OGS has design issues

[martin3141]

We need to keep in mind that we can’t demand this. “I want OGS to redesign it’s UI/UX and I want Anoek to pay for it” is not a pretty thought.

But if Anoek is looking for a designer and willing to pay, that is a different story. My problem with some posts in this thread is, It feels like some people are really pushing for this, and I don’t see a justification (instead, IMO the “push” should come from the other direction, i.e. Anoek reaching out and saying that they’re looking to hire, ofcourse only if that’s the case).

[BilGoBaggins]

This is not an answer to previous comments, altough I’ve read through most of the thread and noticed one thing. There needs to be a first step to acctually move the needle forward.

I hope this serves in some capacity as a potential draft for how to
(1) find a designer
(2) how communication should be upheld with them
(3) how to take their advice to heart.

Firstly, I have been surrounded by designer and egineers for several years, and held many conversation about these topics. I am also quite well versed as a teacher in many areas, from pure math, to physical practices. I even run a company for personal training. Together with an art background I am quick to pick up on what reads well visually. Even if I can’t practically create elements online myself, I do have a good sense for them. That said, these things are subjective, but I feel confident in my ability overall to judge good design (for the general public)

Now:

1. Make an official statment, most preferably on the OGS main site.
   These forum sites attract only a fraction of players. I have personally in my 5 years since first playing (altough I have not been playing much at all), never visited. Most never will.
   To find someone sutaible, make sure people are linked to a form where they explain their credecentials, intrests, and else, together with links or some project files that show their ability. There could even be included an optional section where they provide a draft of what they would imagine the site to look like. This should not be seen as some definite version, just simply a sense for their ability and visual languange. I do not belive it would be to difficult to sift through this. I WOULD BE MORE THAN WILLING TO HELP.

2. Depending on their background, it should be noted that designers speak in “vibes” rather than hard data. A typical issue with communication between “pure” engineers and “pure” designers is that the designer provides a feeling, and the engineer is looking for proof. Often there isn’t any hard proof. It is made up in hindsight to make devs and executives happy.
   However, a big part of education for designers is to bridge this gap, and most engineers aren’t so rigid as to not get it at all. But this is a common hurdle in industry, even if I exegerate how it happens.

3. If you have a good designer, they will see and understand things you don’t. Simple as that. Some may get it, but many times engineers are looking for efficency, which is not necceserily good design for the general population. And from everything I’ve read, people on these forums are not the general population.
   That does NOT mean there isn’t a way to make all parties happy, but some amount of discomfort may arise at the inital drafts, simply due to any change being scary. If oposition is worded too harshly, then you are sure to loose a good designer. Especialy one working for free. Just as you would go insane by having someone question your code that is extremly efficent, then replace it with some ass code that works but is objectivly worse. You would feel highly frustrated by having your ability questioned too much by people that do not understand.

Also, design is not some incremental change, as with code. There would be a long process of creating a new visual framework, that is then implemented in one fell swoop. Unlike code where small changes can be made, to make small changes in design is simply time consuming and confusing for all parties. Designer, developer, and client. Some amount of blind trust would need to be placed in the designers abilities, and hopefully other volonteers (not only typical devs) ready to judge their work before any implementation happens.

Note: I have been very reductionist in this comment. Try to infuse some healthy amount of gray scale to my black and white wording. And to the best of your ability, in a well meaning tone. Reading it back I can sense it gives of another feeling then what I meant for. I was just trying to keep it short.

[GreenAsJade]

I think the advice and plan offered above are good, for a specific scenario.

If the scenario were that: “anoek decides that a UI redo is needed and that he needs to source one “now”” , above would be a good sounding plan.

I don’t think this is the scenario we face, though.

The scenario that we face is that various users think that the site needs a redesign, and many think that that this should be a priority now.

This is much like a developer thinks that the site needs rengo capabiility, or a community moderation system, or buttons to join a tournament direct from the tournament list.

