Ryzom.com website bugs

[ixianuk]

whats the point in argueing... the post is done... if the nevrax team didnt like what was posted it would be deleted..... whats done is done.. theres no point argueing over such little petty things tbh

[trenker]

What bugs me about the website is the lies concerning 'features'. Man they've got a cheek saying 'outposts' is a feature and describing how they can be fought over.

I tell every noob I see that the game aint got that and tell them how many rites there are. The darn noobs soon realise the game aint what it ought to be. Met one last night who just laughed at the fact that there were only 8 players in the desert around Pyr.

Anyways, the on topic element of my post is "yes, the website needs some fundamental revision". Nothing major, just fundamental.

[mrozzy]

Well, I posted the list not really for the Nevrax team, just for everyone to see.
As for the ryzom.com website my first post was more then sufficient, I typed the list because I mentioned it in the first post and I tought some people would be interested in it.
You can agrue about every single item, but there is a good reason for each of them, and I can tell why a specific one is there if anyone asks.
When you design a website its good you keep these things in mind, and you got to make some choices. For example, you got the text colour. It's a fact that black text on a white background is the best readable, but design choices could change this.
Another one is the search box for example. A lot of websites just contain a few pages, so there is no need for a big and good working search function.
But there are things you should find on each good website, like opening links to another domain in a new window. Only search engines can argue against this.
Anyway, I hope it will help a few people designing new fan sites, if there are any questions, feel free to ask.

[mmatto]

I tell every noob I see that the game aint got that and tell them how many rites there are. The darn noobs soon realise the game aint what it ought to be. Met one last night who just laughed at the fact that there were only 8 players in the desert around Pyr.

Bit too obvious flamebait

[bobturke]

But there are things you should find on each good website, like opening links to another domain in a new window. Only search engines can argue against this.

Or not.

I'm not going to buy into the rest of this can of worms, but this is not good advice.

a) Users generally hate pop-up windows of any description.
b) You cannot say "don't use pop-ups" and then three points later say "open every exteranl link in a new window". Your contradicting yourself.
c) Consider that a high number of people who use the internet have for a variety of reasons great difficulty with things opening in new windows (visually disabled, some intellectually disabled, inexperienced internet users, and older people). Pop-ups discourage these people from sticking to your site and from returning.

Its becoming generally accepted that opening pop-ups (including external links) in new windows, for any reason, is a bad thing.

[mrozzy]

Well, I don't think you should look at external links in a new window and popups as they are the same thing.

Popups generaly open more then one window when only one is expected. They are usualy triggered by some javascript on a page you open. Popups contain in most cases adverts and there has been messed a bit with the browser window (removing the menu, window is resized and fixed, back button is removed, ...).

When you open an external link in a new window this is usually not recognised as a popup, since the browser has the same properties as it had before and adding to that you could expect a new window to open, since lots of websites do open external links in a new window.

There rules haven't just been made up, they are based on a study by a student I know who was (and still is) working for his phd in sociology. This study was about human behavior on the internet, I just added some technical things to it and searched for some solutions.

Now back to the new window, let me sum up some more detailed reasons for it:
- You cannot control the content of the website you are linking to. The website can go down, the data can change, ... at any time. As a result of that a visitor of your website could run into content he didn't expect and close the window. 75% of the people close a browser window if they run into something they don't expect and/or like (how many times did you have to do a google search over again because you closed the window?).
- Some websites make use of redirects or mess a bit with the back button to artificialy keep the visitor (but actually just annoy them). You cannot control that either.
- If a visitor is finished reading on the website you've linked to, he most likely will close the window (83% of the tested people). If you didn't open the external link in a new window, you've lost the visitor.
- When a visitor clicks an external link it means he is interested in the subject. There is a good chance (58%) a user will click through to other pages of that website, having to press the back button sevral times to return to your website, each time the back button has to be pressed, chances of a vistor returning are reduced (almost 0% after 6 clicks of the back button).
- 9 out of 10 times a visitor doesn't read the websites url, of those who do read it only 5% remembers the domain name, wich means only 0,5% are able to type the correct domain name of a new domain they have visited after 30 minutes. This means if a visitor closes the window your website is showing in, you've lost him.


Now let me give an example of a huge error on this website:
Recently most news items can be discussed on the forums. So if one reads a news item where he is interested in the visitor is gonne click "read more". After reading the full topic there is a good chance the visitor clicks "Discuss it", and finds himself redirected to the forums.
Forums tend to be interesting and someone interested in the game will most likely click on one of the other topics. After reading a few posts/topics/... the visitor wants to read the next news item ... and a huge problem rises: There isn't a single way to return to the main ryzom.com website.

Solution:
- Open the forum in a new window (especialy the "discuss it" links)
- Add at least one link on top of each forum page to the main website.

Both things are very easy to implement, I think it would take a dev only 5 minutes, but it makes a huge difference.

[mrozzy]

visually disabled, some intellectually disabled, inexperienced internet users, and older people

Just a little question about that:

How many of those people are potential customers?

[bobturke]

Just a little question about that:

How many of those people are potential customers?

Heh heh. I think you missed the point and I believe this is why disability discrimination is so common.

I'll work on your long post tomorrow. Time to play now

[thlau]

- Open the forum in a new window (especialy the "discuss it" links)

Opening new windows for different sections of the same website is the most annoying thing I can imagine in website design. Because this is the classical usecase for a pop-up!

- Add at least one link on top of each forum page to the main website

Hmm, maybe you should take the few seconds and to click on the 'The Saga of Ryzom' Logo at the top of every forum page. Because this links to the http://www.ryzom.com mainpage.

[dazman76]

What needs to be said, is this is not a comprehensive list of do's and don'ts, whether it's been researched or otherwise. Those are good general points to consider when developing a website, but there's no chance you can stick to them all (in fact a few of them are mutually exclusive).

There are several that just don't make sense to follow, unless your website is a blog service, or a very plain news delivery system. Working without a stylesheet nowadays is a general no-no, if your site is to be attractive and used as a sales tool. Controlling layout and appearance using classic HTML properties is messy, and using "table soup" to layout your elements creates difficult to maintain page layouts. The DIV approach requires a stylesheet, or at least 'inline styles' using the style="" property - these too are disabled when viewing 'basic style' pages.

The main thing to remember about lists like this is : they are purely a guide. Although it's nice to tick as many boxes as possible, sometimes it just isn't practical to go too far. The only *real* way to achieve this balance with a site is to present the entire site in two varieties - one with the intended styling, and one very plain, maybe high-contrast, containing the same content. Unfortunately, not many people take this approach, since the created content can be tricky to fit into two designs.

If it comes down to ruining your site to appeal to a minority, at the same time as excluding the majority, your website has failed. The minority will certainly appreciate your efforts, but they won't bring the results you expect on their own.

The problem with these lists, is that there are many of them, and they all disagree - sometimes in subtle ways, and sometimes not. There's a famous 'web standards' guy who thinks there should never be a link to the homepage, on the homepage itself. He also thinks the 'company logo' home link is the spawn of satan. I completely disagree with him here. Although most of what he says is sense, some of it just seems over-the-top. And his site is very usable and readable - well it would be, because it's all simple, table-aligned, standard-formatted blog and news text. I bet the guy never even made a site intended for sales or marketing, and if he made it like his own site - he wouldn't be selling much.