This matters, because someone with skills might show up, and contribute.
I have been playing with the idea of learning some UI/UX design tools… if I ever do, then I wouldn’t mind posting up some of my ideas.
Honestly… for me, it’s small things that make the biggest difference, and the most annoying thing for me right now is that the colours make no sense.
The play computer buttons should be green, I think. The grey buttons feel discouraging in night mode, and appear completely unimportant in day mode.
Next… I would place the play human buttons on the left, and play computer on the right. I would also switch the section above it, so the go board image is on the right with the game clock options next to that board on the left.
The titles for the sections mentioned above are misaligned, with the “board size” option being indented, which feels off to me visually. On the topic of titles, they don’t quite stand out enough; turning them a tad brighter toward white would help a little, but not actually make them fully white. Just a few shades brighter would do a lot of work there, honestly.
I also think the rengo section to accept games should go at the bottom. It’s nearly always empty, and because of that, it creates a sort of semi-dead space between the other options that almost always have something going on there.
Moving on to the profile page… the game history and demo sections should be larger, and made so they more accurately fit the center of the page as opposed to sort of off to one side, and slightly too small. There is space on this page to just push everything out ever so slightly so it doesn’t feel so cluttered toward the center of the page.
The play button on the home screen should take one to the play page, as opposed to taking you there, and auto-searching (this is more of a me thing, so feel free to ignore).
The home page sub titles, for tournaments and groups and the like, should have an option to collapse them so they don’t take up real estate on the screen unless people actually want to see them there.
These are the suggestions that come to mind most immediately for me. Honestly…while I do think there are UI issues, none of them are so glaring to me as to render the site unusable, so even if none of what I have said is changed, I’m not gonna be mad about that.
Oh this I definitely agree with. Right now I am working on a small addition to the tournaments page. And I would try to get the “Join” button to be green.
At least the “Resign from tournament” is red.
Regarding my work on the tournament page, its adding a simple “Join” button to the table itself, so that people don’t have to go to the tourney page to Join (or leave). This was actually mentioned by a user who regularly plays Tournaments.
Slowly, but surely, I can add little improvements to the OGS.
I’ll try to address this first thing once I am done with current issues I am fixing. (Other than tournament page, I am adding a “Black to move” to the tsumegos 
)
My main intention to post these message was that voicing the issues in the design UI/UX, is valuable, as it gives pointers to people to what to fix. Because I agree that I might totally be blind to an issue that only others can see.
[DISCLAIMED] Am not a core dev member, just someone who likes OGS.
Sweet, my dude! All of this sounds fantastic, honestly.
If you ever want a second opinion or want to know my thoughts on something, I’m always happy to contribute some ideas or thoughts; it’s quite literally the least I could do.
Should I make posts with demos/screenshots of the work that I am doing (which might eventually get merged into OGS)?
I have a counter proposal for this idea. Posting up a place that is frequently updated with projects can be a valuable thing to do, especially for feeback from the community, however, with such things, there can often be an overwhelming amount of feedback that sort of cascaades into an unmanagable thing.
My counter idea to that, is doing a quaterly report type thing, keeping it informal, that way we can see, talk about whats going on and put forward any suggestions and critiques about any work that is being done, if indeed such feedback is wanted. That way, there will be time to develop a list of ongoing and completed works by yourself, and perhaps other devs that may want to get in on this.
This way, its something that can generally be looked forward to, as well as providing a space for people to give that feedback, but also, and most importantly here i think, not overwhelming the devs who are willing to put their work out there directly for critique as well.
Now, im aware i could be overthinking this…. and this could be a solutiuon to a problem that doesnt exist… but i dont see the harm in spitballing an idea like this. That said, im always happy to offer my feedback on anything, and getting the chance to learn what it is you devs are workin on more directly, especially as a layperson (myself),can only be a positive thing.
I like this idea a lot. This is very aligned with what anoek has started here: OGS What’s New
I’ll discuss this with GreenAsJade.
A lot of bug fix and other features get worked upon daily, that don’t meet the eye.
I play a mobile game called “the tower”, and I’m in their discord. And one thing I like that they do, is that they generally share what they are working on in terms of bugs and fixes to the game and so on. They don’t share everything, and they don’t share so often that it’s bugging down the chats at all.