None of these things were on anoek’s “immediate todo list”, but someone thought they would benefit the site that the love so they got on with making them happen.

Right now, this is the situation with UI Design.

It is not “anoek has a problem and is actively seeking to solve it right now and doesn’t know how to go about that”.

It is “passionate users who care for the site think that the site would benefit from UI design - and we know anoek agrees, as do the rest of the dev team”.

So the missing piece is someone championing making it happen.

Championing involves finding out the right path, and many other things.

Note that one means of making it happen might be persuading anoek that it should happen as per the plan above.

But the status right now is not one where the above plan is appropriate. The pre-requisites for the above plan have not been met: there isn’t a decision by anoek to seek help on this actively.

So if a passionate person wants to see UI Design take hold at OGS soon, they need to drive that.

It might be as easy (or hard) as persuading anoek to take it up.

Or it might be as hard (or easy) as getting involved with the team and injecting UI design practice.

The missing piece is a person taking it on.

[Maikol_2]

If I may,

This needs to be looked at from a business perspective.

I think that Anoek, as the creator of this lovely site where we passionately spend too much of our free time ( yes you have a problem ), Has all the right to just sit on a beach in Tahiti and drink margaritas if the income from this site so allows it. Only occasionally lifting a finger to approve some new development.. We are fortunate that this is not the case.

What this site would need to fulfill all our wishes is investors, investors that see a product they can grow. They can hire a designer to tell them whats the best layout and take control of the site. Crush our beautiful yet slightly inefficient democracy under the fist of souless corporatism.

ok, maybe that is taking it a bit far, I don’t think Lichess went through this. We don’t know what happens in their dev chat, but their front end looks pretty tidy.

Maybe we need to give more power of decision to a smaller group, maybe we can vote on it or have terms of leadership roles (Chief Dev, Head of design etc..). I’m happy with the site and have no complaints, but looking at this thread its seems like we are arguing like a Parliament or a Congress. Maybe some authoritarian direction is needed. You Dev’s are giving so much of your free time and its not for us to tell any of you how you should be working or what you should be working on. But from a user perspective it would be nice to know what the plans are and maybe even be able to have a say on where the direction might go.

[benjito]

@mart900

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?

Fwiw, i do think there is an effort made when an actual designer proposes to help.

The most recent threads happened to be by someone who was making it clear they had no ability to work on a team or even experience building a product that had real users. So i wouldn’t fault the OGS team for a lack of effort to appease that person in particular.

[Maikol_2]

@GreenAsJade I posted my comment before reading yours
so please note “we passionately spend too much of our free time ( yes you have a problem)” was not a dig at your comment or you personally.

But I think we are both thinking somewhat in the same direction when you say “champion”

[Regenwasser]

@mart900

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.

Ok, so we are back to what I said: there is no professional UI/UX designer willing to contribute here. That’s simply a fact. Otherwise that person is free to reply to this statement to proof me wrong.

[GreenAsJade]

@Maikol_2

have terms of leadership roles (Chief Dev, Head of design etc..)

TBH those roles are vacant and open.

Both “chief roadmapper” and “head of design”.

The trick is stepping up and working out for yourself how to fill it.

I know what I’m talking about here - I’ve trod the path. No other person had backend access till one person travelled the road to make it possible… an incremental journey.

@benjito

i do think there is an effort made when an actual designer proposes to help.

Yay I’m glad you think that (because you are in a position to see when it happens )

I think it too. We’ve had extensive design discussions in dev chat from time to time, when someone interested in having those has made the effort to be involved.

@mart900

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

It’s an interesting question.

I believe the answer is that “it’s not gonna work that way”.

It’s somewhat similar to my previous post: no-one can “offer to a designer what they say they want” other than anoek.

So it wouldn’t be practical for me to start a thread saying “hey, designers, we could do with some design, what do you want to see in order to be motivated to be involved?”.

