Front Page Design Improvements Necessary

[chobo11]

Specifically:
https://literotica.com/
https://literotica.com/stories/

I posted this in "General" but I believe this is a most fitting board.

I've seen there is a lot of hostility towards site suggestions. ​

Ya'll can be as defensive as you want. As a first time user, who is hoping to post some stories I've never released, this is my impression.​

I bring this up because I have been writing stories myself for years. I wanted to try posting them to see how they'd be received. I don't want my exposure to be limited by something that's an easy-fix.​

I want to find a popular website for this type of thing, and the website says to me, "this is for a close-knit veteran group of older folks". There's nothing wrong with that, but its not sustainable long term.​

a different website I know of has a younger crowd, but its maybe even too young, this type of content isn't even permitted there. So I don't know where to go.​

I don't know how old everyone here is...
I'm in a younger crowd, and I can tell you this site will lose popularity if you don't update the early 90's site design.
Look at other websites. search bar at the top, what you want is in large text and the first thing you see. A first time visitor is unlikely to be interested in the Bulletin Board or Site Updates...​

The website layout is very poor.​

• it is very compromised by the initial presentation, I have to go through TWO webpages to finally get to Search Stories. The first two front pages don't look legit. The only reason I kept trying to "get in" was because I remember this website.
  
  
• This is my first time back after years and I can tell you, I struggled to find the story search thing I remember.
  
• if you want new readers/writers, it needs to be easy to use and intuitively accessible to first time visitors, not just older members.
  
  
• The most important things are the hardest to find. When I got the the first page for the first time, I had a hard time finding how to search stories.
  
• First of all, when you first go to it, you are presented with a bunch of categories and writer resources, and the background is this spammy wallpaper. It looks very bad, it will turn people away who discover the site.
  
• The search for stories needs to be the first thing people see. I don't know why this isn't the case, but that is what a new user wants to use first. They will want to search tags, keywords, ratings, views. They don't want to see a curated list.
  
• I don't know who maintains this website, or what its popularity is. I know I used to read it a lot like 6/7 years ago. The stories still have lots of views, but maybe that's old news, maybe its dying, idk.
  
• The site design is decent in all aspects except when you first click on it. The welcoming is the most important part to drawing in new users. I mean look at this, https://www.literotica.com/. the text doesn't even grow to the page. everything is so small... where do I look for stories? where do I login? those things should be at the top or the corner. At the very least, move the site index to the top. I click on the small "stories & pics" hyperlink at the bottom (https://www.literotica.com/stories/) and it takes me to another page where the first thing I see is not stories or pics. its "Resources" "Store" "Community". if I go all the way to the bottom, finally I can find what I'm looking for, "Search Stories".
  
  
• For example, go to this link
  https://www.literotica.com/
  the "Stories & Pics" link is all the way at the bottom in small text. This is literally the core content of the website and its a smaller font than a "Spyware Browser Test" hyperlink in the News section...
  
  
• I don't think it would take a lot of work to do a few simple things like change the background. I would even be willing to help. html isn't that hard.

Here are some comments I made from before:

This is what people expect and what they typically want to use first when they first stumble across a website. I know that's what I want and I can't imagine ANY first time visitor stumbling across this website and having the patience to look through the whole page. It honestly doesn't even look like a website with a database of stories when you first click it. You're greeted with a wall of text. How about displaying trending stories on the side or something.
I guess back then I had always just had the search link come up when I clicked on the stories from google.
But going through the "front door", it looks like a defunct or possibly even broken website.​

I did a quick test, the decline of the website is apparent. Look at the number of views of stories posted in 2000's vs after 2015.
I know there's a bias due to how long tis been sitting there. But the difference is nearly an order of magnitude.​

 

[Thatdurtydawg]

I was paid to build a website for the first time in 1998.
I still do website design and SEO, but it is not my primary interest.

The knee-jerk reaction to your criticism of this site is to tell you that you need to build
your own website, but I am not going to do that.

Buy a domain name.
Pay for hosting.
Buy an SSL certificate.
Upload your redesign of this site on your domain, then post a link to your domain here.

