The scope of UI update v0.2: All-in-one home page / Play page rework was more ambitious than I’m willing to spend time on. I’m giving up on the “all-in-one” aspect of the home page re-design for now. Additionally, this new approach avoids pissing off correspondence players and uses screen real estate better.
The goal of the play page changes are to make it more intuitive for new users and to use screen space more efficiently. I’ve heard that the current UI is already obvious to use, but I’ve also seen plenty of questions from newcomers in OGS chat asking how to set up custom games, from dan and kyu players alike. Keep in mind that you, the reader of this post, may not be able to empathize with new users because you’ve used OGS for years by now.
Users can more quickly switch between auto-match and custom games.
For example, depending on which system has more recent activity (a green dot in auto-match buttons indicates recent activity within 30 minutes), a user may want to cancel their custom game and join auto-matching.
The graph, moved to the bottom left corner, can be viewed alongside the game lists.
[todo] Reinstate a toggle for auto-matching correspondence speed.
[todo] Design a slider for selecting opponent rank range.
[todo] Design a new UI for filtering the lists of open games (replace the box directly under Custom Game / Play Computer).
[todo] Use the bottom right for something, such as showing an ongoing live game?
The focus of the home page changes will be to enhance and add to existing functionality, not removing or replacing anything.
Top left corner will serve as navigation.
Bottom left corner on large screens can contain a graph (not with the exact same axes and parameters shown) to summarize and visualize how many games are close to ending, which correspondence games are awaiting your move and how much time you have left, etc…
Later on, more settings to filter each category can be added.
Add a link to “My Games” under the “Play” submenu.
Remove “Home” from the main menu.
Clicking the OGS logo already redirects the user to the home page.
Currently, signed-out users who click on “Home” get served the same content as the /observe-games route. I don’t see why the “Home” link is needed in that case.
After this proposed update, signed-in users who click on the logo would be served the same content as /my-games which would also be accessible from the “Play → My Games” submenu.
Add a new submenu “Site” and move “What’s New”, “Support OGS”, “About”, “GitHub”, and “Documentation & FAQ” from the “Community” menu to it.
note to devs: I’ve simplified the design to the point where it is relatively easy for any experienced dev to implement. I’m currently focusing on work unrelated to OGS, so if anyone wants to jump in and take over the coding, let me know first so we don’t overlap our efforts. I’m not expecting anyone to, but I left this message just in case.
Note that a UI design that is makes it’s way into Prod is considered a “contribution”, which earns a free some-period-or-other of full supporter status.
So if you see this implemented, you can remind us
(This is done automatically for PRs, but hard to automate for design )
I swear I’m trying to cheer you on but you messed up big with this one. Oof man.
Why would you put such a big focus on that graph. It’s hidden behind two clicks currently and that was a good decision because (mandatory “almost”) no one cares about that graph.
And why would you put the toggle buttons for the Lobby Games in such a prominent position. This is increasing Lobby Game focus again, which is something we moved away from for a reason.
This is not what I voted for!
If we keep the start page and play page separated then I’d go in the direction of that Libaduk guy. That page is lit: https://libaduk.com/
I don’t need to see the data to know that this is dead wrong. Nobody cares about the graph because it blocks the entire view of anything else on the damn screen
You have not taken a close look at that page at all then. The buttons start in order from 9x9, 13x13, 19x19, and suddenly mix it up to 19x19, 9x9, 13x13. There’s 3 Bullet options followed by 4 Blitz options and 1 Standard option. None of it makes sense intuitively.
I was already disagreeing with a lot of your suggestions in the previous threads yet I appreciated your contributions and interest, but from this point forwards I’m dismissing your opinions on anything UI/UX-related. You’ve been helpful up to this point, especially with communications, but sorry you are reaching far out of your zone of expertise here.
Anyone else agree with this guy here? I’m fine with saving my time and not contributing anything to OGS too. This is why OGS frontend is 10 years out of date and has even gotten worse over time – the people are given too much of a voice on these forums.
I mean I would be surprised, why would someone spend time looking at that graph? I don’t get the appeal of that feature at all.
Yes, because he vibecoded it. The UI is still gorgeous and the UX has potential with a few adjustments.
Shit I got fired!
Look setting aside your insults and your bragging marathons, just looking at this proposal completely objective, my personal opinion is that it’s inferior to the currently implemented design.
Listening to user voices too much is probably what has let to the OGS cockpit meme. I don’t think it had a big negative impact on the overall UI/UX though. You can also create a PR with whatever changes you want even without me approving of it. I have no power to stop anything. The people you need to convince to merge your PR are other people.
But, maybe a little less objectively, this is one of the worst UX designs I’ve ever seen someone come up with. Like this is kindergarten kid drawing his first horse level bad.
What insults and bragging marathons exactly? “you are reaching far out of your zone of expertise” is an insult to you? snowflake
At least I mean the things I say. You’re looking rather disingenuous with your insults considering you called me a genius a few weeks back for a Go variant I designed in 30 minutes on a whim talking to someone in OGS chat:
That was the only reason I entertained your suggestions on all my threads. Your ideas are worthless otherwise. You must have gotten rejected from UI design job or art school for my “insult” to have warranted you turning 180 degrees like that.
I was trying to find a fitting quote on my phone but thankfully I only needed to give you a second to come up with the next brag+insult:
I do too. Unless I’m making a joke or being sarcastic or sth like that.
I said your idea is genius which it is. I didn’t say you’re genius. But even if you were a genius you could still be that island genius type of guy who is simply good at one thing but not at anything else.
