Your thoughts on a facelift for Doom Wad Station?

I'm the first to admit that Doom Wad Station has that "old school" feel to it - web 1.0 if you will. And, I don't really have an issue with that, but I was wondering if it's time to look at getting a facelift - and by a facelift, I mean, raise the money, hire a web developer and move it into the 21st century with all the bells and whistles.
So, you are the users of the site. What do YOU think?

I thought everything moved to the /idgames database?
Do people still visit the wad station?

I can live with the oldschool design, I think there's a certain charm and blast from the past about it. It's really the sometimes highly illogical navigation that gets to me and that really needs a closer examination. It can part of the new design, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.

I think your site has a lot of fans and while they would probably welcome a new look, I'm not so sure they'll be over the moon about it. Personally, I'd just take a look at the user-friendliness and keep it at that for the moment.

Chris Hansen said:

I can live with the oldschool design, I think there's a certain charm and blast from the past about it. It's really the sometimes highly illogical navigation that gets to me and that really needs a closer examination. It can part of the new design, but it doesn't necessarily have to be.

I think your site has a lot of fans and while they would probably welcome a new look, I'm not so sure they'll be over the moon about it. Personally, I'd just take a look at the user-friendliness and keep it at that for the moment.

Well, I did incorporate that java navigation menu into all the main pages and started adding it to the newer reviews and such but the thought of going back and adding it to the hundreds of other pages makes my head hurt. lol

Brad_tilf said:

I was wondering if it's time to look at getting a facelift - and by a facelift, I mean, raise the money, hire a web developer and move it into the 21st century with all the bells and whistles. [...] What do YOU think?

Hell no. It wouldn't be worth the effort and money, if you asked me. I'd guess that most of DWS visitors are somewhat oldschool lovers. To speak honestly, DWS seems a little like "stuck in the past" to me also for the way how the reviews are written. Very often, gameplay/design quality is rated generously, as well as difficulty (something like "8/10" for some averagely-easy wads), and many extra words of fanfare are written about each wad (whether it's worth attention or less worth it). Hence my assumption. I thought that oldschoolers are the group of people you're attracting, both visitors and reviewers/contributors; and that most of the other people check /idgames or DW/ZDoom forums directly, anyway.

Brad_tilf said:

Well, I did incorporate that java navigation menu into all the main pages and started adding it to the newer reviews and such but the thought of going back and adding it to the hundreds of other pages makes my head hurt. lol

Well, it's not really about things that make the site look more modern and at the same time, adds a slight increase in useability. It's more about changes that really makes the sites a lot more logical to navigate. You have to really envision it from a visitors angle. When we, as a visitor, comes to a site, we're often looking for a certain thing on that particular site. This particular thing then needs to be extremely easy to find, with a maximum of 3 clicks before it's found. No more. You've got a lot of great information and material, but the system behind locating it is cryptic and exists on too many levels. You need to organize it, so that it's more logical for the visitor, sort of like how a library does it: You go to the library, find the non-fiction floor, find the cooking section and there's your "How to make cinnamon bons" book. The library isnt just a big room with books and one of them just so happens to be about my favourite pastry. It would take me ages to find and I'd be heading for the nearest bakery instead! ;) Look, what I am really just trying to say is, that your site can be navigated if you know where things are. For newcomers, it can be a bit frustrating. And fancy Java doesn't fix that, logic does :)

Chris Hansen said:

Well, it's not really about things that make the site look more modern and at the same time, adds a slight increase in useability. It's more about changes that really makes the sites a lot more logical to navigate. You have to really envision it from a visitors angle. When we, as a visitor, comes to a site, we're often looking for a certain thing on that particular site. This particular thing then needs to be extremely easy to find, with a maximum of 3 clicks before it's found. No more. You've got a lot of great information and material, but the system behind locating it is cryptic and exists on too many levels. You need to organize it, so that it's more logical for the visitor, sort of like how a library does it: You go to the library, find the non-fiction floor, find the cooking section and there's your "How to make cinnamon bons" book. The library isnt just a big room with books and one of them just so happens to be about my favourite pastry. It would take me ages to find and I'd be heading for the nearest bakery instead! ;) Look, what I am really just trying to say is, that your site can be navigated if you know where things are. For newcomers, it can be a bit frustrating. And fancy Java doesn't fix that, logic does :)

I really thought that java navigation made it extremely easy to find content. No? I don't really how I can simplify it beyond - Doom/Doom2/Doom3 - wads/total conversions/whatever - I mean - if you can't find Doom total conversions in 3 clicks with that menu, I don't know man...

