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rabbits
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Website Look and Feel
« on: Sep 17th, 2011, 9:52pm » |
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When I first joined the Arimaa world two and a half years ago, the website felt archaic. Luckily, I didn't let this stop me from discovering the wonder of Arimaa. However, I am afraid that the look and feel of the Arimaa website may be deterring some people from sticking around.
The home page is structured with tables and contains iframes  .... To say the least, it is not very Web 2.0. I expect that a more modern design would reduce the visitor bounce rate. I like some things such as the Arimaa awards newsslider, but even it is an iframe. I like the image links to networking sites as well as the images of the different boards that are available. But I don't think the front page should contain so much text.
By the way, the New Forest Earth site is down right now, and the image of their wooden board is not loading. Perhaps a local version of that picture should be used instead. (I wish they would finally make those boards available to buy...)
I strongly dislike the way the URL does not change while clicking links on the homepage. This is caused by using iframes.
The gameroom is very blue, as Eltripas says. I suspect that a more elegant design would give new users higher initial expectations and make them more likely to figure out how to play games.
Some of the links in the sidebar are more or less dead. For example, both links under Contests are rather old.
When I first joined, I was particularly annoyed that so many links open in new windows. Maybe a bit of Javascript/AJAX magic could make the site feel more usable.
The forum is an old version of YaBB (1.3.1). The latest stable version is YaBB 2.5. I don't know what the differences are, but perhaps upgrading would be worthwhile. I wish the reply notification emails that the forum sends would include (at least some of) the text of the reply.
I like the MediaWiki, but it is awkward to find occasional TWiki pages lingering about.
I know that managing a live website is a huge task, and I don't mean to complain. I love this website and am very grateful to everybody who has put effort into it! I'm just concerned that the growth of the community is being hindered by website cosmetics. What do you think?
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Eltripas
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #1 on: Sep 17th, 2011, 11:47pm » |
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Well, as people can see in the opening post, I agree with Rabbits and think that the site is not appealing, specially for young players.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #2 on: Sep 18th, 2011, 8:53am » |
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I agree with both the general concern and the specific issues raised. We are losing new users that we could be catching. The reality, however, is that there will be no major changes without some volunteer stepping forward to do the coding.
Omar's revenue stream from Arimaa doesn't even cover server rental, so there is no money to pay a professional to create a slick Web site. For the love of the game, Omar himself runs the World Championship, Computer Championship, and Arimaa Challenge. He also takes time to make small fixes and keep everything up and running. But a major overhaul by Omar simply isn't in the cards as far as I can see.
If, on the other hand, there were some volunteer who wanted to undertake the large project, or even various bits of it (such as just the client), Omar has shown in the past that he will put in the time to create an environment for coding and testing. Believe it or not, the current website look is slicker than it used to be; IdahoEv gave the site a bit of a facelift some years ago. Omar also created a test server, which no one has used for a long time, but if there was interest I am sure he would bring it back up to speed. The client code has long been available for tinkering, or even for a complete re-write.
Like rabbits, I love this website and am very grateful to everybody who has put effort into it. Pointing out what needs to be done is an important part of the effort of making the website better. But a lot of the actual doing of what needs to be done is going to have to be done by someone other than Omar, or it just won't happen.
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cvic
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #3 on: Oct 2nd, 2011, 7:47am » |
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That was my first thought when joining this site: "Hm, it needs some work on the client side". Btw, I'm a PHP guy, *nix geek, and know some Ruby on Rails.
So, if you need a volunteer (for small stuff or big stuff), let me know.
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rabbits
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #4 on: Oct 2nd, 2011, 1:43pm » |
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I worked with Rails 1.0 for a summer as well as PHP for a summer. I think that most of Omar's scripts are written in Perl, which seems like just as good of a choice to me as either Ruby or PHP.
Obviously the Javascript client is written in Javascript, and the Flash client is written in some version of ActionScript. The former's code is available by necessity, but I don't think the source has been released for the latter. (I don't know if the code that I linked to is current.) Oh, and clojure has shared some very nice looking HTML/CSS/Javascript code for a game viewer. (I wish I had as much web-design skill as clojure!)
I see that you're using one of thenoviceoof's icons as your avatar. Perhaps we could figure out how to incorporate those icons into one of the clients.
And source code has been published for bots and clients in a number of other languages too.
I wish I had more time to put into this! Sometimes I pretend to have time, but right now, well, I need to grade some quizzes and study some combinatorics......
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UruramTururam
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #5 on: Oct 6th, 2011, 2:15am » |
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In my opinion the look and feel of this site is great - simple and functional. The forum needs a few additional features indeed, but as for its look it is much better for me than most of the modern sites. Simple and elegant table-based layout, friendly colors - why should I want any "buzzerous distractors"?
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Eltripas
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #6 on: Oct 6th, 2011, 8:12pm » |
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on Oct 6th, 2011, 2:15am, UruramTururam wrote:| In my opinion the look and feel of this site is great - simple and functional. The forum needs a few additional features indeed, but as for its look it is much better for me than most of the modern sites. Simple and elegant table-based layout, friendly colors - why should I want any "buzzerous distractors"? |
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Why do some people think that the only way to "improve" the page would be with "buzzerous distractors", I don't have a problem with it being simple, but it is not just simple, it is boring and monotonic, all my friends that had looked at the page tell me the same thing, that it looks boring and outdated, I don't want giant flying animated gifs or stroboscopic lights or anything "buzzerous", but lets face the fact that the face lacks appeal.
