We’re just talking in circles at this point. Absolutely no progress is going to be made until someone makes a very good-looking and clear mockup (not AI-generated). Out of the people I regularly see on OGS, I honestly don’t see anyone that can do it except for myself, but I’m not a pro UI designer so I don’t make mockups/drafts with tools like Figma or Photoshop. I’ll have to find time to dig into the codebase myself and submit a pull request to the main site or https://beta.online-go.com/, but no promises on when that’ll be. My priority is making my own web app first, and then if anoek wants to commission/hire me based on seeing the quality of my work over there, I’ll be willing to take it seriously. I don’t even have a portfolio yet.
But I would also be happy if the devs go ahead and slowly implement the ideas in this thread. The 3 buttons on the home page was a great start, just start putting more easy additions like a button (with some graphic design) that links to the forums, more optional widgets, etc.
example button from lichess (with modified text) that could go on the home page:
And once again, to make space for all these things, simply move the active (correspondence) games list to a new page under Play > My Games. That page can also list Finished Games for people who don’t play correspondence.
Another option could be to have more pages with their own URLs for all the different features that people like. A quickmatch page, a custom games page, a ''my games" page, and so on. Then if you like just one part of OGS, there’s no need to compromise, just sit on the page that you prefer.
The home page should at a minimum link (not just do a JavaScript action!) to each of these sub-pages.
Obviously we have a bunch of these, but given how many people care about “my games”, it’s really notable that there’s still no page for that.
In the back end, do we have any statistic on most clicked/used features?
With all these “opinions”, we need some quantitative data to do some relatively objective evaluation on “improvement” or “changes” perhaps?
The louder noise here might not really reflect the deepest needs/wants from majority of users
(ya look at the “woke”, majority of them just want to be treated normally, yet those woke activists are demanding more and “loud")
(And yes I am aware that with current interface, some users just didn’t know they will enjoy some features thus less usage on that feature)
With all these “opinions”, we need some quantitative data to do some relatively objective evaluation on “improvement” or “changes” perhaps?
+1 on getting some data around this, Maybe in addition to working prototypes one of the first actionable things from this thread with a lot of opinions and options would be “it would be nice to know how people are currently using the site and where new members get stuck”.
So to get this straight, you are the only one who can do this here but you’re not a UI designer, you don’t seem to know the difference between UI and UX, you don’t know how to use Figma and you don’t work in the industry?
I’m pretty sure there are many people on here that have by far better qualifications for doing this than you but most of us are working and don’t manage to find the time for this.
Primaril yes, but the UI could also be improved upon.
Sounds a little overengineered to me. The start page is currently just a massive black screen. I think we can savely add some relevant elements to it without conducting a market analysis.
I definitely agree that there shouldn’t be a blank screen there, but wouldn’t the better option be to remove the blank screen rather than throw something on there that’s potentially not useful or that some nontrivial percentage of users would actively dislike?
I don’t think you need a market analysis but being able to say “X% of the games on the site use Y settings” isn’t an unreasonable place to start. Because if you don’t do that then you just end up with what some opinionated user/developer wants. I should know, I’m an opinionated user/developer. But then as has been noted elsewhere in the thread it’s pretty hard to dramatically change it a second time because people don’t like change.
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.
All of this is maybe true! But it’s also maybe not true, and the fastest way to find out is to have a number on how people are currently use the site and be prepared to track how it changes as you change the options.
When creating something new there is always a chance that someone dislikes it.
I think there are two interesting approaches to the start page issue. I personally prefer the chess.com approach.
lichess.org approach
Focus on playing the game. Make the /play page the start page (and thereby remove any other start page).
Pros:
Easier to manage because its less pages and less content
Players come to OGS to play Go anyways
No one will really complain because nothing new will be added
chess.com approach
Create a dedicated start page showing a bunch of interesting widgets and elements regarding different aspects of the platform’s ecosystem, such as puzzles, community interactions, chats, server and player stats, and so on.
Pros:
Highlights the whole ecosystem of the platform instead of just the playing aspect
The /play page is only a click away
Motivates the user to explore other aspects of the platform such as puzzles and community interaction
Depends on the crowd and the change. These days in video games if you don’t change around everything with an update every two weeks players will proclaim that the game is “dead”. If anything I think OGS is too timid and slow with changes.
Don’t get me wrong I’m not against data driven decision making. I’m actually a big fan. But it’s work too.
Now here is my point:
If someone would actually make changes to established primary features, such as the auto match default times, then of course you need to be very careful with that.
But if we are talking about adding more information to the start page such as a streak counter, puzzle counter or a puzzle of the day. Then at some point you just have to do it and live with the criticism. You can always remove changes again or improve on them. But if you are too scared of criticism then that incapacitates you and makes you stagnate. I’ve made so many people, especially regulars, on here angry and upset with my suggestions for change. But it is what it is, if you really want to improve something you will need to commit to change, and that will affect others and you have to live with that.
