Page 1 of New Style of Review Pages - Bad?

Does anyone else not like the new style of the review pages on this site?

The following is main for the DVDR team:

When they were first changed I gave it a few weeks to get used to them but I`m finding that having to go through three pages to view a single review very irritating(for example: if I wanted to view the scores of the disc by the reviewer without reading the review, I would have to go through a couple of pages to get there). I would find splitting the review over two pages acceptable but preferably having just the one. It was stated that download times was the main issue for changing the reviews to this format. However, if there was just a single page and the pictures were thumbnailed and only opened up if the reader wants to view them, this would probably download in the same time as a single page at the moment with two current sized pictures.

Alternatively, how about allowing the next page icon to allow navigation to any of the pages. It is made of three arrows that could be easily split into three part by an image map and linked to different pages.

Sorry about the long rant, but to me this minor problem slightly ruins an otherwise excellent site (always the first site I visit when I go online).

Keep up the good work chaps :)

Ian

Thanks for your constructive comments Ian.

Yes the main reason was for download times. Many reviews tended to be getting longer recently, and we thought as the vast majority of our visitors would be modem users, and therefore were not seeing the site on the fast link we ourselves benefit from. We made this move quite soon after building our new dedicated server on its new 256Gb connection, so the idea was that all visitors would see speed increases, subject to the limits of their connection.

The images are actually only about 6k in size each, but the idea of direct navigation buttons is a good one however. It is something we have considered, but due to pressures of work had not had time to implement. You may have seen we recently have had about 8 new people join the team, which will take the pressure off us a bit so we can devote more time to `site tweaks` like those you suggest.

All I can say is `watch this space`!!

Cheers

Mark
DVD Reviewer

Thanks for the reply Mark,

I`ll look forward to seeing what changes you and the team make :)

Ian

One main reason for cutting down the review pages was also size, believe it or not (and I was shocked when I found this out myself) but the majority of browsers are used at 800x600 which made some of our pages seriously overlong.

Yes, we could use the arrows for each page, however I think this would confuse a fair few of our readers. So we need a way of doing this that gives those who want it a way of skipping pages yet also keeps it simple for the rest and is also asthetically pleasing.

All suggestions welcome. ;-)

I`ll try and think of a few ideas myself too, however bear with us as I`ve got to rewrite the forums next. :o

Could you make split page reviews a configuration choice like the default region is?

Not that I`m particularly bothered, but it`s an idea (...which you`ve probably already thought of, heh).

That, could just well be the ideal solution. And although we have lots of ideas for changes which work in this way, I can honestly say we hadn`t thought of it for this. ;-)

If I could expand slightly on Leo`s idea, the pages could be as they are for occassional readers. However for regular visitors they should register and allow them to customise the site`s layout depending on their personal preferece (eg. reviews accross a single , two or three pages and the number of news entries in the news section etc).

I`m not too hot on website implementation but I think it should be straight forward throught the use of cookies or login. Only allowing registered users to customise the site would help inexperienced and experienced users alike. I would imagine inexperienced users would not be bothered to register so they would use the standard format and eperenced ones will customise it to their preference (eg. allowing longer pages to load if they have a fast connection).

er.. I think I`m rambling again, better stop there :)

Ian

As a rule of thumb if we can do it just with cookies then thats how we do it. We accept that some people are funny about creating accounts for whatever reason, each to their own.

When we do use accounts, its for the simple fact that we need them to prevent abuse of our site, or its needed to tie settings to a specific user. I like the idea of giving as much control to readers as possible, so if you really want you can customise it to how it best suits you.

Still, will have to wait until the forums are finished anyhow, but definitely is on the cards now at least. Ta for the ideas. ;-)

BTW Robert, the forums are looking miles better and are easier to use :)

Ian

Heh ta. It was purely selfish motivation to do it, since I was suffering as much as anyone trying to read all the messages. :-)