I can’t offer whatever it is that you ask for, and it would be begging for a beating to try to mediate that conversation with anoek. For a start, it’s going to be iterative anyhow. There’s not going to be some kind of “deal struck” , changes made, designer suddenly has the creative control" kind of thing.

Instead, what is needed is a designer who knows what it will take to make an improvement and who is already motivated to find out how to get this to happen

That person, we can help

[Regenwasser]

@mart900

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.

We keep going in circles. Why would somebody take a financial chance with something they don’t deem necessary/urgent. I don’t understand why you are not accepting this line of thought.

Just look at the other comments:

@martin3141

My problem with some posts in this thread is, It feels like some people are really pushing for this, and I don’t see a justification

@GreenAsJade

But the status right now is not one where the above plan is appropriate. The pre-requisites for the above plan have not been met: there isn’t a decision by anoek to seek help on this actively.

You see, there is no consensus on this topic.

[GreenAsJade]

@Regenwasser

You see, there is no consensus on this topic.

… and the idea that there should be or will be is a mistake,

UI Design improvement won’t come about by concensus.

It will come about by someone getting down to work to make it happen.

(Note: there is consensus that’s it’s needed. Just not "how much, how urgently or how it ought to be achieved )

[Swift_and_Bold]

“if it was a “Foreign non-profit Corporation” but still only one person got all the money (via salary) and the volunteers got nothing, would that be fine with you?” A non-profit is surrounded by legal safeguards to protect users, including volunteers, and ensure they are not being exploited. A private company lacks some of these safeguards. That is not to say that volunteers at a private company are being exploited, merely that the company’s status and continued trading does not depend upon it not so doing. I personally am quite happy for OGS to be owned by one individual who puts in time and effort to ensure its continued running while volunteers help out where they can and how they choose. I read Kosoren’s post as saying that it may not be clear to some of those being asked to volunteer their time and expertise that OGS is single person owned, rather than operating as a non-profit.

[Regenwasser]

@GreenAsJade

… and the idea that there should be or will be is a mistake,

UI Design improvement won’t come about by concensus.

The conversation was about hiring a professional UI/UX desginer to do this. But anoek is not going to spend money on that if he doesn’t think it’s of the utmost importance.

Similarily anoek is not going to halt all feature development and uncritical bug fixing to focus on a UI/UX redesign if he doesn’t think it’s of the utmost importance.

Furthermore, the idea that anoek would hire a professional UI/UX designer so that this designer could then explain to anoek retrospectively why he has been hired is completely outlandish.

Also the chance that anoek will deem this topic to be of the utmost importance is lower if even the OGS community cannot find a consensus on how important the issue is.

Yes, you are right if some volunteer just shows up and does the work all of these things don’t matter. But if that guy doesn’t show up they do matter and they also matter as a response to what mart900 has been writing here.

[GreenAsJade]

Hmm - OK, I take it back slightly.

If the community shows consensus - or even a deal of concern - about the UI, it certainly helps get it to happen.

(I definitely mentioned that I know that anoek monitors community sentiment here).

I got over rhetorical in trying to emphasise that it is more likely to happen if a keen person picks it up, and there is nothing preventing that from happening

[JethOrensin]

@mart900

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.

Iirc someone did post about “hit me up and let’s talk about money” and when he realised that there is no money to be had, they left. I am not sure if that counts as “bullying” in the day and age though.

@mart900

They deleted all of their posts.

I re-scrolled through the topic, I do not see any relevant deleted posts…

@mart900

Because if there’s no money for this, so be it. But that’s unclear.

If that fund is not being allocated, then you can assume that there is no money for it at the moment. I am not sure where all the mystery is…

@Maikol_2

Maybe some authoritarian direction is needed.

Considering that the forum is tiny minor fraction of the playerbase, if the UI/UX is ever redesigned, it will probably be done so in such a way.

The designer will work with the devs to figure out the specs, the designer will deliver the new design, then the devs will try to implement it in their beta version of the website.

