I wouldn't But thats just me.
Personally I find the site hadrd to navigate at present, things hard to find etc.
if it were easier to navigate around I would probably spend more time here.
Sorry if thats no help, and don't take it personally, just my advice.
Hey Smiley - thank you for your suggestion. Navigation, eh? So what about navigation should I look at?
I would love to see the site used more. What can I improve? Any examples? Thanks!
Nimzie,
honestly, you have too much happening on the site, clean clean clean, if it hasn't been used get rid of it.
you have a forum built into a site, why not build a site around the forum where teh threads and posts are the main attraction.
Navigation for me might be becasue I use IE6 rather the a newer version(long story including some crashed programs), I find it combersome to get to the forums I want, Instant messaging, etc.
Combine the Forums, Classifieds, Groups, etc into one Forum woudl make it a little easier to run around and see stuff.
But I mean it all depends on what you want to accheive with the site and the clientelle you want to attract.
I must say though that a lot of the decline in traffic on the site is probably due to Facebook, Tritter, etc. sites where people can netwrk with everyone and anything....friggan marketing GOLD MINE!
Last thing, the color scheme is a bit off depending on who your looking to attract too, if you look at the tones of the existing bike brands and such they are all loud colors with popping graffics you may wish to evolve with that trend to stay current.
And please don't take any of these personally, they are meant to help you and the site survive and are in no way a "shit on you/cogeyed" rant.
Thanks
Smiley.
thanks for the note, smiley.
I do know what you mean by perhaps there are too many main items in the fold. Perhaps I need to move things around a little bit and maybe get rid of a few things. Which? I'm not sure.
I like the idea of a separate classified to the forum cause I can apply expiration dates etc so the threads clean themselves up.
The status bit could go. I don't really see a whole lot of value there.
I struggle with the videos / photos bit. I would love this place to get used more for that - but you are right. No one can compete with facebook. The only issue is this isn't meant to be facebook. I know the original look was very facebook and it was done by a designer (sort of). From there, I gutted it and took just the font colors and logo.
Now I have a somewhat good looking start but likely too airy in colors. And .. I'm nowhere near being a designer!
Not sure what would help most in making this product sing. Am always looking for feedback though... constructive stuff would be best :)
I agree the status thing could go
Chat feature is not osmething I would use
how about a ride planing section?
is there an RSS feed already?
thanks andrew
Personally, I go to site that provides something to read or watch. I especially like one that aren't completely bike-centric. Articles, blog stuff, things of that nature. I'll use facebook or email or a telephone if i want to chat. content is what keeps me going back to a site.
Chris, I hear ya. I've been struggling to figure out if I should aggregate other news sites in (pinkbike, NSMB, cycling news etc) or if I should up my booze budget and get to writing. I've got a GPS enabled contour camera coming very soon (I hope) which will get me video blogging and all kinds of neat things I've got planned.
As for content, it would be great to get more of it on here. Pics, videos and writing.
I think just about everyone on here has the ability to blog. Would that get used?
I may experiment with the status thing and nuking that. May take a third look at what I want the site to be and modify the front page accordingly. You're right - it's a mishmash of too much stuff... I'm no designer so I struggle with that part of things.
-a
would you folks spend more time here if you could chat? Kind of like le facebook?
I don't see value in a chat feature for this site.....I could be proved wrong. I don't know the answer but something similar to ECMTB.com may get closer to the target.
When you say closer to ecmtb.com, what do you mean? I found the site itself sucked. it was the people on there talking and posting that made my days on there fun.
I've removed a bunch of things in hopes of gradually reintroducing things once I've got a handful of new goals under wraps (fix profile pages, galleries and speed up the server). Removed the status stuff and the external video block on the front page. No one seems to be using the video library either, but I know people want videos. Most folks aren't on here making videos, they're sharing them from other sites. Will try and stay more on this in the future as I also try and focus on some semi meaningful post (or re-post from another site) at least a few times per week.
Would love to see people on here blogging a bit. We all ride a lot - or so I thought. Let's hear about your rides, your gear, your bike, your dream trip. Under writings, click New Blog and get posting! Things are pretty open for now, but I'm going to try and introduce some method of moderation for the blog postings (should they commence to get used a bit more).
You can also cross post things to facebook if you are connected through here. It's really easy and you barely do anything to get this to happen. Why not join conversations from one community to another?
Bla bla bla... hallowe'en candy bla... enjoy!
