to the news page on EnWorld and use that link back to the appropriate place on WotC's site. The 4e version of the site was not bad, nor was the 3e version. The 5e version is awful.

Yes, a week or 2 ago I googled something to find a WotC article, (exact article escapes me now, but I think it was Elemental Apocalypse related) and got the opportunity to take their survey. I told them the site was "pretty" but too hard to find anything.

 

[Mercule]

Although [MENTION=6690511]GX.Sigma[/MENTION] is awesome, it's utter fail for a website to need instructions for navigation.

 

[Jeff Carlsen]

The site if highly focused on providing information on the current and next major events, and their related products. This is valuable, and it does it well. But it's decidedly bad at the two things that I use it for: Reading the latest articles and downloading game materials.

The latest articles are always at the bottom of the page, and you can only see three of them. The downloads are spread about, mostly under product information > tabletop game.

There is an All Articles page. Adding a link to it near the three articles on the home page would be good. Personally, I'd like to see the latest features moved above carousel, so that it's above the fold on page load.

As for downloads, the tabletop game should have a dedicated downloads page that includes the basic rules, character sheets, all the adventure expansions to the basic rules, and all the Unearthed Arcana pdfs. This should be able to be found both under Tabletop Games and Media.

 

[Corpsetaker]

It's sad that you need to visit a different site in order to find information on current events for D&D instead of their own site.