OK. I tried to be pragmatic about it:

Bob, your site is a mess to look at and there's way too much clutter. Get your shit sorted!

Better? ;-)

Chris Hansen said:

OK. I tried to be pragmatic about it:

Bob, your site is a mess to look at and there's way too much clutter. Get your shit sorted!

Better? ;-)

I completely understand that. If I was a web designer I would figure it out but, well.... I'm not. I've done the best someone who has absolutely no clue about html can do. lol
But, if you have some specific suggestions - I am always open to them

The overall appearance is great to me personally. If you do change it, don't make it drastic, and certainly don't spend your hard earned money on it - I haven't had any trouble navigating, honestly.

I would say make it more organized but don't totally overhaul it. Definitely don't lard it up with all sorts of javascripts and other horrible bloated shit that plagues the web these days.

Doomkid said:

The overall appearance is great to me personally. If you do change it, don't make it drastic, and certainly don't spend your hard earned money on it - I haven't had any trouble navigating, honestly.

I'll move cautiously. :-)

Brad_tilf said:

I completely understand that. If I was a web designer I would figure it out but, well.... I'm not. I've done the best someone who has absolutely no clue about html can do. lol
But, if you have some specific suggestions - I am always open to them

Well, you are doing a fine job with what you got. I know your skills are limited in this department, and from that perspective your dedication serves you well :)

Specific? Yeah, that's my problem. I'm not always good at that sort of thing. I thought maybe my example with the library was specific enough. You just have to apply that example to your navigation of your website. But, if I were to be slightly more specific, I'd say, that your site needs a few good links at the top or to the side (one side, not two). These could be "Home", "Reviews", "My Levels", "Ressources", "Forums" and "Contact". Just to name some examples. That's basically how I do things when I make a website. Granted, it's been years since I last made one from scratch, so take my experience with a (huge) grain of salt! ;) Anyway, clicking "Reviews" will bring the visitor to a page with a set of categories like "Ult. Doom reviews", "Doom 2 reviews" etc. and scrap the indexation via years, like you do know. The year or date of the review can be listed within the review itself, as this is not a primary element of the review. This is in fact one of the key points in this entire process of revamping your navigational system of the website: Figuring out what the most relevant and key feature of the content is, and then displaying that to the visitor. This way, you can easily boil stuff down to the most important and relevant stuff thus simplifying the navigation to the most logical minumum that fits together with such a massive amount of content.

Pheew, I don't think I have any more "advice" in my right now :) I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. English isn't my first language, so I hope my meaning translates well enough for my main points to come across :)

Chris Hansen said:

Well, you are doing a fine job with what you got. I know your skills are limited in this department, and from that perspective your dedication serves you well :)

Specific? Yeah, that's my problem. I'm not always good at that sort of thing. I thought maybe my example with the library was specific enough. You just have to apply that example to your navigation of your website. But, if I were to be slightly more specific, I'd say, that your site needs a few good links at the top or to the side (one side, not two). These could be "Home", "Reviews", "My Levels", "Ressources", "Forums" and "Contact". Just to name some examples. That's basically how I do things when I make a website. Granted, it's been years since I last made one from scratch, so take my experience with a (huge) grain of salt! ;) Anyway, clicking "Reviews" will bring the visitor to a page with a set of categories like "Ult. Doom reviews", "Doom 2 reviews" etc. and scrap the indexation via years, like you do know. The year or date of the review can be listed within the review itself, as this is not a primary element of the review. This is in fact one of the key points in this entire process of revamping your navigational system of the website: Figuring out what the most relevant and key feature of the content is, and then displaying that to the visitor. This way, you can easily boil stuff down to the most important and relevant stuff thus simplifying the navigation to the most logical minumum that fits together with such a massive amount of content.

Pheew, I don't think I have any more "advice" in my right now :) I hope you understand what I'm trying to say. English isn't my first language, so I hope my meaning translates well enough for my main points to come across :)

Ya, I get it. Just not sure if the site can be that easily broken down. There is SO much there. lol

There is a typo in there, a missing v.

doomwadstation
I hae gotten many comments on the appearance/navigability of this website and as it gets older, the more comments I get.

Quikly gazing at the doom wad station i would just get rid of the horizontal scrolling bars spread
here and there. For the rest it is a end 1990's website for a 1990's game.