Home page ideas megathread

[shamisen]

Too many dissenting opinions. But that doesn’t necessarily mean retaining the status quo is the best choice. Every possible option has tradeoffs (pros and cons). There’s also “change aversion”. Sometimes a single person with a clear vision is needed to just tell everyone to stop complaining and deal with new changes, as long as the new changes are not overly broken in any way (like the initial home page update was) and have very clear benefits for a majority of users.

From the same AI overview – How to Minimize Change Aversion:

• Communicate Clearly: Explain the “why” behind the change to reduce anxiety. → OGS “What’s New” https://online-go.com/whats-new/1

• Implement Gradually: Use a slow rollout (Mere Exposure Effect) to help people adjust over time.

• Provide Support: Create a safe, empathetic environment that encourages feedback.

• Involve Users: Allow users or employees to influence the change, reducing the feeling of lost control. → page customization settings (button that links to https://online-go.com/settings/home)

[shamisen]

My highest priority idea is to swap the current “Play” page and Home page features. Active games list (for correspondence players) moved under “Play”, and finding a new match/lobby moved to Home and/or the top of “Play” (depending on user preference), like lichess.

This is more valuable in my opinion than even a community calendar. I’m 99% convinced (by myself) that it would be better if not for change aversion. I acknowledge it would require a moderate re-design of the current Play page’s UI. But it could be worth it. For example, another user’s opinion:

@sjrothsc

It’s a reasonable question! For me, the OGS UI isn’t satisfying to use in the same way that Lichess is. Something about the layout of the page and the feel of playing stones just doesn’t do it for me even as compared to Sabaki (which are the components used here).

We can conduct a poll to verify whether enough people want a re-design, but it would be hard to ask people to compare the status quo to a hypothetical UI, and I trust my designer’s instinct.

Another supporting argument I have is that Play > Play in the main menu feels redundant. There’s potential to change that to “Active Games”, “My Games”, or something more clear.

[anoek]

I encourage the exploration. I did get a lot of push back just from adding in the quick play button on the home page, so be prepared for some of that, but let’s get some mock-ups up, keeping in mind mobile, wide screen, small screen, and let’s get a feel from the community about the direction. There’s certainly a number of players that agree with you.

[Regenwasser]

@anoek

I encourage you keep in mind the majority of players disagree with any one focus

Well summarized and true. But there is no need for just one focus. Also I wonder how many players are fond of a massive black screen:

@shamisen

but I don’t know if we need to take a lot of ideas from chess.com and lichess either

We don’t “need” to do anything. But it really is a good starting point.

I really like how they have designed their page. It has a modern and clean look. Just enough information and movement to make a youngster happy but not too much to make an older guy fall from his chair.

1) The Sidebar
Big fan, faster navigation than top bars, also takes horizontal screen space which is usually preferable.

2) The Streak Counter
Fun element to keep players engaged.

3) Puzzle counter
Directly jump into puzzles right from the start page. Also shows your progress. Currently you have to do Learn > Puzzles to get there and you don’t see your progress on the main page.

4) Next Lesson
Cool feature for noobs that are still learning the game. Might help to reduce the rate of people that give up learning the game.

5) Game Review
Similar to what OGS already has but with a much better icon.

6) Standard Game
Jump right into the most common game mode. Not sure what to think about this. Guess its a similar idea to the current solution on OGS.

7) New Game
Same as the current implementation on OGS but again much better design.

8) Play Bots
Same as the current implementation on OGS but again much better design.

9) Play a friend
Does not exist on OGS. Finding a way to play against a friend is quite the feature hunt currently.

10) List of daily games
Makes total sense for most players. Doesn’t take much space anyways.

11) List of all games
Makes sense for everyone.

12) League feature
Seems to be similar to how leagues are implemented in many modern video games. Very good idea to do that for chess/go as well. I think I’ve talked about this before but cannot find where. This feature is currently missing entirely on OGS.

13) Video of chess stream playing
Might be cool for some people. Can be easily turned of by clicking on the “x” of the widget.

