New Design and Some Thoughts
Posted by drew on December 7th, 2009 | Visited 2734 times, 1 so far today
Yesterday I launched the new design that I’ve been working on for months. I wanted to focus the change on simplicity and better navigation while enhancing the user experience. The launch wasn’t as smooth as I planned. There were sections that weren’t supposed to be seen (cough) and some errors and dead links came up as I tested it. Those problems have been addressed quickly. If you haven’t noticed there is a search bar below your page if you surf the forum pages. I hope that addresses the never ending issue of members refusing to do a search before posting. I’m not saying don’t post at all, but it helps to search first and see if a topic already exists. More likely than not, an existing post with several replies will prove more helpful than starting a new thread.
Also, in this launch I’m releasing the new Library, which contains guides that touch on different aspects of DotA. These guides are technically also strategies but don’t focus on a specific hero or item. We have a some excellent guides in the Library forum that I expect to port into the new system soon. That way our Library Guides will have their own place on DS for everyone to digest, plus a rating and comment system. The builder, for now, is available to Mods and Vip’s. You will get to use it once all the bugs have been sniffed out. Lastly, our blog obviously does not incorporate the new interface. That will become a reality within the week. So, here’s hoping you’ll enjoy the new DS. Please share your comments and suggestions below if you have any.
December 7th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
I like it, except for the the rolldown list whenever you hover over a section of the site, say Heroes for example. It’s kinda in the way in my opinion, but other than that looks great. =^)
December 7th, 2009 at 7:43 pm
Well the layout is awesome but the LoL advertisement below the “you” section when you go to “Home” you won’t be able to see the drop down menus so i suggest fixing that up and also because of the transparency, some text are being overlapped by the other so that’s not good and the rest is alright and good but still the chatroom that was available before was delay much.
Guess that’s m comment and suggestion.
GJ drew
December 7th, 2009 at 8:41 pm
The new Library guides, however, can be commented on and rated, so come!
December 7th, 2009 at 8:46 pm
Yeh, i’ve had the issue about the “YOU” dropdown menu being blocked by the LoL Ad. Fix plox!
But it’s still 10x better than the old layout!
December 7th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
I love it. Especially the search forum. Much easier to use than the old one.
December 7th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Hmm..
Make it such that when you click a topic on the home-page of the site, it’ll take you to the last page of the topic and not the first.
It’ll be easier to read the latest posts of a topic that way, right?
December 7th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
I just realized that the blog page still has the old layout.
December 7th, 2009 at 11:14 pm
I love the new design <3
December 8th, 2009 at 1:05 am
wooahh..this layout is more awesome than before ^^..i like violets you know
December 8th, 2009 at 3:12 am
I like the new design but my computer is experiencing some difficulties with it. Each time I hover over a button and move away, the tab stays there for quite some time before going away. Also, for some reason, when I came to this page, I see the former design, not the new design. What I find a bit troublesome is the search bar at the bottom of the screen. It takes up quite a lot of space on my small screen so I cannot really view much at a time. Good job by the way!
Regards,
Plasmas09
December 8th, 2009 at 4:13 am
Kudos! Nice job.
Just my opinion but there should be a direct ‘Blog’ button instead of hovering over ‘Home’. Maybe the ‘Strategies’ button can be replaced coz the 5 latest guides already form a part of the front page and people like hero database for searching strategies.
December 8th, 2009 at 6:57 am
For the record, I found the banner image. Of course, I went “No we can’t use this, what about this one?” and I was overruled by the awesome one and it works now obviously. Its all drew.
December 8th, 2009 at 10:09 pm
Oh, you might want to update the non-forum, non-strategy sections, like the Help, About, Blog, etc. And make posts on the home page go to the LAST page, not the first, if someone is checking a thread, they usually want to go to the latest post, not the opening one.
December 9th, 2009 at 4:51 am
when you come here it goes back to the old thing which is not consistent. so i suggest you change this area too to keep consistency. also the YOU button is gay as well. stupid adds. anyway its all nice but i dun like how the heroes and items are together make them separate and its all good. XD.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:30 am
I think the return of the sidebar would be the most awesome thing you could give me this Christmas, Drew.
December 9th, 2009 at 5:53 am
i love it!but everyone said theres this chat thing on ds?
December 9th, 2009 at 5:56 am
i loled when i came to this section..
December 9th, 2009 at 9:20 am
“You have exceeded the alloted amount of posts and will not earn anything for your post”
so does that means i wont get gold and post count?
December 9th, 2009 at 9:22 am
“You have exceeded the alloted amount of posts and will not earn anything for your post”
so does that means i wont get gold and post count?
and can anyone tell me why this happened?
December 9th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
its a new layout for DS community, although not yet a new year. ^_^
thanks drew!
December 10th, 2009 at 3:54 pm
please please please have a separate button for heroes. makes my user experience so much more enjoyable
December 11th, 2009 at 11:12 pm
I want play
December 16th, 2009 at 3:18 am
it’s great!