The ELynah Forum is so imporrtant, it shoudl be a top level choice on the home page rather than hidden within Other ELynah Sites.
Depends who you ask. As far as I'm concerned, the database with its 10,000 lines of code written from scratch is more important. Of course it will be a lot more useful when I finish getting all the games in there...
At any rate, I'm big on structure. There's a place for other ELynah sites on the main page, and ELF certainly belongs with them.
[Q]CowbellGuy Wrote:
As far as I'm concerned, the database with its 10,000 lines of code written from scratch is more important.[/q]
Awwww ... everyone praise CowbellGuy. ::innocent::
Age...
Let me start by saying that the work you've done and are currently doing on elynah is FANTASTIC and you should definitely be applauded...
No doubt the site is impressive...and structure is important...but I think the user experience is the most important part of the end product. When I first came to the new site it took me a few minutes to figure out where the link to the forum was. I work in web development and it doesn't matter how much code a component has...if people aren't going to use the code...or have to make 10 clicks to find that code, then it becomes a lot less important. I'm obviously exaggerating on the number of clicks and I have no idea what your user stats are so I'm really not making a statement on that.
I guess my point is that I agree that it should be a direct link from the homepage. It saves me a click every time (yes...I know I can bookmark it) and makes it a little more intuitive for the user to find.
Case in point - and I'm really not making this up - this is the actual content of an email I got from my friend/fellow Cornell Alum and hockey fan last week:
"what happened to e-lynah.com? no more forums?"
Jason
[q]Awwww ... everyone praise CowbellGuy.[/q]As someone who briefly attempted to build my own Cornell hockey stats database, I have to heartily concur with that statement, sans sarcasm.
[q]"what happened to e-lynah.com? no more forums?"[/q]
Things like that make me cringe. Not because they don't know any of the plethora of ways to get the Forum, but because they can't find the forum when they're looking for it. My girlfriend is one of those people who will google "amazon" rather than type in a URL, so I'm apparently not making progress on this matter on any front.
In the end, I'll always opt for a clean, simple, consistent interface, and if people can't be bothered to click around and see there's more to ELynah than the forum and a page with a link to the forum, then maybe they shouldn't be finding it. If all the other parts are underutilized, maybe it's because people don't realize they're there. In my book, putting them on a level field is better than putting the popular part on a pedestal where one-click laziness will continue to prevail. If they happen to discover there's more to ELynah than the forum in the process, then I've done my job. And if two clicks it too much work, bookmark it.
Yeah...I know about cringing, but the fact of the matter is that 'one click laziness' is part of human nature these days...we all expect everything in front of our face on a silver platter.
Hey...whatever makes you happy man...I'm just trying to give a little suggestion...I hope this doesn't take away from my praise for what you've done...
I guess I am of the mindset that it would make sense to put the more popular features in a more prominent place...you're never going to beat the laziness out of people. If your goal is complete site exploration by the user then rock on...if your goal is easy access to the more prominent features then you might want to make a minor change...thats all... Maybe a separate cream colored box underneath the main navigation titled 'ELynah Network' with links to the other Elynah sites?
Out of curiosity, what features of the page are used the most in terms of hits?
To be honest, I couldn't tell you. I haven't run stats in a long time. In my carnelian-colored imagination, it's enough to warrant the effort. When I have nothing better to do, I'll probably take a look. :-)
yeah...can you tell I'm having a bit of a slow day in the office? Its just that this site is so good you'd think it was your full time job!!! :-)
[q]Out of curiosity, what features of the page are used the most in terms of hits?[/q]I'd bet money that it's not the database. Many, many times someone has posted a question here that a couple of clicks to the database (or to TBRW? or my old site once upon a time) would have answered. I guess it's that lazinees factor again...
One can always take the high road and say, "If they're too dumb to look a little bit, screw 'em, they don't belong on our site."
I do recall the first time I came back to the site last year -- and I'm a Cornell grad, so I must be pretty smart -- I wondered why the Forum wasn't either the home page itself or directly off the home page. I've solved it by bookmarking the forum page, but the impact of that is that I now almost never go to the home page, so anything new on the home page gets wasted. If Forum was on the home page, I'd probably bookmark eLynah, not eLynah forum.
Many years ago in the newspaper business we had grand arguments with the editor, who hated sports, and figured the guys who liked sports could turn to the middle of the section. I was not on the sports desk at the time, but I couldn't believe someone wouldn't put sports on a section front.
There's information, there's entertainment value, there's value in making it easier for readers to get the information and entertainment they want. In cities where newspapers sell on newstands, you try to put as many headlines as possible just above the fold, even if the story starts just on the other side, so the reader has more things to grab him. This was articulated somewhat bluntly by my first boss (actually, I worked for the guy who worked for the guy who sometimes reported to him), Al Neuharth, "If you put a good looking woman on page one, make sure her boobs are above the fold."
The spirit of Al Neuharth thanks you for putting the forum link on the home page, above the fold as it were.
Next you'll probably get a call from Al asking howcum you're still using the stodgy national anthem photo when you could be using the Go Red girls. ...
Al was a brilliant guy, but perhaps he lived a little bit out of touch with reality. He spent something like two decades flying only in the corporate jet, then when he retired he had to go commercial again, and he wrote a column in USA Today lamenting the "stewardesses" had gotten old and ugly. Boy, did that generate mail.
you're a gem... :-D