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Brandon Sanderson / Re: New BS.com Beta!
« on: September 12, 2007, 06:12:44 AM »
A few thoughts:
1. I like the background. Sorta Elantris-y. But, I'm not sure about the background + the font + the little gems + different colors. It's vaguely starting to resemble one of those captchas, where you have to find the hidden word, among lots of lines, to get past the spam filter.
Can the background be possibly made . . . um, less intense? Less complicated, perhaps?
2. I like the bla bla bla popups. But I think they last too long. Say I'm looking for Warbreaker, and I scroll over the Alcatraz gem. I get a bla bla window that largely obscures the Warbreaker button. And it stays up a few seconds, even after I scroll off of the gem.
3. I kinda like the schedule page myself, currently at http://brandonsanderson.com/article.php?id=45 . I use it to check, once a week more or less, that MB3 hasn't come out yet.
It generally takes me a click or two on BS.com 1.0 to find it. If possible, I'd appreciate having it more prominently available on BS 2.0.
4. Is there a reason not to put annotations as a separate gem? I suspect a lot of people come for those. (Do they?) Sure, you can get to them from the books. But a separate annotations gem couldn't hurt.
5. By the way, what's the relationship between the Menu link, and everything else? Some menu items are separate gems (blog), others (annotations) aren't. It may be confusing to a first-timer. Do they go with the menu, or the gems? Why are they different? Oh no, I can't decide. And there's another reader lost.
6. That nice four-pointed star around Books is great. And, um, where does Dragonsteel go when it arrives? And Scribbler? There may be expandability issues with the current layout. Maybe it would be more expandable with a firmer boundary between books, and rest-of-the-stuff?
7. Why is About Brandon still a link on the bottom? Should that be a gem? I mean, if we're coming to your site, we must care at least a little about who this guy is. (Who is he, anyway? Why am I typing this?)
8. By the way, where are the Euologies? In "other fun stuff"? Why not break out a new gem, and call it "articles" or something. Euologies is a cute title, but maybe a little too inside-baseball for new fans. But really, title aside, new fans might like to read about the rules of magic. And why they should always buy hardback.
9. Also, there's too much duplication. Pages are orphaned, still in little cul-de-sacs. For examlpe, there's basic bio info at http://www.brandonsanderson.com/about . And at http://www.brandonsanderson.com/faq (sort of). And at the Welcome page. A lot of information seems to be around in multiple places. I don't know if that's intentional, but it comes across as a little fragmented.
This may sound like a lot of complaints. Actually, I like the new look quite a bit. It's a good look, and I'm just, ya know, giving a little feedback. Hope it's useful.
Oh, and by the way, the little gem image obscures half of the b in Warbreaker, and (barely) part of the t in Alcatraz. In Firefox. They're both still readable; Warbreaker is the more covered of the two.
(Edit: Added #9.)
1. I like the background. Sorta Elantris-y. But, I'm not sure about the background + the font + the little gems + different colors. It's vaguely starting to resemble one of those captchas, where you have to find the hidden word, among lots of lines, to get past the spam filter.
Can the background be possibly made . . . um, less intense? Less complicated, perhaps?
2. I like the bla bla bla popups. But I think they last too long. Say I'm looking for Warbreaker, and I scroll over the Alcatraz gem. I get a bla bla window that largely obscures the Warbreaker button. And it stays up a few seconds, even after I scroll off of the gem.
3. I kinda like the schedule page myself, currently at http://brandonsanderson.com/article.php?id=45 . I use it to check, once a week more or less, that MB3 hasn't come out yet.
It generally takes me a click or two on BS.com 1.0 to find it. If possible, I'd appreciate having it more prominently available on BS 2.0.
4. Is there a reason not to put annotations as a separate gem? I suspect a lot of people come for those. (Do they?) Sure, you can get to them from the books. But a separate annotations gem couldn't hurt.
5. By the way, what's the relationship between the Menu link, and everything else? Some menu items are separate gems (blog), others (annotations) aren't. It may be confusing to a first-timer. Do they go with the menu, or the gems? Why are they different? Oh no, I can't decide. And there's another reader lost.
6. That nice four-pointed star around Books is great. And, um, where does Dragonsteel go when it arrives? And Scribbler? There may be expandability issues with the current layout. Maybe it would be more expandable with a firmer boundary between books, and rest-of-the-stuff?
7. Why is About Brandon still a link on the bottom? Should that be a gem? I mean, if we're coming to your site, we must care at least a little about who this guy is. (Who is he, anyway? Why am I typing this?)
8. By the way, where are the Euologies? In "other fun stuff"? Why not break out a new gem, and call it "articles" or something. Euologies is a cute title, but maybe a little too inside-baseball for new fans. But really, title aside, new fans might like to read about the rules of magic. And why they should always buy hardback.
9. Also, there's too much duplication. Pages are orphaned, still in little cul-de-sacs. For examlpe, there's basic bio info at http://www.brandonsanderson.com/about . And at http://www.brandonsanderson.com/faq (sort of). And at the Welcome page. A lot of information seems to be around in multiple places. I don't know if that's intentional, but it comes across as a little fragmented.
This may sound like a lot of complaints. Actually, I like the new look quite a bit. It's a good look, and I'm just, ya know, giving a little feedback. Hope it's useful.
Oh, and by the way, the little gem image obscures half of the b in Warbreaker, and (barely) part of the t in Alcatraz. In Firefox. They're both still readable; Warbreaker is the more covered of the two.
(Edit: Added #9.)