Zingiber
Literotica Guru
- Joined
- Jul 12, 2002
- Posts
- 913
Here are some of my thoughts on CHYOO's look, feel, and navigation. Mostly these are quibbles and annoyances; overall, the site seems to be well-conceived.
First, I'd second the other contributors who wanted more search options. Search by "stories with most recent threads approved" would be good. It would certainly beat "newest stories added" for me. Often I have my eye on some combination of recent activity and moderately deep threading. It can take some clicking around to discover these.
Second, the "front page" of the story. I'd like to get to the "about" page of the story, but there doesn't seem to be a link on the front page; only on the text thread pages. And for the "type in the character's name" stories, it would be nice if the story *remembered* what you typed in when you returned (via "Start Over") to the front page. Saving 12 keystrokes and a mouse click...well, it counts.
In addition, the front page doesn't have an easy navigation link back to its topic category. For a web site that's (mostly) hierarchical in how the stories are arranged, it really helps if that hierarchical navigation is available, especially at points a reader might return to when done with a story.
A technical note: browsing threads with the text browser Lynx causes a 1-5 "rating" to be registered even if the rating selector is not moved (in this case, it's 5). I'm not sure whether this is Lynx's problem in insisting at least one radio button of a set must be selected (and choosing the first one). If you think it's relevant (ask your webserver log how many Lynx users there are?), you might add another radio button, "No Rating", and default to that.
So, if I were to rate CHYOO's navigation and structure on a 1 to 5 scale, I'd say.... 3. Some obvious room to improve, but not too bad.
- Z.
First, I'd second the other contributors who wanted more search options. Search by "stories with most recent threads approved" would be good. It would certainly beat "newest stories added" for me. Often I have my eye on some combination of recent activity and moderately deep threading. It can take some clicking around to discover these.
Second, the "front page" of the story. I'd like to get to the "about" page of the story, but there doesn't seem to be a link on the front page; only on the text thread pages. And for the "type in the character's name" stories, it would be nice if the story *remembered* what you typed in when you returned (via "Start Over") to the front page. Saving 12 keystrokes and a mouse click...well, it counts.
In addition, the front page doesn't have an easy navigation link back to its topic category. For a web site that's (mostly) hierarchical in how the stories are arranged, it really helps if that hierarchical navigation is available, especially at points a reader might return to when done with a story.
A technical note: browsing threads with the text browser Lynx causes a 1-5 "rating" to be registered even if the rating selector is not moved (in this case, it's 5). I'm not sure whether this is Lynx's problem in insisting at least one radio button of a set must be selected (and choosing the first one). If you think it's relevant (ask your webserver log how many Lynx users there are?), you might add another radio button, "No Rating", and default to that.
So, if I were to rate CHYOO's navigation and structure on a 1 to 5 scale, I'd say.... 3. Some obvious room to improve, but not too bad.
- Z.
