Regarding TUS default design

[Ray]

"Is TUS presentable to people outside?"

The answer is no not because of the lack of the Spam Assassin group, but because of the lack of a good website. You are a typical backend coder who does an excellent job at that part, no question about it. But this website needs a content management and a very good designer who knows exactly how to manage and sort and put content at it's right place at the right time.

Not everyone can do this, I can definitely not do that for example, at least at not such a huge project.

TUS needs a designer. And don't start coming at me with these design templates that are installed, no, those are bullshit, only excuses for a professional design. Until that's done (which should have been the very very first step, 4 years ago) this site remains unpresentable to newcomers.

[Aerox]

There's plenty of awesome designers in this community. Hello pleased to meet you.


and it's true the site navigation has been the number 1 complaint I've heard from intelligent people.

[Ray]

There's plenty of awesome designers in this community. Hello pleased to meet you.


and it's true the site navigation has been the number 1 complaint I've heard from intelligent people.

Not only that, but the whole content management, I mean take a look here:

https://www.tus-wa.com/leagues/basic-info/

Now there is this forum post shown on this page. One: that is duplicated content. Two: noone will ever, I mean ever is going to read that. Three: even if someone read that - although they won't - there is no proof that it's not outdated, it has grammar mistakes in it, also, when you discuss the rules, be direct and say the rules, don't go "Hey " on the rules page.

That is only one example. The amount of useless information on the profiles is unbearable too. But as I said, I wouldn't be able to manage this amount of content, you need a professional to do that.

ropa: can you show me some stuff you designed? I'm curious.

[Aerox]

ropa: can you show me some stuff you designed? I'm curious.

I'm not a plastic / artistic designer. Just saying, that with limited social engineering knowledge it would be a day's worth of work to reorganize this website into something that makes sense, design wise. I'm sure there's people in the staff capable of doing so.

if not they only have to ask publicaly and I'm sure they'll get plenty of offers. Mine for one.

[Hussar]

good point Ropa.

[Ray]

Yep, absolutely correct ropa. I have rambled about a lot of things in the past here, but seems nothing has changed. Nothing will, probably.

By the way, it's not a day's work, it's a lot more than that, even the planning period is longer than that, not to mention the execution, although that's more technical of course.

[HHC]

I'm used to the layout now.

I like to see what you guys can come up with though. How about ropa or Ray or a 'professional' makes a concept design? So we can compare..
(something with 'ask not what TUS can do for you, but what you can do for TUS)

Oh btw, this thread isn't really about the site design is it? It's about people's behaviour on the forum. People picking fights... and, you know, just bringing a lot of negative energy to the forums. 

[Aerox]

I'm used to the layout now.

I like to see what you guys can come up with though. How about ropa or Ray or a 'professional' makes a concept design? So we can compare..
(something with 'ask not what TUS can do for you, but what you can do for TUS)

Oh btw, this thread isn't really about the site design is it? It's about people's behaviour on the forum. People picking fights... and, you know, just bringing a lot of negative energy to the forums. 

Thanks for proving my point.

And no thank you, I pass, I would never put myself through such voluntary work just for your sake just so you can compare. If the staff here is ever willing to redo the practical design (not the eye candy but the navigation and organization) this website and is willing to listen then nothing stops them from asking, I'd never not answer.

Yeah, sorry for using this thread for a different purpose, might want to call the Spam Assassins and delete all the bullshit about TUS having a backwards design.

Now, it's fair enough you think we're not getting any new people because of forums fights, but quite frankly, I doubt newcomers are even able to find the forum. Seriously, the first thing I look when I come to TUS, the left menu, has like, 3 design mistakes in it already.

[ShyGuy]

Interesting that the site design is being discussed - I just used this website for my visual design literacy class.  I had to write about the design of the website in terms of dimensions of design and discuss if it was effective or not.  There IS a science to this stuff (for the most part) and the design of the website could very well detract people from entering the community.

That being said, in my paper, I rated the user's experience as being very poor if you're unfamiliar with the site and only acceptable to those who are familiar with the site.  The number one problem was with dimension 3, which basically asks "if I'm unfamiliar with this site, how easy will it be for me to navigate it and learn information effectively?"  With the TUS site, it reeeeeeeally struggles with that dimension.  If your goal is to welcome and assimilate newcomers into the community through TUS, the site HAS to be intuitive and user friendly.  According to the laws of visual design, you ARE detracting new players with the poor layout of the site.

