Suggestions for the JKHub website

[Xycaleth]

I lost this post a few times when typing it so it might not all be coherent I hope it gets the point across though
 
I'm in a website-noticing mood at the moment, and I think a lot can be done to the JKHub website to make things easier to find, and to bring more people in (we do want more people, right?) I recall one of the JKHub team saying that they're in the process of updating the website some time in the near future, so hopefully some of the ideas I've posted here will be taken on board.
 
So let's start with the front page. If I load the front page in Firefox on a 1920x1080 monitor, the top half of my screen is filled with a navigation bar, a breadcrumb trail (JKHub > JKHub Community Section > Ideas & Issues, for example), the JKHub bar, and the JKHub Logo. That's half the screen, filled with stuf that isn't content. Half of screen that can't be changing information. Or in other words, half the chances to get people to keep reading! Below half way, I see a massive title from the first news article, and then finally the meat of the article finally at the bottom third of the screen. Along the side, I see "Featured Download", a poll and the first of the latest files that's been uploaded. If I'm clever enough to scroll down, I'll see more news, the rest of the latest files, the upcoming calendar events, and a link to buy Jedi Academy. Maybe if the logo was made smaller, and the navigation brought up so that it sits at the same level as the logo (maybe move the logo to the side, or put links either side of the logo like in the Jedi Academy main menu)? That would use up a lot of the currently empty, and unusable space and bring the whole page up by 50 - 70 pixels.
 
Coming back to the front page, it stays mainly unchanged for the majority of the time. The news article updates perhaps once every few months (it just so happened a new post came up while I was typing this ) so it looks like nothing happens (and not of the fault of the staff; there's hardly any news these days in JKA ). What happened to the tutorials? They show up in the forums on the right, but they're not present at all on the front page. If I'm someone visiting the site and see that the last news article was from 2 months ago, I might assume that the site isn't alive anymore, or doesn't have much activity. So what can be done about this? I see that a new file is uploaded almost every day. So about we make the front page more community-driven? Show that we are an active community by showing maybe the 'most downloaded file of the week', and some of the recent uploads. Show that we have tutorials by making a big deal out of it. Sure there's links to files and tutorials in the navigation bar, but by showing them on the front page, people can see how recently they were added, and what kinds of files and tutorials we have. The news posts can be demoted to its own page, but keep the latest headline on the front page so people will still notice when a new post does comes up. Alternatively, show the files and tutorials at the top of the page, but have shortened versions of two or three news posts underneath.
 
Another issue I have sometimes is readability of the text. Shorter lines are generally easier to read, so having a page which spans the entire screen width filled from left to the right with text isn't great. I realise there's the fixed-width theme, but something about it doesn't seem quite right. Maybe it's the fact that the navigation bar still spans the entire width of the screen? I can't quite put my finger on it... The other factor that would help is line height. Currently the JKHub website uses the default line height which looks very cramped when you have walls of text. Setting the line height to a minimum of 140%+ really makes the text look less dense and easier to keep track of lines while you're reading. Looks like this is only true on the front page, but line height should be the same everywhere

 

Last point is pretty easy to fix. Nowhere on the front page does it say what JKHub is. You might be able to guess that it's a hub for JKA, but spell it out. Make it obvious and reconfirm the viewer's guess.

 

I think that's (what I think are) the most important points I wanted to get across at the moment. To summarise...

• Make site header more streamlined. Content starts half way down the page because of this.
• Spruce up the front page. Fill it with community content, rather than news posts. Move the news posts to its own page
• Text readability. Reading is the main way people get something out of this website. Make it as easy as possible
• Make it obvious what this site is.

So yeah, hopefully a few people will agree with what I've said here, and I hope the JKHub team will take on board at least some of the ideas!

Edited February 9, 2015 by Xycaleth

[Futuza]

Good point about how a month old news article shouldn't be filling up most of the page.  I agree especially in regards to the community content should be taking up more space.

[Xycaleth]

..So....about those replies

[Circa]

As we've said before, we're going to be redesigning the entire website soonish™ so a lot of this stuff will be saved for then. We are pretty limited on some of this stuff with IP.Board, so moving to a new forum software will most likely help bring your ideas into fruition. They are noted.

 

Also, my life has been hella busy for the past few months, which is why I didn't really reply to this and why I haven't been invested in JKH at all lately.

[Xycaleth]

I just wanted one of the JKHub staff to acknowledge the things I mentioned had been taken into consideration Good to know the redesign is still going ahead

[Xycaleth]

Out of interest, when do you guys think the new website will launch?

[Circa]

Out of interest, when do you guys think the new website will launch?

Some time after XenForo 2.0 is released. Depending on how close/far that is, some changes could be made soon to the current site. They don't give release dates, so we can't rely on it much.

[Tempust85]

Just to save starting a new thread for a small suggestion.

 

Can we please have an Origin box for contact info?

[mrwonko]

Origin box?

[Tempust85]

You know how you have steam, MSN, skype etc? Need a box for an Origin id.

[mrwonko]

Oh, text field in the profile, got it.

[Tempust85]

So about that Origin ID text field in people's profiles. Is someone able to do this or is it something @@Caelum has to do?

[Circa]

Really easy to do. @@eezstreet can do it.

[Clan FJA]

An admin should have a look to all links on the top of JKHUB and delete the dead links.

For example, MBII link must be actualized to point the new one.

[Clan FJA]

another idea for the file section of jkhub. It could be nice to have a "Give me a random file" button

[eezstreet]

This is an interesting idea. And it wouldn't be too hard to implement either.

 

As for dead links, yeah, it is something that I need to examine closer. There were some internal hiccups a few weeks ago involving FTP and I'm not sure if I was able to get them resolved for me.

And I still haven't implemented the Origin field. Pretend that I am not lazy and didn't just add it.

Oh, and it will show up at the top of the contact field list. I'm on a phone, and reorganization involves dragging. Dragging is not mobile friendly. u_u will fix later.