Making the site easier to read?

General and high profile video game topics.
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scotland
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Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby scotland » May 18th, 2020, 12:34 pm

A think its a thumbs down on this one from me.

The lines are so subtle that just shifting my head position made them disappear, or the brain begins to ignore them after a second. I think its more distracting that useful, possibly because I'm aware of it so I'm looking at where the bottom-most dividing line is.

icepeople
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Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby icepeople » May 18th, 2020, 2:45 pm

To repeat (more bluntly) my earlier thoughts as a lifetime editor/publisher: please give up whatever is driving you to experiment with those background shades, stripes, etc. All of them are annoyingly distracting and divert the mind/eye away from what is not a overly long text block. Just...stop.

Rainking720
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Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby Rainking720 » May 18th, 2020, 2:51 pm

I agree with IcePeople.. .i've never once thought the sight was hard to read at all before this, not sure what the impetus for changing it is.

icepeople wrote:To repeat (more bluntly) my earlier thoughts as a lifetime editor/publisher: please give up whatever is driving you to experiment with those background shades, stripes, etc. All of them are annoyingly distracting and divert the mind/eye away from what is not a overly long text block. Just...stop.

David
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Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby David » May 18th, 2020, 2:52 pm

I still don’t understand how colors or gradients or lines arbitrarily spaced are supposed to make the text easier to read. As others have said the easiest and best solution is probably paragraphs, or if you’re not willing to compromise on that point then editing them down to a shorter length. I understand the spirit of making short, easy to read reviews, but having longer reviews posted as a wall of text to keep them as one “paragraph” doesn’t make sense to me.

While we’re on the subject of your site, I’d like to throw one more thing out there. We’re entering the third decade of gaming in the 2000s and everything is still posted on the top as 2000s instead of 2000s, 2010s, and now soon 2020s as the consoles are released this fall (hopefully). Any thought into breaking them up by decade?

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby VideoGameCritic » May 18th, 2020, 4:08 pm

The impetus for changing it was that I found myself losing my place when trying to read some of the lengthier reviews. And if I'm having trouble I'm sure other people are too. The site doesn't have a large readership so I'm trying to make the reviews a little easier to digest.

Breaking up 5000+ reviews into paragraphs isn't realistic, so I thought the colored background approach might serve the same purpose (in about 5 lines of code).

Obviously I'm willing to compromise! I've been trying new approaches on a daily basis. It's quite likely I will ultimately ditch the background color idea altogether. However, I want to fully explore all possibilities while we're on the subject.

Please bear with me and keep the feedback coming - positive or negative.

It's possible that by increasing the font and spacing, I may have already corrected the problem.

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VideoGameCritic
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Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby VideoGameCritic » May 18th, 2020, 4:34 pm

Also, a friend recommended maybe adding a second screenshot just below the "read more" link, this one right justified. This would break things up a little and allow me to add a second image, which people might find helpful. Thoughts?

newmodelarmy
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Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby newmodelarmy » May 18th, 2020, 5:50 pm

[quote="VideoGameCritic"]The impetus for changing it was that I found myself losing my place when trying to read some of the lengthier reviews. And if I'm having trouble I'm sure other people are too. The site doesn't have a large readership so I'm trying to make the reviews a little easier to digest.

Doesn't have a large readership? Say what? Where else do people go to get video game reviews?

icepeople
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Joined: January 23rd, 2020, 2:33 pm

Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby icepeople » May 18th, 2020, 6:53 pm

For what it's worth, I "lose" my place and sometimes miss errors in my own copy at times as well (and therefore have to proof it much more carefully). I suspect it's common simply because your mind already has an image of what it's supposed to see, if that makes sense.

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noah98
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Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby noah98 » May 18th, 2020, 7:16 pm

David wrote:I still don’t understand how colors or gradients or lines arbitrarily spaced are supposed to make the text easier to read. As others have said the easiest and best solution is probably paragraphs, or if you’re not willing to compromise on that point then editing them down to a shorter length. I understand the spirit of making short, easy to read reviews, but having longer reviews posted as a wall of text to keep them as one “paragraph” doesn’t make sense to me.

While we’re on the subject of your site, I’d like to throw one more thing out there. We’re entering the third decade of gaming in the 2000s and everything is still posted on the top as 2000s instead of 2000s, 2010s, and now soon 2020s as the consoles are released this fall (hopefully). Any thought into breaking them up by decade?


I agree with David that I would love to see the 2000's broken up into 2000, 2010, 2020. I think there is still room up in the toolbar. So, Dreamcast with the 1990's (9/9/99!), PS2, XBOX, Gamecube, XBOX 360, PS3, Wii with the 2000's, PS4, XBOX One, Wii U, Switch with the 2010's, and PS5, XBOX Series X, and Intellivision Amico with the 2020's.

TheEagleXIII
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Joined: December 22nd, 2019, 9:33 am

Re: Making the site easier to read?

Postby TheEagleXIII » May 19th, 2020, 4:08 am

The green lines are another improvement over the original change... but I think it's just because you're getting closer and closer to the original look with a plain background. :D

The lines still disrupt the flow of the reviews for me. It's like its placing emphasis on something or dividing the review into sections. In the example you linked to, the lines split the review into 3 sections, but it still read as one paragraph, which looks even worse on the shorter reviews.

I'm not such a big fan of more than one image, it makes it feel cluttered and kinda ruins the concise nature of the reviews. It's the picture equivalent of using too many words. ;)

I'm definitely a fan of the bigger text and slightly increased spacing - it's subtle, and definitely does make it easier to read for me. Personally, I feel that's achieved what you set out to accomplish in the first place.


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