Site Suggestions

For "New Navigation" for a "New User", the interface is divine. As a person who is used to following the rules of design, I tend to find everything quite quickly. However, for those more "art and literature" oriented folks.... a great way to help ease the intimidation of new navigation might be to offer an interactive 'tutorial' mode.

You've got these great little information / help hover-popups (the little question marks?)---but what about pushing that to the max and offering an actual Mode for the site to go into for each user. A Tutorial Mode, if you will.
Specifically: tutorials that are integrated to encompass an ultimate link and module augmentation multi-tool. The goal would be to provide users with excellent previews, useful extra information, and relevant next actions for almost any given link, section, or module on any given page. In short, hover over anything and see the same sort of brief but informative hover-pop that explains EVERYTHING like we're 2year olds. That would rock. One could even go so far as to integrate a FAQ mode right into the same multi-tool.

As well, on a more low-key note... I'd really like the ability to arrange my portfolio in any way I see fit. most especially to make my portfolio on my profile page more attractive to first time visitors. I know the pieces that catch attention immediately, and that in combination with your ultra-cool thumbnail-cropping would offer us all a huge amount of flexibility in self-promotion.

This one's a little out there---most especially with the gorgeous page you already have for it---but a sidebar that houses all of our control panel options would rock. Perhaps a pop-out or slide-out function? With the huge amount of customization options you guys give, it would be nice to have it condensed and accessible on the fly. It could even be utilized for more site-inclusive things, not unlike our desktop sidebars. Time, Date, Browsing, perhaps even allow an option for our Network Activity etc?

Ah, okay. My ears are steaming, I'd better stop. But I think for the future of your site some of those (while probably a long way off) could be pretty usefull!

I can agree with all those suggestions even though right now i have not yet learned how to use everything on this site to its full potential.

It's very cluttered when you first come here (which i like because it means there's allot to explore) so the first suggestion would make sense.

I generally understand what you're trying to say. The biggest problem with a site this big is introducing newbies to where everything is. One of the things on our todo list for the short term is to make a series of screencasts with narration that would cover two distinct topics. One would be promotional. To really show off the customization system (which in our opinion is our crown jewel) we have to actually get someone to sign up first. Instead we'd like to show it off with a nice screencast to get people to sign up in the first place. Of course the other distinct aspect of screencasts would be a series of video tutorial on how to do things on the site. Of course little helper things on the site would also help but we don't wanna overdo it. A "help mode" might be a good idea to do that while not pissing off all the veteran users.

These are all things we are actively pursuing but there is a trade off. Every minute we spend doing things like this we aren't developing new features and since there's only three of us it's a bit overwhelming. One of the things the community could help us with is actually helping us build these video tutorials. The good ones might actually be used on the site officially (with permission of course).

Certainly. Grasped entirely. I was thinking with the tut-mode I was suggesting (primarily aimed at site navigation), that it could be turned on & off. But a general Help Mode would be just as significant. *nods* Definitely.

I love the idea of screencasts---very familiar with them---and especially interesting is the mention of video tutorials. I know a little about that.

Everyone wants a "real" person (provided they're personable [sic]) to latch on to when they're learning or being introduced to something. I can't say how many times I've wanted to throw the phone when dealing with my cable company's automated "let's talk to each other" system. Gawd, thinking about it now I wanna strangle someone. I don't want to interact with someone, I just want someone cool to show me what to do! I mean, is that recorded voice even human? She's never cracked a joke at me, no, not once. Okay, maybe when she asked me if I knew what an ethernet cable was... lol ... but not aside from that!

Anyway, while I was volunteering for deviantART I was on a special project geared towards tutorials. The whole thing fell apart, ultimately, but I was very interested in the whole topic... even having mocked up a complete section in PDF format while working as a writing-lead to help with the camtasia freaks working the other end. It was fun, but I'm honest enough to understand the focus should have been tighter on it. Tough for them, huh?

Perhaps once i get better acclimated to the site I'll feel confident enough to put out some video tuts for the peeps here. *lifts a brow*

In the meantime, wish you lots of luck, and if there's anything i can do to help don't hesitate to ask.
Thanks so much for everything you guys have done so far! You've definitely got your hands full with just the three of you. Whew. But I love this place as instantly as I've come here, and you've got my full support.

*salute*

-AHiL

On the lines of site suggestions; some method of printing would be lovely sometime in the future. I know it's early days yet, and something like that takes a lot of time, money and more to set up, but it's just a little idea that occurred to me.

AHiL's tutorial idea appeals to me also and I'd be happy to help with small things like that.

Maybe a volunteer position for people willing to help newbies get a feel for it all might be a useful way to introduce new users to all the features.


On a side note this site is extremely powerful and very well designed, for three guys to do so much is quite extraordinary.


~Skelly

We have discuss having a print system a few times now and we do plan having that feature in the near future so stay tune for updates as for the volunteer position once the group system is done I am sure their is going to be a group dedicated to helping artician (volunteers) so that will be very fun.

Thanks for the great ideas and suggestion guys, keep them coming!