14) Overall stats
Great way to see the most interesting stats. Clicking on it leads to a much more detailed stats page. Pretty great.

15) Daily Puzzle
Really like that as well. Having a daily puzzle motivates the player to do at least one a day. Pretty good idea I think.
(Seem like I missed the number in the screenshot, its the bottom right widget)

@shamisen

I have no intention of leading a months-long effort to revamp the website and studying the entire codebase to implement all the changes.

These are two very different things. You can “lead a months-long effort to revamp the website” without having to code anything. You could help to create the best Wireframes and UX designs for any abstract board game website ever created! This would already be a great help, I think. Even without you coding a single line of code.

@JohnnieDarko

Out of curiosity I made a mockup with AI to see what it would look like if the front page had many things at once

Many things indeed. Looks a bit cluttered. I like the idea of integrating a chat on the main page.

The rendering of the Go Board on the bottom also looks very good.

@benjito

I’m out of the loop, what is this referring to?

The massive web app that’s currently being worked on. I’m sure some people know about it. I don’t want to talk about it too much for personal reasons.

@shamisen

That’s why customizability should be a constant in all discussions here.

Not sure if this is a good idea. Customizability is a lot of work. IMO better to create one version that’s really great and works.

@anoek

there’s the power of the default

100% agree. Any color the users want as long as the color is black, is the way to go here.

@shamisen

My highest priority idea is to swap the current “Play” page and Home page features.

This makes no sense. Why would I want a play page that is just a black screen with just one or two buttons on it?

@shamisen

I don’t think there’s a single person here who is not busy studying a PhD or raising a family or starting a business (like me)

I mean there is the prejudice that many frequent forum users on the internet are unemployed but I’m sure it’s not everyone? I have a job for example.

[shamisen]

some good ideas, however:

@Regenwasser

This makes no sense. Why would I want a play page that is just a black screen with just one or two buttons on it?

It would be Play > My Games. Play > Play would be removed.

@Regenwasser

@shamisen

I don’t think there’s a single person here who is not busy studying a PhD or raising a family or starting a business (like me)

I mean there is the prejudice that many frequent forum users on the internet are unemployed but I’m sure it’s not everyone? I have a job for example.

I think you misunderstood what I said.

@Regenwasser

12) League feature
Seems to be similar to how leagues are implemented in many modern video games. Very good idea to do that for chess/go as well. I think I’ve talked about this before but cannot find where. This feature is currently missing entirely on OGS.

I’m not familiar with a “leagues” system, but we already have ladders, tournaments, and groups, I wonder if a new system would fracture the userbase more.

I had a thought today to replace site-wide 19x19, 13x13, and 9x9 tournaments with Go variant tournaments such as Variant Tournament . Of course it wouldn’t be easy, and might require merging with govariants.com. but to be the best website in a category takes a domain name as good as chess.com and/or better features than competitors, surely.

[benjito]

@Regenwasser

@benjito

I’m out of the loop, what is this referring to?

The massive web app that’s currently being worked on. I’m sure some people know about it. I don’t want to talk about it too much for personal reasons.

fair enough. does anyone (not Regenwasser) know what he’s talking about?

[PRHG]

Yes, but I don’t want to talk about it.

No I don’t

[JohnnieDarko]

Can’t be sure if this is what he means but GameofGo

Yet another Go Server

Flavien Aubelle announced this on Facebook: [image] (Go (Baduk, Weiqi) Players on Facebook | Hello everyone! | Facebook) the image from the FB post above Facebook page: Web site:

mentioned a launch “before the end of April” on Reddit:
https://www.reddit.com/r/gameofgo_com/s/uAM0EuAN8N

[sjrothsc]

This is a super interesting thread! A lot of why I put together GitHub - Seth-Rothschild/libaduk: A re-implementation of Lichess for the board game Go. · GitHub is because I like the feel of it. I would be happy to use it as a prototyping and experimentation ground for things that might/might not work for OGS and then help port stuff over if there’s consensus.

