[Deptheads] SoCal Smackdown (Was: Get games up ASAP!)

[Tanya Aldrich]

On Jun 9, 2010, at 9:21 AM, Eric Burgess wrote:

> Tim's right - we have one static image and even though Neil looks great there, it would look better if we instead had some flash slideshow images and a scrolling newsreel on the side. Robyn has lots of great photos (although perhaps the series of Eric A eating his lunch might be skipped) and I have some to share, too. And while I nearly never disagree with Eric N, the website does matter. If we had one that really drew people over to see updates (like a newreel that linked to all the events Robyn and Neil are getting up there right now), it is a destination, it would draw people over for our lackluster forums, and it would also make us look like we have refreshed things rather than old and staid. In fact, introducing the new site would be a cool way to do things.

As Eric A.s later response states, I don't have much time. What I have is broken down into 1 hr max work windows.

I didn't have the time or mental capacity to figure out much of the forum before, I certainly don't have it now. We need someone you can effectively integrate the forum into our system, or worst case find a new forum that is easily integratable into our system. By integrate, I mainly mean uses our system's password and username for account generation and access. Until we fix some of the forum access issues, the forum isn't going to liven up no matter what we do.

Do you have a newsreel (or is that newsfeed) in mind?

See below for the flash response.

> I do think a white background like that is unattractive. The challenge is that you end up with too much open space. Remember two key things about web pages - people hate to scroll down and their cursor is usually on the right side (this is why Google and Facebook ads sit on that side). I'd overhaul the page to take usability issues like that into account. We need more eye-catching stuff there on the main page and to in-frame much of the long lists (like our events listing) so that you can still see our main frame up top while you scroll down. Other suggestions (both web and not)

You speak of usability, I'm always trying to make pages more usable and accessible, flash is not, in both a device and user point of view. There are other ways to do changing images that are more usable and accessible. I still need a pile of images chosen to display.

Give me some ideas on colors and I'll see what I can do.

I've heard a bit of this from others in the past. We "need more eye-catching stuff" sure, but I don't generate content. Get me the content and we'll work on making the front page more eye-catching.

I agree with the scrolling issue.

What does everyone think of dropdown menus? If I can implement a decent one, it would clear up some space on the left side.

I will look into the in-frame angle from the accessibility pov and if it passes, I'll add it to my list.
> Add the Twitter and Facebook feed links on the page. SoCal Smackdown already has them. We need to keep those active so please send any news (even reports, geeklists on BGG, any mention at all) to Gayle and to me. She has the FB account and I have the Twitter account. Social Network folks use both so we need to post in both places and if you make it easy for them to follow/like us, it will increase the chance they will follow and get us on their streams.
On the top of my to do list, I think. 

Tanya
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