But they have a system in there, where they do share what they are working on… and people generally pay attention. Especially if a big game update is incoming, as just happened last week.
I don’t think a 1-1 copy of how they do things there is at all appropriate, because the projects are so vastly different…and the scale of them isn’t directly comparable. That said, having a sort of function by which Devs/ mods, volunteers can have their work shared with the general populus of the forums and pha membership to see what has been worked on…even if only once a quarter, is something I think would have a positive impact.
There is no denying that this would also be added workload for you guys, and I appreciate that may not seem an attractive prospect… but, I also think there is value i’n being able to share what’s been and being done, so people can better appreciate the work that does go into maintaining OGS.
This is…however, all postulation… and I’m prepared for this to be labeled a bad idea on the whole… but I for one would be happy to know what bugs are being fixed… and indeed it could be a means to advertise the need for additional volunteers in specific branches of ability too? That’s something worth considering I think.
Again…thanks for taking the time to even consider any of these ideas.
But dude you’re a significant dev contributor, already. Don’t undersell yourself. 
Let it be known far and wide that noob42 is the only other person I’m aware of to consistently (or even “ever”) submit PRs with e2e tests. 
There’s a lot of “some people this” and “some people that” in this thread, a lot of vague accusations and words spent taking the moral high ground. It’s patronizing and useless. Frankly, a bit of controversy and heated debate is not a bad thing. Not everyone responds well to it, but it ignites people’s passions, makes them speak more honestly to each other, and makes the topic memorable.
Friction tells you where people differ. Despite UX designers and software developers working together often, there is a clear disconnect there. We don’t seem to understand what each other needs. I think this is the core issue of the thread, it’s the thing worth talking about.
If there is such a need for a UX designer in the OGS team, why are we not asking the designers in this thread more questions about what they would need from the existing OGS team to want to contribute? Why are we telling them what we need, instead of asking what they need? Why is it so unclear that the team even wants a designer? And why, when a designer shows up and suggests that they might want to be paid for their work, do we respond with “Are you kidding?”
For a designer to commit to redesigning OGS’ UI, they need to know their input is wanted. It’s not a matter of looking at a list of issues, picking one up, changing the code and submitting a PR. It’s a long iterative process with lots of communication between the designer, the existing dev team, and the community. It is entirely understandable that they would want to be compensated, and it’s certainly something OGS could consider. If that’s not financially realistic, then just say so.
Having said that, I don’t even think OGS’ UI design is particularly bad, and has been improving in recent years.
Not sure if you have seen this:
That is one proposed solution for the potential that you are delineating here.
That is really not the core issue of this thread. The core issues are:
- This is a meta issue but debating has somewhat turned into fighting during the last week.
- It is not clear what the priority of a UI/UX redesign to OGS should be and we can’t find a way to agree on a priority.
- We don’t have any UI/UX designers at hand that are able/willing to do the job.
A designer could help you understand the importance of smooth UX. Some have tried in this thread, but they’re not really being heard. It’s like they’re speaking a different language.
We don’t have any UI/UX designers at hand that are able/willing to do the job.
… because we don’t understand what a designer needs from us, and don’t or at least didn’t understand that they are in a very different position than software developers willing to contribute, who can just pick up an issue and submit a PR. Not to minimize their effort, of course.
I think you somehow misunderstood what I said. I know of the importance of a smooth UX. I myself have tried to advocate for that. I’m one of the people most intensely pushing for a redesign.
BUT I’m not the only person on this planet. And there are many stakeholders here (mods, devs, community members) that either think the UI/UX is fine as is or that agree that it could be improved but wouldn’t pause any other development efforts for it and so on.
Or in other words the community cannot agree on the degree of priority this has. Like I said.
No. Because there are no designers here. If there was one he could simply ask how to collaborate. But noone is asking that question because there is no designer here.
What we have are a few amateur POs and amateur designers creating wireframes and designs on here. But the past has shown that it’s an issue that we lack authority/legitimacy. We heavily disagree on what the design should look like. And I’ve yet to see a volunteer dev come forward and say “Yeah I will just build what Regenwasser has designed”.
