New Site: Home Page, feedback needed

I need feedback and advice on how you guys use the site to help me design the new homepage.

I think the logged in home page is best off as a dashboard. Right now, I have 4 components: My Games (with links to find or start a new game), Latest Posts (with the 3 latest posts on the forum, like the current latest post widget), My Characters (with a section to create new characters), and Library Favorites (with a link to the library). There wouldn't be a Latest Games widget anymore.

Is there anything else you think belongs on a dashboard? I realize by doing this, I'm removing the Latest News section, which means you'd have to look at the forum for announcements. Alternately, I was thinking about the left or right third being a news feed, including announcements, latest posts, new games, etc (with options to hide some of that), and then on the right having 3 sections for your games, characters, and library favorites.

Thoughts?

I like the announcements/news section. It definitely reinforces the feeling of community for me.

Would you prefer seeing it as is, and trying to fit the other modules around it? Or do you think the feed idea I mentioned would work as well?

I think your feed idea would work :-) Your idea for an option to hide stuff is great because of course everyone has their own preference.

After I log in, I check for unread posts in the games that I'm in via the "Latest Posts" forum search. I switch to the main page to see if there are new games that have available openings and that I might be interested in participating in. That's primarily how I use the site.

Personally I prefer a two-column dashboard, mostly because that's what I'm used to (at work we use JIRA). If I could customize my own dashboard, I'd have a filtered "Latest Games" section with only games I'm interested in, and a section that has the latest forum posts. But that's just my personal preference.

CancerMan, what I'm thinking in terms of "Latest Games" is to make more use of the LFG feature: you'd be able to choose to filter the Latest Games widget by all games or your LFG options.

I'm going to bump this thread, in part because I'm currently working on implementing the header and footer, so I can start using the new GP logo. As always, I'd love to hear feedback and suggestions, specially if you're more design oriented. Right now, I'll be adding the header/footer with mostly the content the current header/footer has, as I'm nowhere near the advanced functionality this was original designed with in mind.

Can't wait to see it!

Ok, long overdue, but I'd love feedback on what you think of this design. Unfortunately, I can't figure out how to put characters on the home page as well; I don't know if I'm going overkill with the recent posts per game. I was trying to think of some way to toggle between my games and characters, but I couldn't figure out how, nor do I think it'd look good. i'd put it under My Games, but as you can see, that'd just make an untenable right column :/ Thoughts, feedback, design advice all welcome.

This looks good, I notice a setting function by latest activity. Does this mean you can filter that feed?

That's the idea. Initially, it'll be so you can set your LFG, but I'm open to ideas on how to filter that feed. Right now, it was going to be public forums and new games based on your LFG settings. The idea was general, public stuff on the left, more community oriented, your own stuff on the right, if I can figure out how to display characters.

I'm not sure a kith what other types of filters might be needed but I'll think on it...

Character wise... I don't know how variable the size of theses boxes are but there is certainly space in the sample for some icons. Maybe you could fit the icons from the user page that displays number of characters by system. The characters already seem sorted by system, and on the home screen we could pressent those icons as menu buttons to display characters from that system. It's a little more open then what we currently have, but I'm not sure how much clutter that would be, or how erganomic.

Oh, sorry, I didn't mean the characters in the game. To see that, you'd still go to the game's detail page. I meant My Characters, as in your own characters, like if you clicked on Characters in the current site and hit All Characters.

I don't know how hard this would be or if it is even possible but hopefully it could spring some ideas from you or others. Clicking on the person portrait, brings you to 'the character version' and clicking on the pencil brings you to 'the games version'

@Kaleth, That's kind of what I meant. We could use the white space on the bottom right to fit some system icons, each of which acts as a menu drop down menu of the characters from that system. This division could display more characters then the current my character tab.

Alternatively it could be a collection of character portraits in the before mentioned white space, though I'm sure you would have considered this. I suspect this solution might be a bit cluttered.

i don't have image editing at the moment to show what I mean...

Maybe take one of the viewable games away to where only 2 show and that may leave more room under it to have a profile set of "my characters" page. I myself would love to have a little easier access to my characters.

I considered showing 2 to 5 games. I figured the average number of games played is closer to 5, so 3 would be better than 2 :/

ok, makes sense. Just throwing ideas.

I do know we could use a "back to the forum" button on the bottom of the page though. That has to be frustrating for you as well to scroll all the way back up to click that button.

I'm about 30% done with a rework of the forums.

Once logged in, I really only use the main page to click "Latest Posts", and occassionally to see recent games that have started. For better access to my own characters, I don't know. I have like 50 or more - many of these are NPCs for games that I am no longer running, so I wouldn't need access.

If the site engine was smart enough to only put PC characters that are in active games in the dropdown box, and could show all of those rather than just 5 or 6, that would be super useful and easy on the white space.

My original goal was to get rid of the characters link at the top, but maybe that's not viable. I do plan on changing the way the drop menu dropdown works, to only show PCs, but I also don't like the idea of it only showing a few, specially with the way the site use is evolving. Maybe I shouldn't get rid of the characters link up top, instead removing the quick menu, and having a small quick finder on the home page?

