(and In-)Consistency between Home page and Game page.
Home has Profile, Tournaments, Ladders, Groups and Chat links on the right hand side. Except for Profile, these duplicate the links displayed across the top of the page. Profile is available by the drop down menu at the left or the use’s icon, or is that the user id? — ope, no it isn’t possible with either.
Most places clicking on the id/icon gets a standard menu that lets you get to Profile by clicking the userid again (don’t particularly like that but so it is).
On the right hand pay of the Game page are icons for a slide out menu drawer. It does not include Profile.
Profile is really more than the user’s Profile. Some of the content belongs on a Status page. It has records for ongoing and finished games, activity, rating. Usually the Profile is where a user sets up preferences for what will be displayed about him and how. Other users have an interest in seeing Status and no business with Profile settings. OGS gets around this a bit by providing an Edit for some of those things so maybe that’s a moot point.
However, my feeling is that it’s no one’s business if, for example, I am Not participating in any ladders, Not participating in any tournaments, Not a member of any groups. Let them find out the hard way by exploring if they want to know or send me a message and ask. Or let me choose whether to display that information. I don’t need to see it since I probably know what I’m involved in.
I’d rather see space on my “profile” page devoted to stuff that matters to me, like a Contact List. Obviously that is private. That is why I prefer separate Profile and Status pages. Profile is private and no one gets to see it. It is where I set the parameters for what I see and other users get to see and where I can manage Contacts or whatever else unless Contacts is implemented as a separate private page. For instance, the user has constant immediate access to a hug drop down for Notifications and Themes. Like how often do I need to access the Theme settings, that is generally set it and forget it. I’m not sure what Notifications are, don’t recall seeing one even though I do get a notification icon when it’s my turn to move. Maybe a sensible Notification would be a Your-turn-to-move notice with time of opponent’s move, move # and my time remaining. But I should not have to visit my Profile page to see it. It might make sense if clicking on that icon, or hovering on it, gave a list of such information. Presently, click takes you to the game page(s). Suppose hovering gave me a list and I could click on which of the games it’s my turn to move in that I want to go to.
Notifications are Status, Themes are Profile/Preferences.
The same set of menu links is displayed across the top of every OGS page. Ever consider adding Profile/Status there?
Maybe Home is supposed to be Status? A list of Active games, or a link to a list of Active games would make sense.
Maybe some work on organization and logic of content might be useful.
P.S. Found Settings in the left hand menu. This is other user preferences stuff.