Normal users like us might probably never even find out that this is going on behind the scenes, let alone be asked for any feedback.

@Swift_and_Bold

A non/profit is surrounded by legal safeguards tp protect users, including volunteers, and ensure they are not being exploited.

Sorry, but this is just so not true, that it is almost objectively funny.

Even some of the larger non-profits are plagued by corruption and exploitation. And those large ones that provide humanitarian aid, are affecting millions of lives and are under the public scrutiny of the society and the press, yet this is what goes on there:

Every year $1 trillion is paid in bribes while an estimated $2.6 trillion are stolen through corruption – a sum equivalent to more than 5 per cent of the global GDP. In developing countries, according to the United Nations Development Programme, funds lost to corruption are estimated at 10 times the amount of official development assistance. Corruption is a serious crime that can undermine social and economic development in all societies. No country, region or community is immune.

Non-profit is just a term. A lot of people profit from them.
So, if all that goes on with the big players that are under the spotlight what happens in smaller non-profits that usually noone even knows that they exist and there is not much public oversight, is probably beyond most of our imaginations.

If OGS was a non-profit, then that would have been potentially shady.
As it stand it is just a normal “single owner” business.
Nothing wrong with that.

@Swift_and_Bold

I read Kosoren’s post as saying that it may not be clear to some of those being asked to volunteer their time and expertise that OGS is single person owned, rather than operating as a non-profit.

This is a bogus argument.
Even if it not 100% clear now, once you propose to volunteer for any project, you will probably get an “onboarding email” which will explain all of those things, plus you will gain access to the people already in the project, so you can communicate with them and ask them whatever you like.

[Maikol_2]

@GreenAsJade

TBH those roles are vacant and open.

Both “chief roadmapper” and “head of design”.

Does anybody here fancy themselves as Chief Roadmapper or Head of Design?

Now is your chance!

#opentowork

[mart900]

While I think you are understating how highly the team prioritizes this, I do accept that there is no consensus about the priority, or that the assigned priority may not be high enough to consider spending money on a designer.

I pointed out earlier that there’s a chicken and egg problem there. You don’t hire a designer until you know you need them, but you don’t know how much you need them until you hire them. I think we agree.

I wrote “you have to take a chance” as a suggestion of one possible way you can get around that problem. And of course I accept your argument that it’s hard to make that decision if you don’t already consider it at least somewhat of a priority.

[Maikol_2]

An important caveat is..

Does the revenue generated but OGS justify hiring a designer.

There are a limited number of users who support the site (I don’t know the figures I’m just assuming)

If the update to UI won’t get more users to support the site what’s the point in investing in the changes? Out of love… sure, but love doesn’t pay the bills

[mart900]

The impact of satisfying UI/UX on the amount of people who decide to support the website is of course impossible to predict. It’s always easy to underestimate this, particularly for non-designers, but we do also have to face the fact that OGS is already miles ahead of the competition. A touch-up of the UI would widen the gap, but people who are looking for a web-based go platform are already going to end up here anyway. This makes it understandable that it’s not being prioritized.

At the same time, a designer with half a mind to make a competing go platform can now do so. It’s amazing what we can get done in a week with AI now, and this will only get better. Competitors WILL pop up, and some of them will have better UX, though they will be behind in features for a while. Arguably, OGS needs to get ahead of that.

[benjito]

@mart900

Competitors WILL pop up, and some of them will have better UX, though they will be behind in features for a while. Arguably, OGS needs to get ahead of that. Easy to say this, but if I were anoek I would seriously consider it.

While there is always a chance to be outpaced, it does seem like the lead time to create ones own competitive go server outweighs the time it would take for OGS to improve (or even borrow) the improvements needed to stay ahead.

[mart900]

OGS has a lot of features, and catching up on that would take a while for any competitor. But if I look at myself as a user, I don’t use most of the features. The ones that I do use could be vibe coded in less than a week. And if their UX was much better, and there are people to play against, maybe I would switch.