GN 4.0 Discussion

[cortjezter]

redtoad,

you might want to explain what you changed. it looks like you put a giant red square on the left and added a mobile link.

the link i think we can do somewhere, but the story meta data being on the left is purely subjective and everyone has an opinion on it, but no clear majority. for now, we'll leave that part of the layout alone.

[RedToad64]

If you look at the current design it looks kind of... off having the story of the left side of the page with a huge amount of white space with no purpose. If the story was in the middle of the page and that little comment box was on the left side (doesn't need to be red, I just filled it in for less white) it would be slightly more balanced.

Yeah, I also added a mobile button on the top. =P "On this Day" button would also fit well up there.

[Popple]

Hello everyone. I have been reading the website since around December 2007. Today I finally joined as a member.

So far the website re-design looks pretty nice, but some things bother me. I made a picture showing some fixes that should be made to the template. Keep in mind I made this fairly fast in MS Paint, but here it is:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/65631443@N ... otostream/

All I can see that you did was switch the story and 'info' columns? Why do you feel this change is necessary? I think having the content on the far left makes it the first thing that you see. It progresses naturally from left to right, just like we read.

[Da_RaY]

Great job on redesign guys! Have been following GoNintendo for years now, since just before the Wii came out. Only one thing I've noticed, and not sure if its been mentioned, so sorry if it has. But the ad after the first or second story is sometimes long vertically and blocks out the stories, with no way of closing the ad out. Is this being looked into?

[t27duck]

Great job on redesign guys! Have been following GoNintendo for years now, since just before the Wii came out. Only one thing I've noticed, and not sure if its been mentioned, so sorry if it has. But the ad after the first or second story is sometimes long vertically and blocks out the stories, with no way of closing the ad out. Is this being looked into?

When that happens, take a screen shot and send it to RMC.

[Da_RaY]

Great job on redesign guys! Have been following GoNintendo for years now, since just before the Wii came out. Only one thing I've noticed, and not sure if its been mentioned, so sorry if it has. But the ad after the first or second story is sometimes long vertically and blocks out the stories, with no way of closing the ad out. Is this being looked into?

When that happens, take a screen shot and send it to RMC.

Alright, will do. thanks

[ReyVGM]

I'm fine with the design because I just come to GN for all the news posts, but today I tried doing two things and I found them to be more cumbersome than the old method. This might be considered pet peeves, but... if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

1) Contact method.

In the old design:
I would just hover the mouse on the contact menu on top and in the drop down menu I would click on "submit tips" and my email applet would appear right away. In one click, quick and easy.

In the new design:
I have to click on contact to enter another page, and then click on submit tips. Slower and forces you to leave the main page or open a new page to send news tips.

If it was up to me?
I would go back to using the old method.


2) Search bar.

In the old design:
I would just type whatever word I wanted in the search bar on top, press enter and all the news related to it would appear. It was fast, easy and always worked. Now, I don't remember if there was an advanced search option before, but I never needed it because the search engine worked like a charm.

In the new design:
Now it pops up an applet window, with more advanced options. Okay, one more click, whatever.
I proceed to type Megaman Legends 3 in the "Keywords" field to find the latest MML3 news and it says "nothing to see, move along". I type the same thing in the "Tags" field and again, no results. I type "Megaman, Legends, 3" in both fields and nothing.
So yeah, the search now sucks

If it was up to me?
I would just put the old search bar and system back. No need to click to open anything, just type and press Enter. The advanced search should be left as an option to whoever wants extra details. But the old one was simpler and better.

[Crona]

Are the stories you "hide" supposed to show themselves if you visit the page? Dunno its something with my browser but it kinda defeats the purpose of a the hide button if that's how its supposed to work bar.

[cortjezter]

Are the stories you "hide" supposed to show themselves if you visit the page? Dunno its something with my browser but it kinda defeats the purpose of a the hide button if that's how its supposed to work bar.

the show/hide feature is for the index/blog pages, so you can get a quick look at the headlines per page. no other real purpose

[Crona]

Are the stories you "hide" supposed to show themselves if you visit the page? Dunno its something with my browser but it kinda defeats the purpose of a the hide button if that's how its supposed to work bar.

the show/hide feature is for the index/blog pages, so you can get a quick look at the headlines per page. no other real purpose

Wow. My original post is full of mistakes.

To clarify, say I hide a post in the front page ,for example "IGN Updates". Then I go back a couple pages to read some news. When I go back to the front page the "IGN Updates" post is shown again. Is that supposed to happen?