I agree it was the people on there posting that made it work. What I mean by "closer to ecmtb.com" is the sheer simplicity of the site as well as knowing you're getting most of the important info relevant to the local MTB community in one quick check.
I'd like to see a strong East Coast community on line where as much MTB related info can be shared as possible.
As far a joining conversations from one community to another, I think that's an idea that could work. I'm not on facebook, but I am registered on pedal trout (as I expect some other folks reading this are). My life would be bit simpler if I could just sign on to one east coast biking related forum as opposed to two......yes I'm being lazy but if there was a central feed between the two to check out that would be cool. There are a lot of redundant posts between the two sites, however there is a nice variety of content between the two sites as well.
I really enjoy all these 'make it simple' ideas from the people who forget the 'we want more' posts they made on ECMTB. If people are seriously overwhelmed by this website then it's time you started questioning your internet-ing ability.
I really enjoy all these 'make it simple' ideas from the people who forget the 'we want more' posts they made on ECMTB. If people are seriously overwhelmed by this website then it's time you started questioning your internet-ing ability.
I guess you can't please them all.
09man,
It's about making it simply WHILE giving more. Look at Facebook, simple design with LOOOOOOTS of added features if you want them.
if you want a site for a forum, keep it a forum, omit the other stuff or create spots in the forum for it.
I actually don't think it's design, or for any reason really that site traffic has declined, I think many sites are experiencing declines in traffic unless your have XXX in your title and have less clothes then Britney Spears on a Friday morning...
If it were I, (and it's not so it's ok), I would stripe out the forum and utilize it as my site, add in content through that or build a site around the forum....and woudl change the coloring to something a bit more crisp then the earthy and washed out whites there is now. But this is my take on the site, and I'm one for Simplicity, organized and streamlined sites.
and, the coding has never worked right for me on this new site, I get errors and some links don't work, but it's probably becasue I'm using firefox and IE6.0
Cheers!
Smiley - All good points aside, ditch IE6. It's the bain of this whole industry. Seriously. Not even Microsoft supports it.
If your company is having issues weaning itself off IE, give me a call. I can help out.
09man,
It's about making it simply WHILE giving more. Look at Facebook, simple design with LOOOOOOTS of added features if you want them.
How much time do you spend on Facebook a day versus Cogeyed? I think you have your answer to why it's more familiar to you.
Whenever Facebook changes it's layout everyone complains too... because they aren't familiar with the new design whether it's more simple or not.
I would like to understand more of what is so complicated? I know there's too much whitespace and hopefully some day I'll be able to dedicate some $/time to a nicer design.
My typical visit is either by email notification, because I am subscribed to certain threads or I just hover over forum and click view new posts. That's the heartbeat of what used to drive ecmtb's forum.
The idea of these other things is they're there if you want them. I took the facebook status stuff out. I agree - it was kind of useless clutter of twitter-like comments which could just as easily be made on the forum.
I don't want this site to be just a forum though. I liked the galleries of ecmtb as well. I know the galleries here aren't super duper the best, but they do allow for posting pics. We don't have nor will likely ever have the bandwidth to support our own video hosting, so with the next best thing - we're using youtube (etc) video embeds. Some people come only for those or pictures. Some people come to lurk (view new posts).
I am looking in to a way to allow posting of videos directly from here through to a cogeyed specific youtube channel. That will be a bit slick, but a bit off. I think my next bit of energy focus will be on site speed and usability. I do need examples of what isn't looking right.
Don't give me examples from IE6 though. Those are breaking as a message to you to upgrade - cause developers like me despise that browser and all it's ever undone for the internetz!!! GRR - angry geek alert!!!
Help me out and i promise to work on things.
What about the home page itself? Maybe it should have more forum'y stuff on there? Maybe totally revisited? Booze donations for my time in this? lol ;)
Yeah it'sa work thing, I use a program thats Web based and when we upgraded to newest java AND IE8 my program crashed.....for 2 weeks until we backed out all the upgrades.
Our IT section is in Either Ontario or Houston....so you can imagine how that goes.
Althgouh it's not nearly as bad as surfing while behind the Defense Info Net, that was PAINFUL! icons were all over teh place, avatars woudl be in the middle of text...lol
I'm no where near a website builder nor a designer of any sort, just a numbers guy with a B-EComm....
which means i'm about as creditable as Mr. Fancy pants down the street peddling candy to minors.
All I know is things I like and don't link visually....
would you folks spend more time here if you could chat? Kind of like le facebook?