Pricing Issues and the Forum Layout
TappedOut forum
Posted on Oct. 9, 2014, 8:33 p.m. by Femme_Fatale
Currently, I can't seem to set price alerts. whenever I try to do so, the screen goes grey like it normally does but nothing pops up and the screen freezes until you hit back or refresh.
Then, there are far too many forums on the forums page for it to be managed in such a way. It is an irritant to have to scroll through them all and I frequently can't find a specific forum within about 30 seconds. My solution to this problem is to have a grid based forum page. So instead of having one forum on each view page section in one long steam line, we should have 3 forums side by side in each view page section.
Current layout:
Proposed Layout:
Now obviously, text would be enlarged to actually be legible, and the reason for chopping off a few currently displayed threads is that most of the time, the bottom ones are never clicked on, and then this would give us room to increase the height of the space allowed for the remaining displayed threads so that long names can continue on a second line instead of being ...'d.
Then, a specific ordering system quite like what we have here. The first three forms on the forum page would be "Site Updates, MTG Q&A and Deck Help". Then "Spoilers, Economics and Lore" would be the next three that appear. "Standard, Modern and Legacy". "Commander, Limited and Pauper". "Social, Gear and General". "The Trading Post, Challenges and Custom Cards". Finally, "T/O and Blind Eternities".
After that ordering, a new description of each forum to deal with people not posting in the right forum. Perhaps maybe decrease the number of threads that appear on the forum display by one or two.
Thoughts?
Nigeltastic says... #3
If you're gonna do a cleanup, why not just list each forum link and description and leave the thread list inside each forum? It saves space and fixes clutter.
October 9, 2014 8:54 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #4
This looks better Nigeltastic. This visually separates each forum from the rest and gives a good sense of what to expect. Putting the forums like your idea actually clutters them too closely, and has a negative effect on the users ability to distinguish them. The method I've given gives each section a specific theme feel, and helps to define what each forum does, while still chopping up the amount of space the forums actually take up and in turn making it easier to navigate the page.
October 9, 2014 9:33 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #5
I'd rather see something like what MTGS has. Of course, they use an actual forum platform, but there's no reason we shouldn't be grouping forums by topic. For example:
Welcome to TappedOut!
Site Updates
Site Support (current TappedOut forum)
Social
The game
Rules Q&A
Deck Help
Spoilers, Rumors, and Speculation
Lore
Gear
General
Format discussion
Standard
Modern
Legacy
Commander/EDH
Limited
Pauper
The Kitchen Table
Online Magic
The stock market
The Trading Post
Economics
Miscellaneous
Challenges and Articles
Custom Cards
The Blind Eternities
With this kind of model, you could give maybe the most recent thread instead of the most recent 10. The forum names and descriptions would be easier to read, and it's less likely posts would get miscategorized. Plus, the headings give some logical organization to the forum listings.
October 9, 2014 10:01 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #6
I like that. But what I think gives our forum a nice feel is that it shows recent articles on the front page. Perhaps show about 5 for each one? You can actually do a show and hide function for these, so that they aren't taking up so much space all the time. That way users can be lazy and not have to wait for the specific forum page to load.
Inspiration! What if we did the entire forum page in a show and hide function? Every page of all the forums easily accessible in just one page. Obviously this would be difficult, but it would feel so smooth~
October 9, 2014 10:10 p.m.
Nigeltastic says... #7
I agree with what Epochalyptik has drawn, as it's what I was suggesting, but better laid out that what I could do on my phone. Femme_Fatale, I don't agree with you. I don't have any better justification other than I disagree with your opinion on which version is easier to read and understand.
October 9, 2014 10:11 p.m.
Nigeltastic says... #8
(My post was also before your most recent one.)
Femme_Fatale, why do fancy things that don't actually serve a real benefit? Maybe that's just a difference in how our minds work, but it seems incredibly silly to add that much design trouble just for a 'slick feel' that I think would be very laggy/buggy?
October 9, 2014 10:15 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #9
People are attracted to fancy things, and things that allow people to be lazy to some degree are even more attractive.
October 9, 2014 10:19 p.m.
Epochalyptik says... #10
See, I thought about doing collapsing thread views, but it'd really just be easier to send people to the actual forum page so you only worry about grabbing the most recently active thread from each forum. It'd probably help load times to keep it down to one preview thread.
Additionally, you'd have to decide how to even implement a collapsing display. I like the idea of the forum name/description being contained in a div object so the name/description/stat graphic is a single, large link to the forum itself. By that logic, the best way to implement an expanding/collapsing forum preview would be to add a "see more" button below the one preview thread (this method would get unsightly, considering we have 20+ forums) or to add a button somewhere else.
October 9, 2014 10:20 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #11
I think just a little arrow would work instead of "see more" button. When people see an arrow they generally know to click it to view a hide/show object, especially when the arrow points down.
October 9, 2014 10:32 p.m.
You basically want to change the structure and hierarchy. Split categories, separate forums, and sub forums related to the forum topic. Basically what Epochalyptik laid out, but split a little further. IE the "standard" forum would have "meta discussion", "deck discussion", etc as sub forums.
A mobile friendly version would be nice, but I don't know how well it would work with the main page(deck cycling/advertising).
October 9, 2014 10:46 p.m.
Femme_Fatale says... #13
I think that's a little too specific addaff. Forums can go unattended for weeks, and splitting them up like that would make them feel unused, desolate even. As a community, we generally include all of that in one post, and more. The average standard thread for example, would also contain material that should technically be in Blind Eternities, Economics, Speculation and Deck-Help. We are broad in our subjects because the threads generally are as well, and every single part of magic is intertwined and trying to dwindle it down any further into specifics would turn people away from the "creative" discussions we have by saying "keep it related to the topic".
October 9, 2014 11:54 p.m.
Rhadamanthus says... #14
The major reason the current layout is a pain to navigate is because too many "recent" threads are shown for each subforum, especially considering some of them can go weeks or even months without getting a single post or new thread (side thought: maybe those topics shouldn't have their own subforums). Unfortunately, I'm sure part of the reason the layout currently shows 10 threads for each subforum is because the layout on the subforums themselves is even worse, sorting threads by initial post date instead of most recent post.
October 10, 2014 9:47 a.m.
I don't think a 3 col horizontal layout would collapse that well and the titles are kinda long.
Too many recent. Okay, we'll make less :P I actually tried but there's an obscure bug that was preventing it from limiting them. I'll have this fixed soon.
fluffybunnypants says... #2
Is it sad that my eye was drawn to "Mana? What's that?"
October 9, 2014 8:35 p.m.