What are the problems?  Some have already pointed out some obvious problems.  Even if you can't pinpoint specific problems with the design, you could still open up the site and think "this just looks eww".  The newcomers who come to the site don't all know the nuances of visual design, but they can still recognize if a site is unappealing as a whole.

I'm not a professional and I can't tell you exactly what to do, but you have to acknowledge when there is a problem and try to fix it

[Statik]

Regarding coding and stuff...

TUS -> Open Source -> GitHub -> Pull Requests by volunteers -> Profit. 4th step may fail tho :< and 2nd probably ^^

[Ray]

Good point there ShyGuy.

Now, there is a good practise in webdesign, regarding content management. Give exactly as much information to a user that the user needs at the time of finding it. This works great on amazon.com for example, but the purpose of that on their site is to make the user keep digging and spend more time on the site.

Here, dividing up the information is vital for a different reason, that being the amount of information, which is huge. That's only part of the problem with the design, the other one is what ShyGuy called being unappealing visually.

@MonkeyIsland:
See, you have offered us to volunteer, but nothing is organized. If you want something to happen, you, as a leader, have to put a team together. That team would set up a conference, where you talk, discuss and try to find a way to solve the problem. First of course you have to find the problem. But like this, nothing is ever going to change.

If you are willing to do that, I'm offering you my help. But save the "what do you want community?" threads then. Put together a team of volunteers who know what to do and discuss with them, on Skype or whatever, what is to be done and then execute that. I am willing to help and be part of that.

[zippeurfou]

@fada,
Your idea was flawed because you removed links depending on your own taste. There are users who value other parts. The positive thing I could get from your idea is to make the menus optional so that people add/remove the link they like.

Yes and no. When you suggest something it is always biased but what I did was to simplify the menu in order to aim on what tus is primary for which is a league. The idea wasn't about to adding/remove menu as you like but it was to point out some menu that could be deleted which I wasn't sure was a good choice.
Tus is a league website. When you come here your main action should be report a game or look for one. That's why I sugested a minimalist menu. Easy and clear to report or look for a game:

hey, zippeurfou[unreadPM][Pendinggames]  ------- Edit your profile
Look for a game ---- [ x ]Clanner
                                [ x ]Single
People searching for a game [clannerNumber][SingleNumber]
Report a game
Analyzer
Logout

Except the "people searching for a game" feature all of this is to allow people to report a tus game quickly.
This is all going in shyguy and ray way. I once suggested to get a click heat map of the site so you could see where people click and change the menu according to it.
As I said, there are a lot of feature which is really good but you can't discern the very important ones from the minor ones. Also there are duplicate menu on the left and on the top that point out on different sub menu. Look on the left under league you can report a game but on the top it is to see the games. I can see the idea behind it. On the left it is your personal menu and on the top it is a general menu but for someone new it is really confusing ! Not mentioning the scheme page or how hard it is to get the official schemes.
When I made it I also though about the ergonomic criteria.
I mean even conny who is a worms oldschool who made a website and stuff had problem to make his clan.
Most of it is frontend, few are backend for example the way you have to post on forum to ask for things (cup,tournament,challenge, and also the public drama on complaint).

[HHC]

I don't really know what you can remove though. All the links in the submenu seem pretty logical and self-explanatory. It's all there you know: profile, forums, leagues, cups, challenges.. If you want to remove one of those it will be even harder for people to find them.

At most, the homepage is a little crowded, but IMO not overcrowded. Perhaps it's the site theme that adds a little to the feeling of being overwhelmed.

But yeah, I don't have a clear picture in mind of what this site would have to look like to make it easier-to-get and at the same time allow you quick access to ALL of its features.

[zippeurfou]

Well the main idea is that you don't need to have access to all link at any time. Some can be at level 1 (you can access them from any page) and some at level 2 or even 3 (you have to go to one page to be able to click there). This is where a click heat map could be very useful.

[TheWalrus]

wormsleague was about as basic a design as there could possibly be, and the community was excellent.  The site was very noob-unfriendly but it worked.  I don't understand the 'professional' aspect of this whole deal, unless someone skilled is willing to donate time, which is money, i think tus is just fine the way it is.  TUS is dedicated to a 13 year old game.  If there ever was some sort of revenue stream, its gone by now.  Maybe its just me being a dirty capitalist, but if I were a professional that *could* design the site to be better, I couldn't forsee putting as much time or even a fraction of the effort that MI does.  I'd be out using my skills to make money.  In fact, if I ran this site, id try and make a profit off of it.  Thats just me, though.  I think MI should be compensated for his efforts, like he said, hes dumped a lot of time into this site.  Start making the advertisements rain!  It won't bother me in the least.