What's In A Website

[Dust Raven]

I'm working on remaking my website and would like to get a sampling of what people look for when visiting a gamer site. Currently, I have rough descriptions of current and past campaigns, characters, house rules and a list of quotes from the table. This is for Hero System, D&D and a few other games I play/run. What else would you look for in such a site?

Also, what's important to you in layout and site navigation? Do you like sites with a hoard of pages linked to off a main home page, or more of a tree structure? Do you prefer spiffy navigation bars on the top or sides that stay the same for all pages, or just use page to page links and the back button?

Anything else you like to see? Animated icons? Flash intro pages? Background music?

[Spence]

For myself I like sites with clear, distinct and LOGICAL links. I really dislike "cute names" for things "just to be Cool". For example. Renaming "Links" with "Portal" and such. I prefer the option to decide if I want to see the "regular" page or be subjected to bandwidth consuming but essentially useless gimmee gaws (music, animation and so on).

Take the Hero site. The Boards are accessed via the link called “Discussion Boards”. The FAQ’s are found by clicking FAQ’s. I go to site because I am interested in the subject and want to access info it hosts. Not play hide-n-seek or guessing games.

[ghost-angel]

I like how my site is structured (for the obvious statement of the day).

http://www.cellularsmoke.net

Clean presentation, clear navigation on all pages, and information.

Personally, instead of a bunch of "Coming Soon" pages I just leave them off and add them as I get the time/inclination. That feels much cleaner to me. Sometimes a note of "I'm currently working to expand this area" works just fine.

[Spence]

I like how my site is structured (for the obvious statement of the day).

http://www.cellularsmoke.net

Clean presentation, clear navigation on all pages, and information.

Personally, instead of a bunch of "Coming Soon" pages I just leave them off and add them as I get the time/inclination. That feels much cleaner to me. Sometimes a note of "I'm currently working to expand this area" works just fine.

Just the type I like. I can easily navigate it without useless fluff.

Good site IMO.

[Cancer]

I admit I am a troglodyte and like nothing besides content. (I also access the web at home via a 56k modem, which means I hate, positively hate, gratuitous graphics, especially animations.) "Brutal simplicity" is a treasured virtue. My favorite informational site is here, virtually unchanged from its form in 1994.

[Dust Raven]

Simple is good. Cool site btw Ghost-Angel. I'm a high speed graphics buff, and an ameteur graphic artist. I think I can hold back though. I think I went too far with my current site. Hopefully I'm heading in the right direction now, but since my primary audience is meant to be gamers, I figured I should check to see what every likes and hates. If someone's not gonna like my site, I'd like it to be because they don't like the content rather than because they don't like the presentation.

[keithcurtis]

You're welcome to look at my Savage Earth site (link is in the sig below). I admit that it tends to be graphics heavy, but the graphics have gotten me several jobs. In many ways it is an online portfolio.

If anyone has suggestions on how to clean up the structure (without a tone of work, as I am extremely lazy), I'd be glad to hear them.

Keith "cheap advice is easily sought and easily ignored" Curtis

[ghost-angel]

Not to graphics heavy, navigation stays in one spot, sites fine Keith.

[SteveZilla]

I was the webmaster for the Global Guardians for about 2 years. Important aspects to keep someone who is just browsing would be:

1. Loads quickly on a 56k connection. Use graphics sparingly, and limit graphics to small images. It's still possible to do good backgrounds and borders with small image files.

2. Easy, logical navigation. Keep the "main" navigation links in the same location across all the pages.

3. No broken links (both images and links to other pages).

4. Don't use overly long pages, even though some scrolling is to be expected.

5. Use easy to read fonts & colors. Keep in mind it will be viewed on different types of screens at different resolutions, and even on different kinds of computers like both PCs and Macs.

6. Spell check and use good grammar!

If you follow these pointers, whatever website you develop should be a good one.

[copeab]

Also, what's important to you in layout and site navigation? Do you like sites with a hoard of pages linked to off a main home page, or more of a tree structure? Do you prefer spiffy navigation bars on the top or sides that stay the same for all pages, or just use page to page links and the back button?

I prefer tree structure. I prefer simple links to navigation bars on pages.

Anything else you like to see? Animated icons? Flash intro pages? Background music?

Absolutely none of those. I frequently rant about website developers treating dial-up users as if they don't exist, so I'll refrain from doing it here.

http://www.geocities.com/copeab/

[SteveZilla]

Quick note. If you do for some reason use background music, please, please, please give the person browsing the page the controls to stop, start, and adjust the volume.

There is nothing more annoying than loud background music that you can't turn off or have to hunt for 5 minutes for the out-of-the-way controls.

I don't see the use of a splash page, flash or no. It's just one more step to get to what they are looking for, and is thus one more hurdle. Mouseover effects are fine as long as you comply with aspects #1 & #5.

[ghost-angel]

All music/noise/sound on a website should be abolished unless it is a music/band website with easy to find controls to turn the crap off.

Any website interfereing with my music is usually ditched before it's even done loading.

I hate noise on a website.

[Spence]

All music/noise/sound on a website should be abolished unless it is a music/band website with easy to find controls to turn the crap off.

Any website interfereing with my music is usually ditched before it's even done loading.

I hate noise on a website.

So I take it you dislike those wonders of enjoyment, website music? Really?

[Vondy]

I hate noise on a website.

I hate noise that started without my permission on a website.

[Dust Raven]

I have noise on dustraven.net, but only on the launch page. There's an obvious stop button and a link to take you to the homepage. Hopefully that's not too much. If so, it's not my primary site, just making use of a program from work that builds web pages. The flash intro/music is just one of the features available that I turned on.