What are you talking about. You’re the one who did a 180 after my initial remark regarding your design being bad:
I designed it not only from a UI design perspective but as someone who actively played on OGS for 3 years, out of love for the website. I felt a sense of duty to give back the same value I got from anoek’s work here. But ff this is what you truly mean, then I can only thank you. I’m finally free from contributing to OGS. OGS frontend can stay flawed and I can save time and do things that I’m clearly better at and bring me more joy. None of you are entitled to my efforts. I also don’t need Meijin that badly. I’m fine with never playing on OGS again too – I’m taking my ass to IGS and playing with them old Japanese mofos.
For what it’s worth, I’m also puzzled that this graph found its way here. It’s been repeatedly called out for being of little use, if not off-putting for newcomers; if I’m wrong I do want to see data.
Also, while having both custom games and automatch on the same page makes sense, it does seem to give a prominent place to custom games (center and most of the screen) while it would seem logical that automatch would be focus (in line with the last OGS design, and other websites like Lichess).
Yeah, man. So true. That was a journey… Free from contributing after all… after the whole ONE Pull Request you made.
I think we can end this on this note. Although I’m a little curious now. Are you:
A - Dismissing all my opinions on all UI/UX related topics because I failed art school and am reaching far out of my zone of expertise?
OR
B - Changing your whole future life, including what you work on and where you spend time at because of my opinions?
Anyways I wish we wouldn’t have done this small exchange here but now it happened. What can we do. I’ll stop argueing with you now. Still wish you the best for future endeavors.
Again, it’s of little use AND off-putting because the way it’s currently presented is extremely obstructive, or because it’s hidden away under an unnoticeable toggle tucked in a corner of the page nobody looks at. Refer to my screenshot above.
The data would only reinforce your false beliefs here. I’ve noticed many devs here including anoek himself using incomplete or misinterpreted data as a crutch and gaining false confidence time and time again – leading to the existing UX flaws.
The graph can be modified to be more useful. I’ve worked with data visualization libraries before. Not that it’s hard to changes what axes and variables represent.
If this is your only or main supporting argument, and anoek listens to people like you, OGS is doomed. Other websites are good reference points, they’re not supposed your first or deciding reason for implementing things, especially when they designed for a completely different board game. Chess doesn’t have even half the need for custom game settings compared to Go because it’s simpler in many ways. And I specifically mentioned a valuable reason to have both systems side by side – this is specific to OGS. The auto-match UI isn’t overpowered by the custom games section either. The biggest and most prominent element on the page is the auto-match button no matter how you look at it.
I understand you’re new on OGS so I want to clarify that, before the current page, this graph was prominently displayed on the play page (no click needed). It’s at that time that it was criticized, and now it is hidden away for good reasons.
If you don’t like Lichess as an example because it’s not the same game, then note that Fox operates also pretty much exclusively on automatch. Not saying Fox is the pinnacle of Go server design, but it is the largest Go server and apparently doesn’t feel such a need for custom games settings.
Again, you never knew the previous play page but the current version is the result of (very) long discussions on the importance of simplifying it and focusing on automatch. You can disagree of course (it was never unanimous anyway), but it is valuable background.
Fox design is awful. especially for a Western audience which I heard favors minimalism, whereas Asians are more accustomed to cluttered UIs. It has some good features though, such as automatic scoring (?), but I never played on Fox so I’m not sure how it exactly works.
I’m pretty sure everyone knows that Fox isn’t popular because of its design. It’s because all the Asian pros play there as a default option.
Yes, I don’t like Fox’s design either, it’s too cluttered.
Still, I believe the fact that the largest Go server operates only through automatch is a valid challenge to the idea that Go would be so different from Chess in that respect. Custom games have their use, but in practice they don’t seem to be that important on large Go servers either.
Fox also doesn’t support correspondence games, or does it? Data WOULD be useful to show here what percentage of correspondence games are found through the custom game UI.
OGS also supports Rengo games and can further support Go variants in the far future.
But again, auto-match is still prominent in my proposal and it doesn’t need more space to fully function. Importantly, even when scrolling down the page, the auto-match UI would be fixed in the top left.
What’s the alternative, making auto-match bigger and keeping custom games hidden under a toggle, purely for the sake of prominence? This is racism.
I don’t think you need to regret what you said, everything happens for a reason. I might truly be DDK level at UI design. Your criticism might be the right amount of humility I needed to improve as a designer.
forgot to mention that the reason the perception of custom games is so bad here is most likely because the UI to configure custom game settings is horrendous to look at and to interact with. This needs to be reworked too.
I’m taking an indefinite hiatus to focus on developing my own websites/games, but this would be the next UI for anyone to urgently design a replacement for or improve upon.
That is not true see here. It’s just that sites such as chess.com have enough players to not need to implement a handicap system.
For Go Handicaps are a chance to survive on a smaller player pool. The integration of this mechanism can work seemless under the hood though like on Fox. No need to bother the player with it (unless he really wants to but that’s what Lobby Games are for).
This is of course true and a real challenge. But to balance that out you can reduce the time options. Lichess e.g. comes with 11(!) different standard time settings for their one board size.
Also not fully true afaik. But more importantly it doesn’t really matter for Go either (although this seems to be an age long OGS debate repeating itself once every few threads).
A while ago there was some bigger tournament where I live. A guy kept asking what the ruleset will be cause the organizers didn’t specify it anywhere. Until one guy just said “apply whatever ruleset you’d like to the game”. I still think this is a funny anecdote outlining the situation pretty well.
