Alan Lindsay

[Usability] I can't breath on this site

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[Usability] I can't breath on this site

from WinCustomize Forums

Where did all the white space go?  Galleries are terrible, skins are all smashed together now making them all look bad.  Give a little space, let the skin breath, its a piece of art not a brick.  Haven't we learned anything from deviantart?  Its great that the thumbnail is larger, but this does not require sacrificing all the white space.

Homepage layout is terrible.  All that is really featured is the WindowBlinds, Icon Packager and CursorFX advertisements.  Haven't we learned anything from google?  Shrink down the ads, use them more effectively, be more creative.  There is no longer a reason for me to go the homepage, all meaningful content is now completely overshadowed by information that doesn't apply to me (I already have these products, what do I care?).  News is now buried and can no longer be read on the home page and the New, Popular, Newest and Featured skins are bench warmers that require second looks to determine that they aren't ads themselves... way too much work for me extract meaningful information out of this page.  Its useless.

What happened to easy navigation?  ALL meaningful links are now buried in a houdini hover menu!  Again, haven't we learned anything from google?  Put a simple link on the page and people will click on it.  This also goes for the terrible terrible "unpinned" filter menus.  Opening and closing those babies requires way too much hand eye coordination, not everyone who visits wincustomize is a video game player, some of us just enjoy good art.  Again, too much work to get meaningful information, its so much easier for me to just head over here.

Based on this new design its obvious that you are not employing your incredibly talented skinners for work on the website.  The last design wasn't significantly better either.  Wincustomize is like an old, tattered, dated, ugly museum that stores masterpieces in a utility closet.  People who are looking at fine art want a better experience, you need to up the ante, put your talented skinners to work on the website, make it beautiful and functional.

14,380 views 28 replies
Reply #26 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting SirBedwyr, reply 24
Thanks for the responses.  Let me return in kind.


I'll just have to disagree on that point.  The context for searching anything in that location is "Whole Site".  That it also functions as "Refine Search" is just as jarring.  Every assumption from every other website I've used is that if the search location is at the periphery of the site, it functions solely as a search for site-wide stuff.

Analogy: In radio and television, you have what are essentially "layers of truth".  The anchor cedes the talking floor to the reporter or analyst who either cedes to another reporter or an interviewee.  Each layer gets the view/listener closer to the primary source and lends greater credibility the further in you go.  That's why you never see an anchor directly interviewing the "man on the street".  The anchor has no context for credibly interviewing the subject.  It's the reporter who does that.

Likewise, the website's function is built like layers of an onion.  The outer site-wide search has to do with the onion as a whole.  When you drill down into a smaller context, you search within that context, not put the outer layer of the onion back on and search from there.

Suggestion:  Re-locate the search below the menu bar.  Associate it in some way closer to the search results (picture something like this: WindowBlinds->Brad Pitt->By Highest Rated->"search here").  Then when you have the homepage up, it functions as a site-wide search (or specific depending on the drop-down operatoin).  When you have search results up, it functions in the context of those search results.  In this case it both makes contextual sense and remains in the same location, alleviating the confusion you speak of.

Now I suspect that this is probably cast in stone by now, so I won't speak further.  But I did want to say my piece on the matter.  I hope it makes sense and that I made a reasonable case.

 


But if it were ensconced inside the "explore filters" section and closed by default, it would only jump down by the height of the "more filters" bar.  Then you could open "more filters" if you wanted to and then the apply button would be below making more sense.  Dunno, it just seems weird to have "more filters" open, "explore filters" closed and just have checkboxes without an apply button visible.

 

Thanks for your time,

Michael

 

ok well I guess this first point actually kind of makes it more apparent why the search box is up top still and not in the filters...  technically its not a filter on the current results set...  You are saying you want something that will search through the pre-filtered results which we don't have right now, if you search in the top bar it will just search the gallery you want to search and then you can filter after the fact.  Maybe after bugs are fixed this is something that could be added, however, it may not be worth the added resources it would take (it may slow down paging on the explore page). 

 

For the later comment, the articles search is different because its a totally different system, the database/backend stuff facilitates a different front end approach. 

 

As for the second comment about filters, I agree the more filters shouldn't be open with something selected and the explore filters be minimized still...  I used to not let you close the explore filters if more was open, instead now it just opens it if you select an option in more to make sure you can see the button.  I still like this better then running the button of the screen.

Reply #27 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I see the points.  Still retain my opinion on the filter arrangement, but thumbs up otherwise.  And it is a much better version over the current system.

Galactic Civilizations IV
Reply #28 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I miss seeing the number of downloads being listed by the skins in my personal gallery. Are they listed in the main galleries? I like to see what works and is popular so I know what the folks like.