A while ago we asked for people to submit their feedback about the site so that I can try to improve the site. We had over 900+ submissions and a lot of great feedback.
I'll try to briefly summarize the feedback and our responses etc.
Overview
1) The majority of users 80+% where happy with the way things are and would not want any major changes.
2) The most visited and useful parts of the site were Spoilers, Homepage, Screencaps, Theories and Media Mentions.
3) The Majority of people wanted more spoilers and more cups/quizzes etc.
Improvements
Below are the areas that came up most as suggestions and improvements
1) Page Loading times
I'm constantly trying to improve the page load times and compared to this time last year the site loads over 60% quicker. I also did some tests on the various Browsers. Firefox and Opera were by far the quickest browsers to load the site, followed by Safari and then miles behind was Internet Explorer.
We will no longer be supporting IE version 6 (Although it should still work .. sort of) and recommend all users using IE 6 to upgrade to Firefox. If you really can't switch to Firefox then you should upgrade to IE7 at the very least.
2) Commenting is difficult
A lot of people seemed to think that you need a Blogger Account to post comments. You don't. As long as you have a OpenID, Wordpress,LiveJournal Account you can use those to login and post with. You can also Log in with your Google Account.
We will also shortly be making the comments a little easier to post by enabling a Comment form on the page itself without having to load up a pop-up window. This hopefully will be done soon.
3) I want just XYZ and can't find it
It seems a lot of people who for example wanted to see just the recaps, or just fan fiction videos etc do not know about the labels. Every post on the site is normally given a number of labels/categories which tag that post. Now, in the right hand side-bar there is a Labels pull down menu. Picking a Label from that list will result in all posts for the page your are on to be filtered for just posts that match that Label. Eg if you are on the Homepage and select Vozzek69, you will just see all the posts that have been tagged with Vozzek69. Or you could in the Fan Fiction section select the Video Label and see all the Videos only, etc etc You get the picture :) So use the labels, they are your friend.You can also click on the Labels that appear under the post title.
Also on the main parts of the site we have a Search Box in the right hand side bar. Give it a test it's very useful. Also there is the Global Search that can be accessed via the Search button in the right hand sidebar. This allows you to search not only DarkUFO but all major Lost Sites for information. Give it a go.
4) Trailers
The Trailers section is very rarely used as nearly everyone accesses the Trailers via the spoilers page. We will remove the Trailers page.
5) Episodes Page
The Episodes Page is also no longer used so it will be removed. We will provide a new form in the spoilers section that will summarize all known spoilers for an episode and should make it a lot easier to see which spoilers relate to which episode.
6) Summary Page
A lot of people kept asking how we see an overview of all the new items on the site. We'll we've had this feature for over a year now :) Just click the Summary page.
7) Better Moderation of Comments
This one was of the most requested items, to reduce flaming and various "shipper wars". We are going to start a zero tolerance policy on comments on the site, persistent offenders will be banned. Make sure your posts are On topic and respectful to other people.If you have not got anything nice to say then don't say it. Excessive swearing and "txt spk" will also result in your comments being deleted. If you want to bash a certain character then please use the Forum where we have posts setup for that.
8) Improved Chat
I've been looking around the net of a better chat room but simply cannot find one that works well and is free/cheap. If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear from you.
9) More Open Discussion
If you want to share or post something with others, don't just throw it in some random comment thread, create a post in the Forum about it.. that's what it's there for :)
10) Site Layout
A small number of people would like the site layout to be improved. I'm open to any suggestions ideas that you may have so please feel free to email me your ideas.
11) Twitter
For all of you that use Twitter to check for updates, you will be please to know that we are going to start posting links to the new posts/articles in question so that you can view them in your Twitter clients and click directly to the new article.
Misc
- A few people said they didn't want any Fan Fiction section. Simple. Don't click on it :)
- There were some thoughts of merging the Rumours and Spoilers section together but to mark the Rumours accordingly. I've decided for the time being to keep both sections separate.
- Ads. Yes I know the ads are a pain and annoying, but unfortunately without them there would be no DarkUFO.
- One user said I should Delete DarkUFO and kill myself. I've slapped them with one of my Kippers!
