Saturday, September 30. 2006
The new user experience
There is one important thing which is often omitted (or totally ignored) by many webmasters, but it makes a significant part of the overall site success. I am talking about the first impression of a new user who comes to the site and wants to make a decision if it is worth staying for a while and, which is better, worth registering or even subscribing to a membership.
Yes, I have to admit that BrainKing is more focused on real game enthusiasts than ordinary people who just pass by. Honestly, when a coincidental visitor spots the BrainKing's entry point (login page), he is hardly attracted by an outstanding design and breathtaking graphics, or some useful information which wouldn't be the same every day.
Which is exactly what needs to be changed.
I would like to summarize my proposal of the new entry point of the site (besides the new design which must be done anyway):
There are several benefits of this approach:
If you have your own suggestions, please post a comment here.
Yes, I have to admit that BrainKing is more focused on real game enthusiasts than ordinary people who just pass by. Honestly, when a coincidental visitor spots the BrainKing's entry point (login page), he is hardly attracted by an outstanding design and breathtaking graphics, or some useful information which wouldn't be the same every day.
Which is exactly what needs to be changed.I would like to summarize my proposal of the new entry point of the site (besides the new design which must be done anyway):
- Move the login and register forms to the top of the page and put them to a single box, in order to be easier to find and occupy less space of the page.
- Write a better description of BrainKing features and make it up with simple examples.
- Add a dynamic content - randomly selected game positions, excerpts from most recent public discussions, tables of running team tournaments, etc.
- Add RSS feeds from other BrainKing sites - BrainKing.info and BrainRook.com, maybe more in the future.
- Post some user testimonials - I guess we don't have them at all.
Or at least they are not written anywhere.
There are several benefits of this approach:
- A new user could find the site more attractive and think there is something interesting inside, whether he plays board games regularry or not.
- Registered users would have a reason to visit the login page regularry, even if they usually log in from elsewhere (other BrainKing pages).
- Search engines like a rich and dynamic content and could give BrainKing a better page rank.
If you have your own suggestions, please post a comment here.
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About the rankings on searchers: I was kind of surprised to find IYT on the first page when I put in google "Turn based sites", and while I didn't look for page 2 of the google search, BK was not in it, so whatever can be done to get higher rankings in search engines is very important, if not priority nr. 1.
About the first impression, a new design would help, but one would have to be careful not to jam it in with too much information. Something like a "slideshow" frame with the sites features would probably be interesting to a person visiting the site for the first time. In particular, what makes BK different (tournaments, fellowships, discussion boards, user testimonials!!!).
I don't think think that we regular BK users would visit the login page more often. Unless you would have something like a "My Brainking" page that is customizable for each individual user (don't know how hard that is to make and manage). I'm thinking of it kind of like the "my yahoo" page that you can access, and while there I usually only check the Garfield-comics, I do visit it very often, even though I only use Yahoo for e-mail purposes!
About the first impression, a new design would help, but one would have to be careful not to jam it in with too much information. Something like a "slideshow" frame with the sites features would probably be interesting to a person visiting the site for the first time. In particular, what makes BK different (tournaments, fellowships, discussion boards, user testimonials!!!).
I don't think think that we regular BK users would visit the login page more often. Unless you would have something like a "My Brainking" page that is customizable for each individual user (don't know how hard that is to make and manage). I'm thinking of it kind of like the "my yahoo" page that you can access, and while there I usually only check the Garfield-comics, I do visit it very often, even though I only use Yahoo for e-mail purposes!
Comment (1)
Good idea, somebody could make original comics strips for us. 
Comments (5)
Priority number one should be the looks of the site, not search engine results.
If you get high hits in search engines but people don't like the site they won't come back. Even if you make it look better sometime later...
If you get high hits in search engines but people don't like the site they won't come back. Even if you make it look better sometime later...
Comments (4)
The looks and the page rank are very tightly related. Both of them can be improved.
Comments (5)
But if you search for "online satranç", BrainKing (Turkish) is the very first result. 
Maybe that's the reason why we have so many Turkish users.
Maybe that's the reason why we have so many Turkish users.Comments (5)
Just one more point - IYT was listed because it contains the word "turn" in its domain name and search engines look at the domain name matches first. That's just how it works.
Comments (5)
Just out of curiosity, I have tried to put "turn based sites" to Google today again. The results do not list IYT anymore, not even BrainKing. Instead, a link to BrainRook.com appears at the first page, which is not a bad outcome anyway. 
Comment (1)
Like TeamBundy I am also suggesting a new design for the login page, or the first page you come to as a new visitor, when you visit BrainKing. To be honest I didn't find the site very interesting when I signed up but I stuck around because I was hearing great things about BrainKing
Examples from discussion boards, tournaments (perhaps examples of prize tournaments would help to raise curiosity?), fellowships etc would be good, I think. I also think a better profile page would be good. Perhaps a way to design an avatar? I am a member of another site (not a turn based one) where they have avatars and I think those are really cool A guestbook for the profile? Perhaps too much space or something, I don't know, but it is a suggestion.
Examples from discussion boards, tournaments (perhaps examples of prize tournaments would help to raise curiosity?), fellowships etc would be good, I think. I also think a better profile page would be good. Perhaps a way to design an avatar? I am a member of another site (not a turn based one) where they have avatars and I think those are really cool
A guestbook for the profile? Perhaps too much space or something, I don't know, but it is a suggestion.Comment (1)
We do have lots of testimonials, they're just not gathered in the same place. Even a few days ago I remember you saying you wanted less testimonials for the articles
Comments (4)
Put the flags on the left,
The game list maybe more visible, maybe with links to the rules or a random game or something.
Get rid of the background pictures. At least the way they're now.
Keep the feature list but link to the features themselves or snapshots of pages using them, when they're inaccessible to guests.
Forget the serifs. Change to a more "common" font (like "Verdana").
Put a little movement on the page... but just a little...
I'll post more if I remember something
The game list maybe more visible, maybe with links to the rules or a random game or something.
Get rid of the background pictures. At least the way they're now.
Keep the feature list but link to the features themselves or snapshots of pages using them, when they're inaccessible to guests.
Forget the serifs. Change to a more "common" font (like "Verdana").
Put a little movement on the page... but just a little...
I'll post more if I remember something
Comments (4)
When people first look at a site, they look first at the top and the left. That's why usually there's a link to the home page on the top left corner, the title is in big print at the top and there's a menu on the left.
BrainKing is starting to have so many languages, that a line of flags, would almost fill a whole line under the title, so this may not be a issue at all. And to balance the page they may be very well put on the right. I just think on the left they'd be noticed faster. Which would be important in the cases where the site is not displayed in the user's preferred language.
But come to think of it, people with right-to-left writting, probably look first at the top right corner. I've never designed a site in arab so I wouldn't know
Anyway, it's a small issue, it all depends on the layout of the rest of the page.
BrainKing is starting to have so many languages, that a line of flags, would almost fill a whole line under the title, so this may not be a issue at all. And to balance the page they may be very well put on the right. I just think on the left they'd be noticed faster. Which would be important in the cases where the site is not displayed in the user's preferred language.
But come to think of it, people with right-to-left writting, probably look first at the top right corner. I've never designed a site in arab so I wouldn't know
Anyway, it's a small issue, it all depends on the layout of the rest of the page.
Comments (4)
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