New Website?

[Rev Algenon Stickleback H]

I remember seeing the site of another club inflicted with the same design. It was still obviously a new thing for them, and contained a poll to gauge opinion on the change. It was...

What do you think of the new site?

a) I love it!
b) It's better than before
c) I'll get used to it

It says something when people are too afraid to include a "dislike" option in their poll.

Then again, too many people designing these things are obsessed with "cool" ideas, rather than actually making the thing useful. You only have to look at Windows 8, where it seems none of the thousands who work at Microsoft could see that hiding the off button away in a settings menu wasn't exactly convenient.

[Barry the bird boggler]

Windows 8 is a pile of crap unless you're using a mobile device

Seems the RFC site (which I presume to be something that is inflicted on the club by the agreements with the PL and/or FL so it's all branded in the same way) is geared towards mobile use and stuff anyone else.

It's a truly god awful site and I haven't visited it since last year.

[PieEater]

I went back for the first time in months to check the news. Clicked on the down arrow to scroll the stories - one by one - got to the end and clicked <more news> and it starts again with the same list Obviously you're meant to guess that more news is monthly and you need to choose another month.

[creative_username_1]

i don't think it's that bad. Its messy below the fold on the home page but i tend to use the Main Menu to navigate

[ZacNaloen]

Windows 8 is a pile of crap unless you're using a mobile device

Seems the RFC site (which I presume to be something that is inflicted on the club by the agreements with the PL and/or FL so it's all branded in the same way) is geared towards mobile use and stuff anyone else.

It's a truly god awful site and I haven't visited it since last year.

It's got nothing to do with Mobile devices, it's shit on those as well. Even the "mobile" version.

[RoyalBlue]

Does everyone get the:
"We've rebranded our website to provide you with a range of new and exclusive features. So that you're able to enjoy the exciting new site, we need to put cookies on your computer. If you want to know more about what the cookies will be used for see our cookie & privacy notice. By entering the site you accept that we will put cookies on your computer." every time you open the OS?? It pisses me off. Yes I know about this - I have to look at it every time I open the fricking page

My settings don't allow any cookies. I've never had that message on the OS. Other websites I have, but I always tick No or X and seem able to carry on.

This ^

Once you accept the message on other sites, you don't get it again (unless you have cleared your history).

And I didn't think the OS could get any worse. However, I was wrong - it has! It's even more shyte now.

[blueroyals]

Went onto it to read the bit about WB signing. Once I clicked on the article I tried to scroll down using the arrow keys on my keyboard only for it not to work - how odd I thought - perhaps my computer had frozen? Nope, the default action for the arrow keys is to scroll a list of recent articles in a little box on the right. How retarded were the people that made this?

Again, reflects badly on the club. They're the ones paying for this abomination and pissing off their whole fan base. Would cost substantially less to create a bespoke website/mobile offering.

EDIT: just seen that there is now a mobile site. That's brilliant (or so I thought) because the new site is unusable on mobiles. Turns out the mobile site is even worse and doesn't even display the latest news correctly (some articles are missing, etc).

[Whore Jackie]

Reflects badly on the club. They're the ones paying for this abomination and pissing off their whole fan base. Would cost substantially less to create a bespoke website/mobile offering.

For the ten billionth time, it's not Reading's website, it's a FL one. A whole host of clubs signed up to this years ago, when the interspaz was in its infancy, and are now stuck with it until the contract ends. Pretty sure you won't find a single club that's happy with what's been foisted upon them.

[Alexander Litvinenko]

Reflects badly on the club. They're the ones paying for this abomination and pissing off their whole fan base. Would cost substantially less to create a bespoke website/mobile offering.

For the ten billionth time, it's not Reading's website, it's a FL one. A whole host of clubs signed up to this years ago, when the interspaz was in its infancy, and are now stuck with it until the contract ends. Pretty sure you won't find a single club that's happy with what's been foisted upon them.

And the advertising revenues are much greater when done collectively - big advertisers will pay to have adverts shown on 72 websites (or however many it is) in a single deal, but would never pay to have them shown on 72 different sites with 72 different individual deals.

Plus it means the the clubs don't have to employ dedicated web sales people and webmasters, etc - the idea is that this CMS can be used by anyone with minimal web experience. It's a sound concept, just a pity that the implementation of the CMS is so crap.

[blueroyals]

A new design is rolling out to other clubs (Watford and Bournemouth are two of these) and we'll be getting it shortly. Doesn't look a whole lot different tbf.

- Still has the f*cking annoying "Click here to enter" bullshit
- The massive lead image at the top of the site has gone (was the only good thing about the new layout imo)
- Player is still flash only and thus can't be used on mobiles (I've now cancelled my subscription)
- Font looks retarded
- Bugs everywhere (god help you if you try to search for news using the search functions)

[yappy]

Slight improvement, but still a bit naff IMO.

[Green]

It's the popup on entry to the site I can't stand.

What's its purpose and who the hell decided this was a good idea?

[Alexander Litvinenko]

It's the popup on entry to the site I can't stand.

What's its purpose and who the hell decided this was a good idea?

To make money - they can virtually guarantee that everyone who enters the site for whatever reason sees it and whatever ads are placed on it.

Decided on by accountants and not customer service people.

[Mike Hunt]

A new design is rolling out to other clubs (Watford and Bournemouth are two of these) and we'll be getting it shortly. Doesn't look a whole lot different tbf.

- Still has the f*cking annoying "Click here to enter" bullshit
- The massive lead image at the top of the site has gone (was the only good thing about the new layout imo)
- Player is still flash only and thus can't be used on mobiles (I've now cancelled my subscription)
- Font looks retarded
- Bugs everywhere (god help you if you try to search for news using the search functions)

This is the worst part.

[creative_username_1]

It's the popup on entry to the site I can't stand.

What's its purpose and who the hell decided this was a good idea?

To make money - they can virtually guarantee that everyone who enters the site for whatever reason sees it and whatever ads are placed on it.

Decided on by accountants and not customer service people.

Those modal boxes are really effective at getting the user to do specific things (calls to action etc). Just a trade off between UX and the goals of the site