@shamisen

This is more valuable in my opinion than even a community calendar. I’m 99% convinced (by myself) that it would be better if not for change aversion. I acknowledge it would require a moderate re-design of the current Play page’s UI. But it could be worth it. For example, another user’s opinion:

@sjrothsc

It’s a reasonable question! For me, the OGS UI isn’t satisfying to use in the same way that Lichess is. Something about the layout of the page and the feel of playing stones just doesn’t do it for me even as compared to Sabaki (which are the components used here).

We can conduct a poll to verify whether enough people want a re-design, but it would be hard to ask people to compare the status quo to a hypothetical UI, and I trust my designer’s instinct.

I’m not totally certain on this, but I have a hypothesis that some number of user complaints could be mitigated by a bit of CSS. This unfortunately isn’t my area of expertise but as I poke around some of the stuff that brings me the most joy on my site are the way the mobile hamburger menu transitions onclick and how the stones have a css transition and have the fuzzy placement from Sabaki. These are much easier to implement than wholesale new features and might mitigate some of the complaints (though I’m sure to @anoek’s point it will create new complaints too).

[Regenwasser]

@shamisen

It would be Play > My Games. Play > Play would be removed.

What would be the benefit of that? I think a dedicated play page makes total sense. And chess.com and lichess.org both seem to agree on this as well. Not sure what the rational behind removing the Play page would be.

@shamisen

I’m not familiar with a “leagues” system, but we already have ladders, tournaments, and groups, I wonder if a new system would fracture the userbase more.

I had a thought today to replace site-wide 19x19, 13x13, and 9x9 tournaments with Go variant tournaments such as Variant Tournament . Of course it wouldn’t be easy, and might require merging with govariants.com. but to be the best website in a category takes a domain name as good as chess.com and/or better features than competitors, surely.

Right, but shouldn’t we try to make it the best website step by step? This is the “Home page ideas megathread” and I’d think we could immensely improve on the home page without any big new features just by restructuring content and maybe adding some small widgets.

@sjrothsc

I would be happy to use it as a prototyping and experimentation ground for things that might/might not work for OGS and then help port stuff over if there’s consensus.

There is a beta testing page for OGS: https://beta.online-go.com/
Not sure what the exact development flow is but I think it would be super awesome if we could test out your design on OGS.

Regarding your design: I think the options for play you have are a little unexpected. In my wireframe from back in time (send it to you in the other thread), I got my categories from Fox Weiqi, IIRC. You are currenlty missing the 13x13 board size for example. Also Correspondence games might rather be moved to another section.
In other words, while I think your UI design is awesome, I personally don’t like the content.

@sjrothsc

the way the mobile hamburger menu transitions onclick and how the stones have a css transition and have the fuzzy placement from Sabaki

I think that approach is really smart. There are some changes that don’t really change UX flows but are just more modern and almost objectively better. Starting to implement those would make total sense. It’s just that you have to get your solutions over to the actual OGS project so that we can all enjoy them!

[_KoBa]

I think ogs lacks a dedicated “front page”, that would include “little bit of everything”

The new changes to the home page are a good step on that direction, but we’re still using the observe-games as a landing page when someone comes to the site for the first time. For someone who isnt registered/logged in, they only see 9 ongoing games and some links at the top.

I actually really liked the old chess24 front page before they decided to go into sleeker direction with chess.com >___>

Like something of this:

[Regenwasser]

That design is insane fr

It would also space out a little bit more on a computer screen. I would take that design and then:

• Add the streak counter from chess.com (2)
• Add the puzzle counter from chess.com (3)
• Replace “ongoing games” with “game history”, or somehow mix those two
• Replace “Quick Actions” with “Puzzle of the day”
• Move “Upcoming tournaments” to “News, Updates & Tournaments”
• Put a player stats section to where the “Upcoming tournaments” was
• Add a chat next to the “Active users” widget
• Add “AI practice” to the “Create New Game” section

And then we’re done. Singularity achieved.

[shamisen]

@Regenwasser

And chess.com and lichess.org both seem to agree on this as well.

Clicking “Play” in lichess’ main menu redirects to the home page.