What we need is a person that actually made a UI/UX design for a website before that creates a thorough draft. That we when procede with. But we don’t have someone who is willing to do that. And that person would always be at the risk of putting in all that time to create a holistic design approach with wireframes and click dummies only for the volunteer devs to say “Yeah, not doing that”.
I meant the collective “you”, since you were also speaking from that perspective, saying “we can’t agree”. My point was that the reason you can’t agree might be that there is no designer on board to help the team understand the priority.
No. Because there are no designers here. If there was one he could simply ask how to collaborate. But noone is asking that question because there is no designer here.
I thought there was. Maybe you don’t remember because they were bullied out of the thread for their perspective on the site’s financial transparency. Transparency and ease of access of information are a designer’s specialty, by the way, so when they comment on it and are dismissed out of hand, that tells them all they need to know about how difficult it will be to contribute here.
What we have are a few amateur POs and amateur designers creating wireframes and designs on here. But the past has shown that it’s an issue that we lack authority/legitimacy. We heavily disagree on what the design should look like. And I’ve yet to see a volunteer dev come forward and say “Yeah I will just build what Regenwasser has designed”.
Yes there’s no shortage of amateur designers willing to contribute. All software developers are amateur designers by default. But as you said, and I agree with, that’s not who you’re looking for. A well-intentioned wireframe here and there is great but isn’t going to make the UI coherent and smooth. We all seem to understand that, at least.
What we need is a person that actually made a UI/UX design for a website before that creates a thorough draft. That we when procede with. But we don’t have someone who is willing to do that. And that person would always be at the risk of putting in all that time to create a holistic design approach with wireframes and click dummies only for the volunteer devs to say “Yeah, not doing that”.
… which is why it’s so understandable that a designer may not want to contribute without being compensated. They take much more of a risk than a software developer who can start out just fixing small bugs.
We agree that this is what OGS needs and doesn’t have. I’m trying to shed some light on why it doesn’t have this, and trying to get us to at least try to understand what a designer needs from the existing team, be it financial compensation or maybe just a clear message that they are wanted and that they will be listened to. If we dismiss their perspectives, how will we ever find out?
You and I generally have the same opinion on this. I still seem to disagree with some of your points.
I don’t think this is it. It is a little more complex than that.
You would really help your case if you could just link to where this happened or to the comment where someone tells us that they are a professional UI/UX designer interested in contributing. Maybe I did just overlook that, this thread has over 120 comments by now.
Yeah, but you missed the underlying core issue. Why would OGS compensate anyone for something that’s not a priority? The core issue is that OGS can’t seem to come to the conclusion that redesigning the UI/UX is of utmost importance for the site. And since this conclusion doesn’t exist noone will spend money on a professional UI/UX designer.
Sure, I agree. I guess my point is that it would help a lot to have a designer’s perspective. It’s so easy to underestimate the impact of good UX, and a designer has the expertise (and probably real-world examples) to show why that’s probably being underestimated.
You would really help your case if you could just link to where this happened or to the comment where someone tells us that they are a professional UI/UX designer interested in contributing. Maybe I did just overlook that, this thread has over 120 comments by now.
They deleted all of their posts. I don’t think they ever said explicitly that they were a professional designer, it’s just what I inferred from their posts. For one, they asked to be compensated for their work, which an amateur would be unlikely to do.
Yeah, but you missed the underlying core issue. Why would OGS compensate anyone for something that’s not a priority? The core issue is that OGS can’t seem to come to the conclusion that redesigning the UI/UX is of utmost importance for the site. And since this conclusion doesn’t exist noone will spend money on a professional UI/UX designer.
Sure. There’s a bit of a chicken and egg problem there. You’re only going to hire a designer if you think UX is a priority, but to some extent you’re also only going to understand how much of a priority it is after hiring them and they show you how much better the site could be. You have to take a chance at some point. It’s here that talk of the site’s financial position becomes relevant. Because if there’s no money for this, so be it. But that’s unclear.
I do want to mention that it doesn’t seem true to me that OGS considers UX low priority. From the responses in this thread, it does seem that the team knows there’s a lot to improve on there, and that it is important. The problem seems to be more in the lack of designers willing to contribute for free.
Only Anoek can answer this, and they have not posted in this thread.