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Boo
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #7 on: Oct 7th, 2011, 1:26am » |
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Quote:| In my opinion the look and feel of this site is great - simple and functional. The forum needs a few additional features indeed, but as for its look it is much better for me than most of the modern sites. Simple and elegant table-based layout, friendly colors - why should I want any "buzzerous distractors"? |
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I think exactly the same. I like the site design as it is- simple and functional. It would be better to have some kind of new functionality rather than new design.
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Eltripas
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #8 on: Oct 7th, 2011, 9:13pm » |
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on Oct 6th, 2011, 2:15am, UruramTururam wrote:| In my opinion the look and feel of this site is great - simple and functional. The forum needs a few additional features indeed, but as for its look it is much better for me than most of the modern sites. Simple and elegant table-based layout, friendly colors - why should I want any "buzzerous distractors"? |
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on Oct 7th, 2011, 1:26am, Boo wrote:
I think exactly the same. I like the site design as it is- simple and functional. It would be better to have some kind of new functionality rather than new design. |
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rabbits
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #9 on: Oct 8th, 2011, 11:20pm » |
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Nice one El 
UruramTururam: Are you saying that you prefer the look and feel of Arimaa.com to the look and feel of, say, Boardgaming.com? That site is a good example of what I mean by Web 2.0. It has a way of drawing people in with its usability (and with its points system.) I'm not really sure what you mean by "buzzerous distractors."
Yes, Arimaa.com is an awesome and usable site, but it's not awesomely usable; the site design itself does not draw people in. Of course the game is good enough to keep a lot of people around, but it is kind of like hiding a delicious dessert in a shoebox. (Okay, I guess I'm not very good at analogies  )
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| « Last Edit: Oct 8th, 2011, 11:41pm by rabbits » |
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mistre
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #10 on: Oct 10th, 2011, 9:44am » |
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I 100% agree with rabbits.
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Fritzlein
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #11 on: Oct 10th, 2011, 10:58am » |
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I agree that the website could look friendlier and be more intuitive to draw people in. Steve Jobs would have had a field day creating a more humane interface. I am sure that we are alienating a lot of new players before they get hooked.
That said, I personally will choose function over form every time. What did Omar spend his limited development time on during the last championship cycle? He cobbled together the radio broadcasts and hacked them into the game client. It's as ugly as sin, but I happen to think live commentary of championship games is one of the coolest things going on in the Arimaa community. I certainly wouldn't trade away that feature for the benefit of a super-slick website like Blokus, where they don't have anything approaching our sweet World Championship experience.
Yes, there is a reason millions of people play Blokus whereas only thousands play Arimaa. By the same token, there is also a reason why it is easier to find strategy guidance for Arimaa than for Blokus. We few aficionados have explored the mysteries of Arimaa more deeply than the masses have managed to penetrate Blokus. Omar has focused over and over on encouraging discussion, building community, exchanging information, and advancing the state of the art.
You might say there is no reason we can't have both awesome features and great usability, and it is true that there is no logical reason. But there is a practical reason. There is only one of Omar, there is no money to pay interface design people, and Omar's talents lie more with adding functionality than improving interface. He does what he has time to do, what he enjoys, and what he is good at.
As for your photo, Eltripas, I would say that we already have a "nice thing", and the reason we don't have the other nice thing that you also want has nothing to do with Ururam Tururam and Boo.
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| « Last Edit: Oct 10th, 2011, 11:07am by Fritzlein » |
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Hippo
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #12 on: Oct 10th, 2011, 1:59pm » |
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I 100% agree with Fritz
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rabbits
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #13 on: Oct 10th, 2011, 2:32pm » |
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I 100% agree with Omar 
When I point out things about the website that I wish were different, I know that it looks like I am pointing a finger at Omar. I don't mean to put any pressure on him or depreciate what he has done. I don't mean to bite the hand that feeds us! I'm sorry if I have.
It helps me feel sane to hear that other people notice that same shortcomings of the website that I notice, and it is interesting to hear that some people are unconcerned about the issues that I brought up.
And I agree that the radio broadcasts were an excellent gift from Omar and a very good and generous use of his time. Live commentary on event games made the Arimaa community feel much more real to me.
I disagree about the Blokus website being super-slick. I actually think that it is not very good at all. Admittedly, I just used it for the first time today. By the way, Blokus is a fun game! (I'm not good at it though... I didn't have the patience to use my allotted time and think about my moves much...)
The Blokus website has so much Flash, uhg. I agree with Omar that Javascript is the way of the future, and that we should phase out our Flash usage. With that said, I should mention that I still use the Flash Client V2 to play Arimaa.....
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Fritzlein
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Re: Website Look and Feel
« Reply #14 on: Oct 10th, 2011, 3:30pm » |
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on Oct 10th, 2011, 2:32pm, rabbits wrote:| I disagree about the Blokus website being super-slick. |
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How interesting; I prefer the look of blokus.com over boardgaming.com that you linked. Apparently even when we agree about the problem it isn't obvious what the solution should be. And, come to think of it, if the solution were obvious, everyone would do it, not just Apple.
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