And I don’t agree with a lot of chess.com’s design at all, such as its ad placements which OGS doesn’t have. Again, I strongly believe they are popular not because of their design but because of their domain name and convenient timing of COVID-19 and Queen’s Gambit.

[shamisen]

Notice that website, lichess, and chess.com all have a News & Updates section. I think it would be welcome to 90% or more of users moving forwards to at least give moderators the option to announce details about a match taking place on OGS. Even if the content of the announcement is simply a link to the game on OGS and a brief title or a link to an EGF post.

I’m not asking for a full calendar, just a tiny bit of centralized knowledge drawing attention to the biggest OGS games and GoTV events. This Factorio tournament was played exclusively on OGS and yet there was no information about it on our own site? How is that even allowed…

[Regenwasser]

@shamisen

Clicking “Play” in lichess’ main menu redirects to the home page.

Ok, I misunderstood what your goal was. So you want to make the Play page the start page. Makes sense. I also like the lichess.org approach to this. I think both approaches have their pros and cons.

My personal opinion is that I’d keep start page and play page separated like chess.com is doing it. But I’d design the play page similar to how lichess.org did it. I really like that design too.

@shamisen

I don’t agree with a lot of chess.com’s design at all, such as its ad placements

“Ad placements” are not really a design choice though. It’s a way to generate revenue. I also don’t see one single ad in the screenshot I posted.

@shamisen

I strongly believe they are popular not because of their design but

They might have gotten popular because of their domain name but chess.com is a company with over 650 employees, over 50 million Euro yearly revenue and over 200 million active users.

So by now they have obviously hired a strong web development team with a high degree of skill and experience. If you dislike the UX on chess.com then I think it will probably be more of a “you” thing because I’m sure they’re doing A/B testing and whatnot.

[JohnnieDarko]

@Regenwasser

They might have gotten popular because of their domain name but chess.com is a company with over 650 employees, over 50 million Euro yearly revenue

I had to double check this… and it seems you’re right.

This makes me appreciate OGS even more, ran by just two full-time devs and a host of volunteers.

[Regenwasser]

@_KoBa

Like something of this:

@Regenwasser

And then we’re done. Singularity achieved.

Thanks again for the inspiration. This is my version:

[_KoBa]

Hehe nice one ^^

I don’t know about the actual content the landing page should have, or how it should be formatted, but something that “feels like the front page” would def help on making ogs more approachable imo.

As a landing page, this is what people are currently seeing when then come to online-go.com for the very first time:

But for user registered users, they see a totally different page, which is the one behind “home”

[_KoBa]

That being said, its also good to remember that registered users have way different things they want to see on the “home page”

For example, i play mostly corr games, so for me the most important thing is to just see as many of my own ongoing games as possible right away, and everything else is just wasted space. But for someone who only plays live/rapid/blitz games, its more important to have the buttons for creating a new game.

So since its pretty much impossible to satisfy everyone’s needs in one single page, maybe the right way to go ahead is to have the home page as customisable as possible?

[qnpnpmqppnp]

From a purely subjective standpoint, this is way, way too cluttered for me. As a first-time player, this would turn me off, and I would prefer something sleeker that doesn’t immediately overwhelm me with so much info.

I do agree the current landing page sits at the other extreme, with much of it being wasted space, but my preference would be for some middle ground. To be fair, the size of this rendering makes it look like a very narrow screen for some reason, so perhaps it’d be fine to just spread it out on a regular size.

@_KoBa

So since its pretty much impossible to satisfy everyone’s needs in one single page, maybe the right way to go ahead is to have the home page as customisable as possible?

Yeah this was already mentioned and adressed above:

Home page ideas megathread

I’m not opposed to customization, the frequent cockpit memes any time we add some more settings are proof of that - but there’s the power of the default and given it’s what new users first experience, care must be taken to balance not being overwhelming, or underwhelming for that matter (which it probably is right now), making it easy to parse and navigate to what they might want to do first (whether that be get to some lessons to learn how to play, play against bots, jump into live games, kibi…