Thank you for all your wonderful feedback and for all the great and kind comments, very much appreciated.
1) The majority of users 80+% where happy with the way things are and would not want any major changes.
2) The most visited and useful parts of the site were Spoilers, Homepage, Screencaps, Theories and Media Mentions.
3) The Majority of people wanted more spoilers and more cups/quizzes etc.
Improvements
Below are the areas that came up most as suggestions and improvements
1) Page Loading times
I'm constantly trying to improve the page load times and compared to this time last year the site loads over 60% quicker. I also did some tests on the various Browsers. Firefox and Opera were by far the quickest browsers to load the site, followed by Safari and then miles behind was Internet Explorer.
We will no longer be supporting IE version 6 (Although it should still work .. sort of) and recommend all users using IE 6 to upgrade to Firefox. If you really can't switch to Firefox then you should upgrade to IE7 at the very least.
2) Commenting is difficult
A lot of people seemed to think that you need a Blogger Account to post comments. You don't. As long as you have a OpenID, Wordpress,LiveJournal Account you can use those to login and post with. You can also Log in with your Google Account.
We will also shortly be making the comments a little easier to post by enabling a Comment form on the page itself without having to load up a pop-up window. This hopefully will be done soon.
3) I want just XYZ and can't find it
It seems a lot of people who for example wanted to see just the recaps, or just fan fiction videos etc do not know about the labels. Every post on the site is normally given a number of labels/categories which tag that post. Now, in the right hand side-bar there is a Labels pull down menu. Picking a Label from that list will result in all posts for the page your are on to be filtered for just posts that match that Label. Eg if you are on the Homepage and select Vozzek69, you will just see all the posts that have been tagged with Vozzek69. Or you could in the Fan Fiction section select the Video Label and see all the Videos only, etc etc You get the picture :) So use the labels, they are your friend.You can also click on the Labels that appear under the post title.
Also on the main parts of the site we have a Search Box in the right hand side bar. Give it a test it's very useful. Also there is the Global Search that can be accessed via the Search button in the right hand sidebar. This allows you to search not only DarkUFO but all major Lost Sites for information. Give it a go.
4) Trailers
The Trailers section is very rarely used as nearly everyone accesses the Trailers via the spoilers page. We will remove the Trailers page.
5) Episodes Page
The Episodes Page is also no longer used so it will be removed. We will provide a new form in the spoilers section that will summarize all known spoilers for an episode and should make it a lot easier to see which spoilers relate to which episode.
6) Summary Page
A lot of people kept asking how we see an overview of all the new items on the site. We'll we've had this feature for over a year now :) Just click the Summary page.
7) Better Moderation of Comments
This one was of the most requested items, to reduce flaming and various "shipper wars". We are going to start a zero tolerance policy on comments on the site, persistent offenders will be banned. Make sure your posts are On topic and respectful to other people.If you have not got anything nice to say then don't say it. Excessive swearing and "txt spk" will also result in your comments being deleted. If you want to bash a certain character then please use the Forum where we have posts setup for that.
8) Improved Chat
I've been looking around the net of a better chat room but simply cannot find one that works well and is free/cheap. If you have any suggestions I'd love to hear from you.
9) More Open Discussion
If you want to share or post something with others, don't just throw it in some random comment thread, create a post in the Forum about it.. that's what it's there for :)
10) Site Layout
A small number of people would like the site layout to be improved. I'm open to any suggestions ideas that you may have so please feel free to email me your ideas.
11) Twitter
For all of you that use Twitter to check for updates, you will be please to know that we are going to start posting links to the new posts/articles in question so that you can view them in your Twitter clients and click directly to the new article.
Misc
- A few people said they didn't want any Fan Fiction section. Simple. Don't click on it :)
- There were some thoughts of merging the Rumours and Spoilers section together but to mark the Rumours accordingly. I've decided for the time being to keep both sections separate.
- Ads. Yes I know the ads are a pain and annoying, but unfortunately without them there would be no DarkUFO.
- One user said I should Delete DarkUFO and kill myself. I've slapped them with one of my Kippers!
Thank you for all your wonderful feedback and for all the great and kind comments, very much appreciated.