I can’t compare it to chess.com but I’ve just spent a lot of time in the last week staring at the lichess.org landing page and this is definitely not what it is or what’s interesting about it. The current OGS play page page is aligned with the modal from clicking “Create lobby game”. But in addition to the quick play links and lobby you might be thinking of, it also has the puzzle of the day link, ongoing tournaments, community news, and the tv widget.
For me it still feels a bit visually busy with all the colors and pictures from news stuff, but I would argue the design still makes it easy to discover the most used features of the site (though they are of course most used because they’re on the homepage). There’s also a lot to be said for how easy it makes it to find puzzles, tournaments, or play a quick game. I know people who don’t play games but still visit daily for the puzzle.
That made me chuckle. I had to imagine you sitting on your chair leaning forwards and just staring at the page intensely for hours
I believe you might have misunderstood my point. I did not want to talk about the pros of the page itself but about the pros of this approach to the overall site structure.
There are two distinct approaches to the overall site structure. You can either A. have a dedicated Start-page AND a dedicated Play-page OR B. one Merged-page that functions as both.
That is an undeniable fact. You have to decide if you want to do A or B.
Now I would claim that this directly also means that if you do A, you will have a greater focus on the platform’s ecosystem in comparison to B. That is because if you do B, you will have to put all your play-options on the page somewhere. This is demonstrably true because you can check the percentage of the viewport that goes to play-options on both sites:
Those look cluttered to me. Small details such as color contrast, spacing, font size, etc. all add up and play a part in generating a more cluttered feeling compared to lichess even though the content is directly inspired by lichess. I’m a game designer, not a UI designer, but I have an instinct for these things.
I also think there’s too many possible combinations of settings for Go between 9x9, 13x13, and 19x19, as well as handicap preference, whereas Chess only has time settings to worry about. Either limit those options like how ruleset is limited to Japanese for all automatch games, i.e. requiring custom lobbies for non-19x19 and handicap games, or let users customize their own “Quick Match” button with a nearby settings button.
For example, look at libaduk.com’s implementation:
There are way too many buttons even with 13x13 removed. This won’t work. One blue button for automatch/quick match is better than this. Settings could be configured via an adjacent settings button. And the default for new users would be 19x19, 5m+5x30s, handicap enabled. If that’s not enough, then 3 buttons for 9x9, 13x13, and 19x19 and 3 buttons for Blitz, Rapid, Classic.
As a consideration i did think about drop downs instead to make it less cluttered like chess com but then you would lose the multi select for automatch.
Thanks for the updates to personalize the home page. I appreciate people are volunteering their free time to make changes. Keeping that in mind this is just a fyi that there used to be a slider under my correspondence games on Android. As I right now I cant see if it’s a 9x9 or 19x19 nor how much is left on the clock. Yes I can tilt my phone sideways and it appears so no issue. Just wanted to inform on the change. Thanks again to those who take the time to improve this site. I don’t think you guys get enough appreciation
I find this thread confusing because it seems to be confused. It is constantly talking about two entirely different things that should be kept separate: a hypothetical Landing page for people new to OGS and the Home page for every registered player.
Right now, OGS doesn’t have a real Landing page. If you log out and type in the OGS link, it takes you to a list of active games. The whole purpose of a Landing page is to welcome people new to the game, or at least new to OGS. The current OGS Landing page doesn’t do that. It is uninformative, unhelpful, and ugly. If I were a new player, I might well be turned off and leave.
A proper Landing page should briefly introduce go (which still isn’t well known in the West, compared to chess). This could emphasize its antiquity (perhaps using an attractive ancient illustration) and complexity (using perhaps a statistic or funny comparison). Everyone I’ve ever talked to is impressed by those things. Other important elements include links for registration, learn to play, community, watch/play games, and rules. One might also have links to an About OGS page and the TOS.
The Home page template for registered players serves an entirely different purpose with different priorities.
This is astute - and AI Sensei do precisely what Conrad mentions. The “landing page” you get on their site is dependent on whether you open when logged in or not. Assuming you have a registered AI Sensei account, open AI Sensei in an anonymous / InPrivate window to see the difference.
Not to take away from the “astuteness” - but everyone who has ever worked with software or technology in general knows that you have to specify what you’re talking about when you have a feature discussion like this.
OP just didn’t do this. Nevertheless, if you read the original post and not just the thread title you can easily infer what OP is talking about. Furthermore, if you would then read on until the third entry in this thread, you would see that I tried to help out by specifying this explicitly:
button. And the default for new users would be 19x19, 5m+5x30s, handicap enabled. If that’s not enough, then 3 buttons for 9x9, 13x13, and 19x19 and 3 buttons for Blitz, Rapid, Classic.
