spitfire1945 Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Hello I am looking to get some serious critique of my website www.icantradegames.ca and I am curious what I would add/edit/change about the website to make it more appealing. The premise of the website is for the Canadian gaming population to be able to add games then edit their trade in values for 3 different stores as they are known... the rest of the stuff is just extras. I feel that I didn't do a good enough job to appeal to the lazy population. So please and thanks! Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Here are my observations / thoughts: Your site doesn't validate Neither does your CSS Perhaps a 'Contact Us' in your top menu? Just to give people an obvious place to check it to see how to reach you with any questions they may have. In fact, one suggestion can go so far as to merge feeback, bug report and general contact inquiries into one contact page. Make things convenient to find.. not buried within the Learn more page as some link 'hiding' within a sentence somewhere... I would perhaps consider sprucing up the header a bit.. perhaps come up with a nice eye catching logo... Overall, I do like the look of the site.. (can't miss that search field! - And even this can be spruced up.. a nice search button by example...) But things need to be dressed up a littlebit.. perhaps in conjunction with a fresh header logo, adding some nice clean and professional icons.. so by example on the home page, perhaps a nice little icon for '10 Latest Games', a Twitter icon for your twitter section. Doesn't have to be super fancy.. just to spruce up the look a bit. There are free icon resources out there to help with these kind of things. (Feedback, which again, I would incorporate into one streamlined Contact page, as a good example of needing some more professional looking graphics. I was actually expecting the Reaktiv logo in the footer to link to some Reaktiv site.. if there is one, perhaps adding a link to the image to jump to the parent site? Overall, I do like how clean and simple it is... Just in need of making it visually more professional IMO. But it's not horrible by any stretch. Just want to make first impressions strong enough to entice people to join. On that note, any incentives to join? Any offers of any sort? Perhaps some promotional offer or something... just throwing ideas to the wind here... Pretty good start though. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-757852 Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfire1945 Posted February 9, 2009 Author Share Posted February 9, 2009 thank you nrg_alpha, i had a particular complaint that it was "too tedious" to add information to the website. Any thoughts on how to improve that? you can login using user: demo pass: demo Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-757934 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted February 9, 2009 Share Posted February 9, 2009 Ok, here are my opinions with logging in and adding game info.. For the 'Account' page: This is minor, but I would consider slightly changing the layout of the account page when you have logged in. Currently, you have the entire top part (Your Account) dedicated to your avatar (with Joined date, Games added, etc..). Then you have the section below it (Tell us about yourself). I would suggest re-ording it, perhaps to something like this (not perfect, but you get the idea). Makes better use of space and just streamlines things somewhat... For the 'Add Game' page: ok, this one is admittedly non-friendly.. not from a layout / functionality point, as this is well done.. my problems are as follows:Should put a note that all fields with * are required (this is your typical form rule)... Boxart field.. hmm.. Some people might miss the section on the right about helping find the box art..This is a bit much... There must be an easier way for the user... make this optional perhaps? (or have your system internall find it through some automated process? I can certainly see the advantage of having a game cover.. but are users really expecting to go through this much trouble? Will this be enough of a turn off to not use the site anymore? Trade in values... I feel this might fall into the similar category as box art... As an user, I have to go to EBGames, Futureshop or Blockbuster and fetch the current going price? So definitely, it's not as smooth as can be with regards to the 'Add game' section. By example, After I registered, I went stright to the 'Add game', and started adding 'Project Gotham Racing 4', I even bothered to fetch the box art off of Google, and filled out what I can.. what am I greeted with when I submit? 'Error: Your game already exists. Project Gotham Racing 4' Hmm.. I went through all this only to be greeted with that error.. this alone is telling of the need to simplify things.. perhaps adding a game in 2 steps.. Step one.. Check whether the game you wish to enter already exists.. this can take on a few forms.. a) enter game title in a field and have the user submit it... then have your database check to see if this game has already been entered.. if so, let the user know that this game has already been entered.. if no such game title has been found, then proceed to the current form you have...Could save the user some work / frustration. b) Perhaps you can also include some form of current catelog that is presented in alphabetical order along the top - think perhaps a-z links.. so the user can first click on 'P' to see if Project Gotham Racing is already listed.. or something to that effect... In either case, I can definitely see why you are having issues. It's getting there though. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-758215 Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfire1945 Posted February 20, 2009 Author Share Posted February 20, 2009 Hey alpha i took some stuff you said into consideration and was wondering whether its better now or not... www.icantradegames.com Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-766870 Share on other sites More sharing options...
