TPR's Front Page - What do you like/dislike?

[MG]

1. Do you think it even needs updating at all?

 

Yes, as you said it's starting to look a little dated in the age of widescreen monitors. I don't think it was ever designed to deal with 27" iMac monitors and the like. Not so much a problem for me as Safari defaults to a square layout anyway. The sheer vast quantity of information could be a little intimidating for a newcomer as well.

 

 

2. What elements of the front page do you really LIKE, and would hate to see go away and/or change.

 

I like the feel of the constant incoming updates, it makes it feel like the page is updated regularly. The random stuff box irritates me slightly. Also, match the links at the top in the same order as the links at the top of the forum. I sometimes just dart for the top and end up clicking the wrong link in either the forum or front page.

 

 

3. What elements do you feel are MISSING from the front page?

 

Twitter/Facebook feed. A slider like in the Graphene Wordpress theme. An example can be found here. I feel it allows the page to 'pop' a little more, it makes it feel a little more alive. In fact, it might be worthwhile, just converting the front page to a Wordpress Blog, and then plugging the back end into PHPBB for the forum.

 

 

4. What other changes would you suggest?

 

Colour coding for different types of news. i.e one colour for industry news, a colour for parks, a colour for rides, a colour for rumours, a colour for trip reports. It would allow people to identify the content they want to see more quickly.

 

EDIT: After going through the entire thread it appears that there is a bit of an age divide going on. GENERALLY, and I mean generally, people over the age of 25 are saying stick with it, whilst those under 25 are saying change it. Just maybe something to factor in that young people probably want it to look more like the modern websites they encounter on the internet daily, ones that look happy on a laptop, iPhone or iPad.

 

EDIT 2: Going back to the Graphene idea, with the website I linked to, you could quite easily modify the theme colours, slap the TPR logo on the top and it would look similar, whilst different to the current page, whilst achieving the purpose you wanted.

[piers]

I like it when there is a lot of pictures of me!

 

But seriously, if it ain't broke and all that...

I really like the home page but generally never see it as autofill in my browser takes me straight to the forums.

[Moose]

With or without copious amounts of Piers, I voted for new hotness.

 

My want of hotness is more white (or in this case black) space. Lots of things seem all jumbled together, especially in the header. I think some more spacing would make everything much more readable. The header of the forums seems much less crowded and thus visually pleasing.

[RoCo]

EDIT: After going through the entire thread it appears that there is a bit of an age divide going on. GENERALLY, and I mean generally, people over the age of 25 are saying stick with it, whilst those under 25 are saying change it. Just maybe something to factor in that young people probably want it to look more like the modern websites they encounter on the internet daily, ones that look happy on a laptop, iPhone or iPad.

 

You crazy kids today, with your internetting gizmos and whatnot... STAY OFFA MY DAMN LAWN! [shakes fist]

 

But seriously, I noticed this, too... and honestly, I agree with what others have said before: at the end of the day, how the site looks will have no bearing on my enjoyment of it. It's all about the content, baby.

[Solid Gold]

The overwhelming thing that attracts me to a website and makes me want to come back is content, and then how easy it is to find it. In a website, I would probably rate attractiveness at about 5 percent, Ease of use at about 30 percent, and Content at 65 percent.

 

Here is an example of a very pretty website I have to use all the time for Ultimate Frisbee, but totally sucks in every way. See how long it takes you to find the forums on the website. If it takes you longer than five seconds, you'll see my point.

 

RCDB doesn't change much and hasn't changed much in the past. But for the effectiveness it offers, largely due to its design, it's my absolute favorite website on the internet.

 

 

Everything a website offers should be listed in the heading on the front page. If a website is HUGE and has tons and tons of different little places to go (re:about 5+ times bigger than TPR) then everything the website offers should still be indexed into broad categories found on the front page. Think about how big Ebay is, but how relatively easy it is to find the item you want without even typing it in the search box by narrowing categories subsequently from the front page.

 

TPR is pretty close to matching its web design with its purpose, so I would not recommend a total redesign. Tweaks and prettyness yes, but the risk of a redesign is just not worth it, because sometimes it really, really fails (re: The terrible Gawker redesign that straight up caused me to stop reading Deadspin).

[disneyfan1313]

I personally like it the way it is.... with possibly a few small tweaks.

 

The "Random Stuff" being at the top of the page has always thrown me a bit. I think the major updates should be the focal point... not an older TR that not many folks are going to read.

 

I also think some sort of "ticker" listing the biggest recent industry news (rss feed type stuff) would be neat to have and might encourage people to use TPR as their home page.

 

I've seen too many sites go through big redesigns and have it backfire. Look at what happened to the gawker family of sites recently (gawker.com, gizmodo.com, kotaku.com, jalopnik, etc.) They did a DRASTIC redesign that saw people leave in droves. Articles that would have gotten 200 comments, now get 20 or 30. Their whole goal was to make it more dynamic and "web 2.0" but people wanted the community that they loved. TPR is a community... and people like stability in their community. Painting the local shopping mall and adding a few new stores is OK - demolishing it and adding a skyscraper is bad.

[MG]

^ It also didn't help that their security was beyond pathetic and they leaked all of their usernames and passwords

Their redesign was also abysmal. The main problem with it was it was slowwwwww. Quite how such a group of tech websites managed to muck something up so badly is incredible.

[kweiss]

I voted update. I like the design and always have, but it is beginning to look more like an "older site" in my opinion.

 

I would say my biggest complaint is that there really isn't a focal point. Size wise, brand new updates are given the same emphasis as old ones. The many pictures are great. However, they are all so similar in size and placement that it leads me as a viewer feeling a little cluttered and like I don't know where to start. I find myself missing updates or assuming I have already seen things if I don't read the dates carefully.

 

Anyway, here is a really quick rough draft I threw together. I don't think it's a perfect layout, but maybe it will get people brainstorming. For the announcements, timed rotating banners could save space. Similar to Yahoo's front page.

 

ADMIN EDIT - IMAGE REMOVED - SEE BELOW

Edited June 4, 2011 by robbalvey

[JJ728]

^That just seems a little too cluttered for me.

 

I like it just the way it is, maybe a style change like fonts, colors, borders, or whatever. I really agree with what Sirclinksalot wrote, which was the front page is familiar and inviting.

[robbalvey]

kweiss - Thank you for your ideas, but that's not what we need or want right now.

 

If and when the time comes where we want people to submit ideas, we will post asking for them.

 

Thanks for your understanding.

[kweiss]

kweiss - Thank you for your ideas, but that's not what we need or want right now.

 

If and when the time comes where we want people to submit ideas, we will post asking for them.

 

Thanks for your understanding.

Understood. It was just easier for me to think about design if i quickly mapped it out.

 

I guess my biggest point would be that I would like for the new updates to be a little larger and more center stage than the stuff that has been out for a few days.

[imagineerz]

In general, the front page looks really nice. The site is straightforward, it's accessible on almost all devices, and it's not too complicated. However, there are a couple of changes I think should be made. A) Instead of the "Random Stuff!" Banner, I would split it into two sections, and place the most recent "TPR Update," and the most recent "Park News" update there. One thing that does bug me is that the link banner on the homepage and forums isn't uniform. Something else is that I think there needs to be a font refresh. Not huge, but just something more modernized. I talked to my uncle who is a website designer, and he said that the announcements on the front page take up a little too much space, and that causes the eye to go to them (not that there not important, but shrink them down a little bit) and the focus on the content below can be lost. Just my two cents.

[freefallXL]

I have voted for the first selection. Since 2005 and now have been always small changes. The true core of the site remained. I think that small changes in design will certainly look smart.