You could also create a subdomain on an active site that you own and post your redesign of this site there and post the link here

HTML is easy, right?

If you lack the programming chops to back up your bullshit, or you are unwilling to create the redesign you describe and post it on the internet with a link posted here, then please feel free to go take a flying fuck at a rolling doughnut.

 

[Thatdurtydawg]

As a first time user, who is hoping to post some stories I've never released, this is my impression.

This is my first time back after years and I can tell you, I struggled to find the story search thing I remember.

I don't know who maintains this website, or what its popularity is. I know I used to read it a lot like 6/7 years ago.

You start as a first time user, but later in your ditzy diatribe it turns out that you have been on this site in the past.

Quality writing.

 

[Thatdurtydawg]

Writing and typing are two very different things

a different website I know of has a younger crowd, but its maybe even too young, this type of content isn't even permitted there.

Since this alleged sentence is an example of your writing, you may not get the positive feedback on your stories that you believe you deserve.

 

[Funit]

You start as a first time user, but later in your ditzy diatribe it turns out that you have been on this site in the past.

Quality writing.

Using the site, as in posting to it, and just reading from it are two different things.

 

[ecorche]

I agree the main landing page design is outdated. I disagree it's turning away a significant number of new users, or that a radical redesign would produce incremental page views. I also disagree with the inherent assumption that a redesign would meet with universal approval. Look at the NaNoWriMo.org train wreck, for example; the bitter hatred for the new site continues to draw posts in their forum. You can't please everyone.

Personally, I'd like a page with a much simpler design. This current website trope of throwing every link and the kitchen sink on the landing page pretty much forces new users to use the browser find utility, no matter how it's organized.

This is my first time back after years and I can tell you, I struggled to find the story search thing I remember.

If you're looking for the "search thing", then you might want to use your browser's find utility and type the word "search". I disagree with your assumption that first-time users will want the search form field. More likely, they're looking for the stories root landing page. I know I was.

I think the best approach is for you to do as Thatdurtydawg suggests. Redesign the landing page and direct us to it. It might not be operable without read-only access to the DB, but you could copy a handful of stories into a DB just for demo purposes.

 

[michelletaylor]

That's nice

 

[chobo11]

I agree the main landing page design is outdated. I disagree it's turning away a significant number of new users, or that a radical redesign would produce incremental page views. I also disagree with the inherent assumption that a redesign would meet with universal approval. Look at the NaNoWriMo.org train wreck, for example; the bitter hatred for the new site continues to draw posts in their forum. You can't please everyone.

Personally, I'd like a page with a much simpler design. This current website trope of throwing every link and the kitchen sink on the landing page pretty much forces new users to use the browser find utility, no matter how it's organized.



If you're looking for the "search thing", then you might want to use your browser's find utility and type the word "search". I disagree with your assumption that first-time users will want the search form field. More likely, they're looking for the stories root landing page. I know I was.

I think the best approach is for you to do as Thatdurtydawg suggests. Redesign the landing page and direct us to it. It might not be operable without read-only access to the DB, but you could copy a handful of stories into a DB just for demo purposes.

The search field costs very little space, compared to a long list of story categories. just put it at the top, it doesn't take up much room, and it's more popular than any sub-category story link individually. This shouldn't really be up for debate, this si simple modern website layout.

 

[redroses3377]

You don't know how to stop, do you? You have to keep whining about the search function. Even if you had a good idea, your attitude about it is a put-off.

 

[ecorche]

Try this:
1. Start at literotica.com.
2. Find the "Stories & Pics" link and follow it.
3. See the invitation to try the new mobile-friendly site? Follow that link.

It is a much cleaner and more navigable design.

The search field costs very little space, compared to a long list of story categories. just put it at the top, it doesn't take up much room, and it's more popular than any sub-category story link individually. This shouldn't really be up for debate, this si simple modern website layout.

You got significant response on this thread, much better than my request to disable autocorrect on the user name login field. I imagine, at this point, your suggestion has been noted by the site admins. Pat yourself on the back, open a beer, and relax.

 

[ObsessiveVoidKitten]

You aren't really wrong. It is now 2024 and the home page still advertises 2022 contests. That's... not good.