Its refreshing to see change, but the new page makes BYOND out to be less than it really is. What I mean is that the fact that you cannot directly browse through the games from the main page, and that it says "Join Now - Free" will probably (in my opinion obviously) turn away new members. I know it seems very subtle, but by creating the connotation of the requirement of money I feel it will make people dismiss the site as a money scheme or a link portal of sorts, not letting them truly see what BYOND, and its community is really all about. Just my two cents.
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Riva wrote:
I know it seems very subtle, but by creating the connotation of the requirement of money I feel it will make people dismiss the site as a money scheme or a link portal of sorts, not letting them truly see what BYOND, and its community is really all about. Yeah, that is why it says "Join now for FREE" in the biggest text I have ever seen right at the bottom. | |
Cavern wrote:
Riva wrote: Yes but even though it says free it brings the connotation of money, like I stated before. It just turns me off to see that, its not how BYOND seemed before. | |
Kudos, BYOND Staff...Mike H.
_ryan | |
Riva wrote:
Its refreshing to see change, but the new page makes BYOND out to be less than it really is. What I mean is that the fact that you cannot directly browse through the games from the main page, and that it says "Join Now - Free" will probably (in my opinion obviously) turn away new members. I know it seems very subtle, but by creating the connotation of the requirement of money I feel it will make people dismiss the site as a money scheme or a link portal of sorts, not letting them truly see what BYOND, and its community is really all about. Just my two cents. It's important to communicate that it doesn't cost to join, since we are equally likely to turn off people if they have any sense that it costs to join. However, your point is well-taken, and with the next web update this is toned down. | |
It's like going to www.simcountry.com. They made the same kind of home page that introduces new users to the game instead of dumping them onto a home page made primarily for members.
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I downloaded BYOND in my CTEC class and played Castle during our 15 minute break-time. Some of the other kids saw it and thought it looked pretty cool. I put it on their computers as well. One of them was asking me to help him get it on his computer at home, and I told him I'd shoot him an e-mail later. Well, I never got around to that, but he got everything figured out nice and well, and told me that the site had a very nice page for new users.
Just thought I'd share that. | |
Airjoe wrote:
Just thought I'd share that. Thanks! Always good to know when we're moving things forward (and, you know, when we're not...) | |
It's fugly. I don't get what you people see in it, the colors are terrible, it's too plain, and I've seen games within BYOND with better design and graphics. The front page needs major improvements, IMO.
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as mentioned before, the new pages are meant for new people, not you Kunark. just bookmark the pages you would rather start at, and you won't have a problem.
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Kunark wrote:
It's fugly. I don't get what you people see in it, the colors are terrible, it's too plain, and I've seen games within BYOND with better design and graphics. The front page needs major improvements, IMO. We continue to tweak it, and I've invited anyone who wishes to propose improved designs. | |
Atomic1fire wrote:
heres an idea Why per se start.byond.com? A new subdomain is absolutely unneeded, considering byond.com was the same as games.byond.com -- it fits fine on its current place now. O-matic | |
I recently got a friend of mine to join. Rather than giving him a direct link to the key creation screen, I just gave him http://byond.com and he didn't have a problem figuring it out. Granted, he did know a little bit about it from hearing me talk about it in the past. It took him less than 5 minutes before he was in a random game from the hub, without me directing him at all.
He said he thought that the new page was fine. It did its job well. | |
You missed the point; I know that and I personally have no problem with it. I'm trying to speak up for all the people who dislike it. Granted, there aren't too many new person trials to watch and see (no advertising so all you have is previous members). However, I'm trying to see it from the perspective of a new person.
Maybe I'm a perfectionist, but when I am new to sites that have terrible design layouts that hurt my eyes, I leave because it looks unprofessional. It's not so bad that it's blinding me or is confusing like some sites are, but I want new people to see only the best because I want BYOND to be a success. I don't remember what the results of that one guy's poll was, but this is how I see it: 70% liking it with 30% thinking it's fine is better than 60% not liking it and 40% thinking its fine. When a design is good, even people who don't like it don't end up actually HATING it, instead they think its sufficient. What I see here is a majority (or about split) of people actually hating it. That's not good, it should either be sufficient or liked. | |
Kunark wrote:
70% liking it with 30% thinking it's fine is better than 60% not liking it and 40% thinking its fine. As someone (I believe it was Lummox) said in a previous thread, that survey doesn't really count for anything. Firstly it wasn't a random sample. Secondly it's not the right population to be sampling. It's for new users. Many people didn't like the new page because it was a change from the old redirect to games.byond.com, so their routine of typing in "byond.com" needed to change. I doubt that there are really many people that "hate" it, or do so for good reason. One poster in the thread, for example, simply hates it because it's a change: anything else would be as bad to them. | |
I like the page, but I don't like the design. I think that's the main issue people have with it.
The gradient clashes with itself, for a start; I think it would look better if it started with a medium orange at the top instead of the red. I think it was meant to go with the "sunset" look in the banner, but the end result is not pretty. The banner isn't so great either. It looks pixellated and the shading and colours aren't very good. Plus it's not a very exciting image anyway. | |
Kunark wrote:
You missed the point; I know that and I personally have no problem with it. I'm trying to speak up for all the people who dislike it. Granted, there aren't too many new person trials to watch and see (no advertising so all you have is previous members). However, I'm trying to see it from the perspective of a new person. Our point is, if you don't like the new pages, throw us a bone. Design something else and help us improve it. We are a limited staff doing the best we can... I think these pages are a lot better than what we used to have, so that's at least a step in the right direction. | |
That will probably be a while. I've played with it a couple of times, but we're focussing on new developer pages and an update to the games.byond.com page right now.
One thing slowing us down on the home page is that it will be much more database intensive than the current games.byond.com page, and if we have thousands of people regularly refreshing their home page that will be a pretty big hit on the site. We need to take some time to explore ways to make this doable without bringing the system to its knees.
Even though the existing games.byond.com page lists lots of games and has to do a bunch of database lookups to be created, we're able to cache much of the page and redisplay the same content to everyone who looks at it within a certain time range, which really cuts down on the impact. We can't do that so well with a customized home page.