Asylum Feedback/Support

Posted by Rod M (W) on October 6, 2008 at 10:48:05

In Reply to: RE: What don't you like about the interface? posted by mingles on October 5, 2008 at 18:20:53

I appreciate the feedback and we need more of it. For that reason, I'll comment here and leave the thread for more comments, but then move it to the Support and Feedback forum where these discussions are easier for us to track for doing enhancements.

As to your comments....

>>There needs to be more space between each thread. It's too dense with lines stacked on top of each other making it hard to read. People want to browse quickly and jump in when something grabs their attention.

This a something that's fairly simple, perhaps as easy as a css tweak, but it probably needs a new layout tag...still a simple task. I'll like to see a mock up and see what other folks think about it.

>>If you start on the home page and click into the "General" forum, you'll see a load of navigation at the top. If you click into the first thread, the navigation completely disappears. That's disorienting

Header changes are also a simple matter though the way pages are cached to html means that updating old message headers takes some work. Generally, most people just use the back button when reading messages or the link back to the forum for that message. But if additional navigation would be an improvement, I'm open to suggestions. Again a mock up is the best for consideration.

>>When you click into a forum, there should be a brief description

There are, in the upper right corner. Perhaps some could be improved, another simple task.

>>Make the navigation abbreviations understandable. Do we really need to break out all the categories so they appear at the top of every page?

This is yet another tricky one. I agree, the header is getting dense. Many people do know where they want to go and having single click access is desired. For Newbies, we tried to make the most common destinations the most obvious. If they stick around, I suspect they'll get it. I'm not sure simplifying the menu for newbies is the answer if it causes angst amongst the long term user base. According to Google, about 1/3 of our visitors stick around for 10 minutes or more on each visit. Two thirds are returning visitors and only one third are new. However, given that the one third is determined by a browser cookie, that's not 100% accurate and I suspect the number of new visitors could be as low as one half of that number given how many people either dump cookies each session or don't allow them altogether.

Again, there's definitely room for improvement, especially where key real estate is concerned in the upper right corner. A mock up would help and then we'd have to pass it by the Inmates as I wouldn't want to upset 80% of our visitors by trying too hard to appeal to newbies that may not stick anyway. In fact, the most common search terms for new visitors are 'audioasylum' and 'vinyl asylum', so even those folks seem to know what they're after.

On the Classifieds, we have three options:

1) Build
2) Buy
3) Partner

On the build side, we need to weigh what the exact improvements are and determine what it will take to get there. The current app is written in Java which is not my forte. Our developer, Frank, can do the updates, but he's moving and doesn't want to continue maintaining the code over the long term. So if the only specifics to make the app more useful are:

- picture uploading
- price when new
- number of times viewed
- shipping calculator

I think that's doable quickly. Personally, I like having the seller's name in the listing, but that's a nit. I'm not sure what we can do on Feedback, that's up to the seller really. It's something that I think will be used more if the app get used more.

The problem with building the changes as I mentioned is that I'd need a Java programmer to keep it maintained long term and I know that feature creep will mean that the above list is only a start and people will want more and more and more.

So the other option is to buy a solution. this has the obvious advantage of getting all of these features, plus a whole bunch more. However, a quick search or two have not been encouraging. I found a lot of offerings, but none of them stood out as perfect solutions. I think that quite a few would work, but there's always a risk too that they'll end up being either buggy or lack saleability. We'd also want something that includes source code so that we can modify it, so the language matters.

Any suggestions anyone?

Finally, the last option is to partner with another site. AudiogoN? Just kidding. Seriously, I'm not sure this is a real option as we'd want tight integration and we'd have to host the app, so that we can ensure performance and common logins and whatnot. But, it's a possibility.

-Rod