jcombs_31 Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 Too much green. It is overbearing. I think instead of a video being on the main page that area should have some text describing the website and then possible link to the video or put it below. Gaming sites usually are themed a little bit more towards gaming with gaming graphics and branding. Your site doesn't have any of that. I'm on the fence about the accordion menu on the main page. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-767186 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 Hey spitfire, MUCH Better! At least now people can check out your game catelogue first. Excellent start. Just a few points of concern. I noticed your video on the homepage (excellent video by the way... nicely done and instructive) starts downloading on page visit. This is a bad idea because you are wasting two people's bandwidth.. yours and mine. I would make it so that the user has to hit the play button to initiate video downloading( usually, a-la youtube, there is a play button superimposed on the video, prompting the user to click to play). Just makes managing bandwidth that much smarter. The homepage catalog is very nice! Perhaps including a small text message just above it describing to viewers that these sections contain games already registered, and to remind them to check first prior to submittions? Never hurts to give brief explanations to the visitors. Yes, I know the video does this, but again, if you take my first suggestion into account, some users may be using dialup or have low monthly bandwidth and may want to avoid the video. With Javascript turned off, it's great that the catalog panels that show the alphabet are open automatically, but when I click on any letter, nothing happens (perhaps this is still in progress?). Ok, so I logged in (Demo for user / password), and checked to see if Street Fighter 4 (man that game rocks... makes me want to go back into game development... er.. maybe I'll just stick to playing them instead ) was listed under Xbox 360. Nope, it isn't. Cool.. I goto 'Add Game', and start filling out the game info (Futureshop has it listed for $35 dollars). So I do the optional boxart / trailor stuff (thanks for listing it as optional.. makes more sense to the user now). and this is what I get after a minute or two for waiting upon hitting submit. Couple of things to consider from that screenshot... Notice the errors for wanting URLs from Wikipedia and Youtube? It would perhaps be wise to embed this info within the optional section somewhere. But more importantly, here are the complete URLs I pasted into the boxart and tralier fields respectively: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a0/SFIVXboxUS.jpg http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Street+Fighter+4+trailer&search_type=&aq=f Are these not wikipedia / youtube links? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something here. The other aspect of the error message is that 'we may have your game'. hmmm... Not sure? (I included a shot of the S listing for 360 in the screenshot.. and as you can see.. Street Fighter 4 isn't there). So I'm admittedly skeptical about that message. So while the process is an improvement to be sure, it's not quite there IMO. Getting Oh-so-close however. Overall, a big improvement though.. keep going! Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-767192 Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfire1945 Posted February 20, 2009 Author Share Posted February 20, 2009 Hey spitfire, MUCH Better! At least now people can check out your game catelogue first. Excellent start. Just a few points of concern. I noticed your video on the homepage (excellent video by the way... nicely done and instructive) starts downloading on page visit. This is a bad idea because you are wasting two people's bandwidth.. yours and mine. I would make it so that the user has to hit the play button to initiate video downloading( usually, a-la youtube, there is a play button superimposed on the video, prompting the user to click to play). Just makes managing bandwidth that much smarter. Yeah I should look into that. That flash controller isn't the best. That's a valid point and not to mention it also hangs my twitter app on the side. The homepage catalog is very nice! Perhaps including a small text message just above it describing to viewers that these sections contain games already registered, and to remind them to check first prior to submittions? Never hurts to give brief explanations to the visitors. Yes, I know the video does this, but again, if you take my first suggestion into account, some users may be using dialup or have low monthly bandwidth and may want to avoid the video. I will certainly do that. Seems like a good idea. I wish there was a way to detect bandwidth via php. With Javascript turned off, it's great that the catalog panels that show the alphabet are open automatically, but when I click on any letter, nothing happens (perhaps this is still in progress?). Yeah the Ajax died when javascript was turned off. I don't think I can avoid that. Ok, so I logged in (Demo for user / password), and checked to see if Street Fighter 4 (man that game rocks... makes me want to go back into game development... er.. maybe I'll just stick to playing them instead ) was listed under Xbox 360. Nope, it isn't. Cool.. I goto 'Add Game', and start filling out the game info (Futureshop has it listed for $35 dollars). So I do the optional boxart / trailor stuff (thanks for listing it as optional.. makes more sense to the user now). and this is what I get after a minute or two for waiting upon hitting submit. Couple of things to consider from that screenshot... Notice the errors for wanting URLs from Wikipedia and Youtube? It would perhaps be wise to embed this info within the optional section somewhere. But more importantly, here are the complete URLs I pasted into the boxart and tralier fields respectively: http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/a/a0/SFIVXboxUS.jpg The image worked: http://www.icantradegames.com/index.php?action=game&gameid=148 I have absolutely no clue what happened there. All it checks for is the format and whether if the link is alive or not. And it should have worked. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Street+Fighter+4+trailer&search_type=&aq=f I should probably specify this and I know this is my error. That link wont work but http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUHmTSJ7b-Q will work. Are these not wikipedia / youtube links? Perhaps I'm misunderstanding something here. The other aspect of the error message is that 'we may have your game'. hmmm... Not sure? (I included a shot of the S listing for 360 in the screenshot.. and as you can see.. Street Fighter 4 isn't there). So I'm admittedly skeptical about that message. Yeah the suggestion feature needs to be tweaked. But you can simply click. No this is genuine and it will go away. So while the process is an improvement to be sure, it's not quite there IMO. Getting Oh-so-close however. Overall, a big improvement though.. keep going! Thanks! Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-767453 Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfire1945 Posted February 20, 2009 Author Share Posted February 20, 2009 Too much green. It is overbearing. I think instead of a video being on the main page that area should have some text describing the website and then possible link to the video or put it below. Gaming sites usually are themed a little bit more towards gaming with gaming graphics and branding. Your site doesn't have any of that. I'm on the fence about the accordion menu on the main page. thanks jcombs. I was going for a conservative look of 3-4 colours using vectors. This is not a game site but an information website. I could have easily made it look like gamespot's dark theme or something similar but i didn't wish too. Although I will take your advice into consideration and throw some graphics in there. I will also try to cut down the green. I hear yah. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-767456 Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrg_alpha Posted February 20, 2009 Share Posted February 20, 2009 You know spitfire.. after reading jcombs' comment about being on the fence with regards to the collapsable panels.. got me thinking... Perhaps an alternative to those panels (which I personally don't mind, but that's just one opinion), you could mock it up similar to this. Makes more efficient use of space and keeps things perhaps lighter / cleaner looking. I'm sure you can reuse some of the code for the text boxes / alphabet links. Just something to consider. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-767484 Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfire1945 Posted February 20, 2009 Author Share Posted February 20, 2009 You know spitfire.. after reading jcombs' comment about being on the fence with regards to the collapsable panels.. got me thinking... Perhaps an alternative to those panels (which I personally don't mind, but that's just one opinion), you could mock it up similar to this. Makes more efficient use of space and keeps things perhaps lighter / cleaner looking. I'm sure you can reuse some of the code for the text boxes / alphabet links. Just something to consider. Hmmm... fascinating.. ill try to get that working. Surprisingly that is a bit more of a challenge when it comes to coding. But I will give it a shot. It does reduce the excessive green. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-767496 Share on other sites More sharing options...
spitfire1945 Posted February 22, 2009 Author Share Posted February 22, 2009 I noticed your video on the homepage (excellent video by the way... nicely done and instructive) starts downloading on page visit. This is a bad idea because you are wasting two people's bandwidth.. yours and mine. I would make it so that the user has to hit the play button to initiate video downloading( usually, a-la youtube, there is a play button superimposed on the video, prompting the user to click to play). Just makes managing bandwidth that much smarter. The homepage catalog is very nice! Perhaps including a small text message just above it describing to viewers that these sections contain games already registered, and to remind them to check first prior to submittions? Never hurts to give brief explanations to the visitors. Yes, I know the video does this, but again, if you take my first suggestion into account, some users may be using dialup or have low monthly bandwidth and may want to avoid the video. Hey alpha, I solved that issue with the help of some little javascript Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-768284 Share on other sites More sharing options...
kronos Posted February 28, 2009 Share Posted February 28, 2009 Hello I am looking to get some serious critique of my website www.icantradegames.ca and I am curious what I would add/edit/change about the website to make it more appealing. The premise of the website is for the Canadian gaming population to be able to add games then edit their trade in values for 3 different stores as they are known... the rest of the stuff is just extras. I feel that I didn't do a good enough job to appeal to the lazy population. So please and thanks! It's kind of like tivs.ca except with way less info. Also, "reaktiv" media? http://www.reaktivmedia.com/ ? Looks like that business name is already taken. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-773377 Share on other sites More sharing options...
DarkSuperHero Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 I have to say as of seeing your site I love the way it was layed out...seemed a bit blank on information but i think that will only get better. Easy to find what i was looking for..and it made me want to browse some more.. 10/10 from me...apologies, I didnt really provide any constructive critizism... :-) Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-773525 Share on other sites More sharing options...
maxudaskin Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 Please excuse me if I said something that has already been said, as I have not bothered to read the responses, but here is what I think. First Response: Vibrant yet subtle. Modern and readable. Main point is to search for (a) game(s). I noticed that you are missing the Personal Computer catagory. I would put a medium grey (CCCCCC) border around the flash tutorial as it first appears to be empty space. When you don't enter any terms in the search bar, the output, "You didn't search for anything silly" seems childish. I like your 'search term not found' message, "Sorry no results for "search term"" I went to search for BF2 (BattleField 2), but I got the message, "Your search is either too long too short", I would suggest that you allow for game aliases to be searched too. Eg. COD, BF2, DDR In the game list, I'd differentiate each row from each other (White, Grey, White, Grey) I do not like the hover images for the main menu. It looks like it is from early in this decade. Overall: I like it, a few tweaks will make it perfect. Quote Link to comment https://forums.phpfreaks.com/topic/144409-a-serious-critique-of-icantradegames/#findComment-773586 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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