Maybe your plan is okay. I under utilise the character option in the footer of forum pages - maybe that's all I need. It is in the right place at the right time.

I'm realizing my plan was mixing purposes... We don't really need a "My Games" page, as it's just a list of games... if that's on the home page, why have it elsewhere too? But character's is more robust. A quick way to reach characters would be nice, but then there's also the library, minor edits, in game or not, so I think we can get rid of the Games page, but characters may not be best.

Man, I really should try finding a designer who could work relatively cheap.

For my two cents, I wouldn't sweat finding the most elegant solution to layout. As long as the method to finding each component is intuitive and consistent, then it will be a win. Many sites (and implementations of Windows OS) try and make some things super easy and obvious, but then bury other things between layers of obfuscation and back doors. That can be frustrating.

But your toolbar approach, for example is great to me. I know that everything I need I can get to through that. The other things, like the Footer and the Main Page design, are icing on the cake.

Lastly, a bunch of people access GP through tiny mobile screens. Crowding a page with info may be detrimental to their experience.

Okay, maybe that was three cents.

Further to my last, I would like to add that, to date, your instincts for this site have been great.

I SO BADLY want to get a responsive/mobile site going. I'm trying to consider it in all my design proccesses, but I don't have that skill :/

I am not sure if it is my browser or the site but opening a character or the tools or pretty much anything, other than next page in a forum, should open in a new window. I constantly click the image of one of my characters just to see a stat and I then have to hit back and reload the page. I have lost lots of great dialog this way from the page refreshing.

Under the "Systems" page clicking "Find a Game" should filter the games page to what was clicked instead of showing every game that's open.

"Characters" link has been discussed in length and I belive you are working on it.

The "Games" link can be removed I feel, as long as you allow some easy access for GM's to see their players characters. I check the AC and HP along with stats and features of my players all the time and I do it from the games main screen.

I like the "Forums" link. I feel it works nicely.

The "Gamers" link is not bad either. I like how the active, inactive, online, offline works. Great job.

The "Links" link could be at the bottom alone. Having it at the top seems redundant. It would free up space for your Nav bar.

With space freed on the Nav bar you could add a "Friends" link. I know this is a small community now but it is growing and having a list of friends and the games they are playing or running could be nice. Yes we can see how many characters they have and in what system but we would need to PM them to get a link. The page could show the normal stuff, Pending friends, Pending requests, And then the list of friends. Onpening a friends page gives links to the games they are playing and running. It could show which are on or not. Yes most of the time active players list is only one page but again this community is growing. You could even have the "Gamers" link have a friends filter to do the above mentioned items.

Just some quick thoughts.

I appreciate all the hard work on the site. For my part, I check the forums whenever I log in. I'll check my games, but I like to see what's new in the Games Tavern as well as my games. I tend to avoid the Latest Posts because I'm not necessarily interested in all of the stuff in other games. Also, I like the Absences thread, but I don't like subscribing to it. Is there a way maybe to set an "Absent" button on thread so that you could automatically send a message all of your games when it was on?

You asked for feedback about how we use the site, and so I hope this helps.

It definitely all helps me continue to work on design and functionality.

When you say an absent button on thread, what do you mean? Do you mean a flag or notice?

Both could work. A flag on your portrait and a notice to the GM's

Your partner link goes do a expired domain, the space tavern games

For an Absent button, I was thinking of a little feature that could be set on an individual profile, sort of like an away/out of office message in email. Basically, it would send an automatic message to threads or games a person was subscribed to saying they were unavailable to play/post. It could just send out one message and then the person could just turn it off when they're back and begin posting again.

Some thoughts (figured I'd put this here since you linked to it in the other thread....)

Under the My Games section, it would be really nice to have maybe a three-way toggle:
Player
GM
Characters

I'm one of the abnormal (or maybe not....) ones that is GM of ~7 games and playing in ~10 currently. Being able to quickly move back and forth between these as categories would be REALLY helpful.

Additionally, on the "GM" games, it would be really nice to have additional indicators at that level of New Applicants and Pending Character Submissions.

Thanks for the thoughts!
Just as its a dichotomy between Games and Characters, I'm not sure about a 3 way toggle, but I do think an option to just show games you're playing in vs GMing would be nice; I'll look into how we can do that.
I think that's fantastic... I'm just not sure what icons we could use for that. Little colored circles? Or trapezoids as that's a common theme on the site (how in the world did I make trapezoids a thing on this site?).

Here's my rough photoshop job of my thoughts. In terms of "toggle", I'm thinking something kind of like a multi-frame tabstrip that would have one area for GM games, one area for player games, and one area for my characters (possibly with a number indicating items in that area, like how many games I'm running/playing/characters, or the number of new posts in games I'm playing/running....hmm. Maybe. Maybe not.). It could refresh whatever query/filter/data return when you click into each tab. Almost like little sub-sites of a sort.

For the applicants and character submissions, it could be trapezoidal flags in different colors.

I didn't do it on there, but just realized if you split GM and Player games, the Game Search and New Game buttons could be moved so player screen sees "Game Search" and GM screen sees "New Game".