[cortjezter]

yes. it's not a persistent thing that the site remembers forever what stories you collapsed or not. the main idea for the feature is:

1) page loads
2) show/hide all (to collapse)
3) see what headlines there are on the page at a glance
4) unhide/expand stories you want to see.

just a quick way to browse whole pages of stories at once, but still be able to see all of the content you actually want.

[Crona]

Gotcha and thanks.

[megarockexe]

Uh, the ad thing. Just started happening all of a sudden.
http://i53.tinypic.com/2cruide.png

[Popple]

Uh, the ad thing. Just started happening all of a sudden.
http://i53.tinypic.com/2cruide.png

Please do this instead. Neither cort nor tduck have any control over the ads.

[Mako]

Only major thing I would change (besides the banner...):

I realize that displaying all the comments of a story in a row (like on the old site) could be a little hard to read, and I am in favor of only 25 being displayed at once. However, instead of having to go to the boards to view all the comments when there are more than 25 would it be possible to have a paginated comments section, just like on the boards? This way, you could click page 1, page 2, page 3, and so forth on the main comments section just like you can do on the boards. I think this would address the major complaint people had of having to go over to the boards when they don't really want to. Also, RMC messed up in the podcast when a story had more than 25 posts. Instead of reading the first post like he normally does he read the "first post of the 25 most recent comments". A problem when a story has more than 25 comments. This could also fix that, even if it isn't that big of a deal.

[cortjezter]

well, the idea is that stories are stories, and discussion is secondary to that. that's why we only put a fraction of it on the story pages; we want to give a taste of what people are talking about, not take away from the topic at hand, which is the story itself. the discussion falls below that. that's why people can get a sample of what is being said, and then participate as we have it.. the boards give many more tools and options to people who want to participate; tools that i can't completely list here, but for those who want to make use of them, they can.

if it were up to me, i'd get rid of the individual story pages altogether and just have clicking a headline or the comments link come straight to the boards, where the story would also be the first post in each thread, and then people can go about their discussion. but that's not going to happen. we'll keep the system as it is, and people will get used to this little tweak soon enough.

we do hear the ideas, and consider every one, but as many ideas as people have, just as many people would still like it some other way just the same :-\

[sergioalb64]

Sorry if this isn't the best way to submit feedback...

Searching is broken? I've tried searching for 'Zelda concert'; obviously there have been posts with those two words, not just in the body but in the title. No results.

Hoping all the kinks are worked out soon. I really like the new site! Thanks for all the hard work.

[Zero123]

I think having all the recent forum topics and user reviews on top of the main page just makes everything look messy. You're throwing too much information at once.

Having the GoOriginal bar up there looks okay, but it would look so much cleaner if Your New Best Friend, Hearing Voices, Recent User Reviews, and Community Stats weren't thrown at the reader too soon. A messy/confusing/ugly interface is why I stopped checking Kotaku.

I realize you probably won't change that because of one opinion though, and I most likely will still visit from time to time, but there was nothing wrong with the old design in the first place...

[cortjezter]

I realize you probably won't change that because of one opinion though, and I most likely will still visit from time to time, but there was nothing wrong with the old design in the first place...

yes, unfortunately you are correct about the first part.

as for the second; there were plenty of reasons why we needed to update the site, and its design. sorry you hate communities, but a community of nintendo news loving fans are what we do here. we have lots of news, and lots of people, so it's kind hard to ignore one or the other with a straight face. can't like a site that posts 150+ stories per day and then say you get too much information

[Mako]

Don't know if it is just me, but wouldn't it make more sense to switch the "+" and "-" around on the main site? I have accidentally pressed the wrong one a few times, so now I try to be extra careful. It just seems more natural the other way because it is "-" and then "+" on the keyboard and it goes from "-" to "+" with numbers too.

Maybe I am alone on this though?

[cortjezter]

i've heard exactly two people say this; i'm assuming that is the minority.

at this point, unless it's a major flaw; i don't know that i want to be switching things around like that without a very good reason. people start using things, and if it changes... we get flooded with complaints. plus, of course there will be some people who prefer things one way; some the other. i would be surprised if people from countries that drive on the left side of the road prefer things the opposite way as americans

[KingBroly]

I've been meaning to bring this up, but the buttons on posts need to be upped in resolution. So much compression.

[cortjezter]

what?

[KingBroly]

Edit / Delete Post / Report / Warn / Info / Quote

The button images are too compressed.

[cortjezter]

you'll have to take that up with the phpbb.com team, unfortunately. the theme's imageset is their production, and i am not going to start customizing what is mainly a plug and play theme purely for superficial reasons. :-\