💫 Welcome to the new BGA Homepage!

[nik592]

Great, my extensive post disappreared within seconds or didn't even get published. What is this, Youtube?

P.S.: I just realized, that the "send" button does not always really send the post. Any ideas why that is?

There has been a bug in the forums for some time where a post sometimes doesn't submit and it dumps you back to an empty reply box. If you click back in your browser, your typed post will return and you can click Submit again - that usually fails due to the session being stale or something, but if you click a third time, the post goes through. I'm not sure what this bug is, it's been mentioned before, but doesn't seem to be any interest in fixing it.

As to the new home page, I'd agree with many - it feels like a lot of noise, and minimal useful info (eg. newsfeed, upcoming available tournaments). It really does feel like every new page is done with the intent of advertising things to users (play more games!). But with no real targeting to users about games they might be interested in. The one thing I appreciate is seeing how many games of BGA's library I've played, but that could easily be displayed in my profile and everything else in that section is largely irrelevant.

Was this new home page trialled with users for feedback, like the new Games in Progress page? I don't recall seeing anything asking for users to trial it, so I'm guessing not. That said, I believe much of the feedback on the Games in Progress page was ignored, and I know the feedback on the new ELO system is still being ignored, so perhaps admin are just skipping even asking for feedback, since they don't intend to listen to any of it? But that really is how it feels - changes are made, the user base generally are unhappy, and admin do not care.

[KenFin1]

This new page is so utterly cluttered and overbearing I can't fathom how BGA keep pushing this stuff out. Do they not listen to feedback from the last debacle (the games in progress list)? Or the time before that (the new game lobby pages)? It would appear not.

This is another car crash seemingly by someone with insufficient experience in web design and user experience. As last time, the mobile experience is just a travesty. Seriously you can pay people to advise you on this sort of thing. They're not even that expensive for basic consultations. A number of people have given good advice already FOR FREE in your own forums. Maybe try reading it!

If the aim was to swamp the site in yet more offputting adverts then well done. Otherwise nothing is better with this. Much is worse.

[LaOread]

I will not dwell on the many problems of this new homepage that other people already made a point about in previous topics.

However, I did not see anyone talking about the change on the tournaments info. I miss the upcoming tournaments, and as a creator of tournaments, I guess it also impacts the player count as many registered in the last 24 hours when the a tournament started to be shown to them in that upcoming tournaments box. Please, consider bringing it back even with this new design.

Good point. I liked that feature as well.

[Stroom]

Horrible useless page. Half of the screen is just advertising for a random game that I probably don't even want to see. The rest is just random bits that I have to scroll through. Probably a huge waste of server CPU power for data that most people never read anyway. Who comes up with these layouts? KISS - Keep it simple, stupid!

[DiplomaticJim]

Maybe the images on the homepage should be larger? I would really like to have to scroll down, and sideways, to see the information being conveyed. I mean, who doesn't?? Can we also increase the font size to 144 px? Please make me work even harder to read a single sentence on a huge screen.

Also, I prefer reading books that only show a single word per page. Very efficient use of space.

[Richi5000]

I agree with previous posts - this new design does seem more like advertising stuff, not being user friendly. At least give some options to modify our homepage to our needs.

[RicardoRix]

I think you're mixing 2 distinctly different things together.

1. A Website front page. Where are the great games you have to offer and want to showcase.
2. A personal players homepage. With message boards, friends stuff, personalized tournaments and leader boards.

Why not split this into 2 different pages?

You almost certainly want the page with 'all the great games' for users that have not signed up to the website and entice them in.
BUT when you're a regular user, the game adverts stuff is all just noise. There is already enough of this on the GAMES page and the PLAY NOW page.

Why not have a "user home page" next to the "PLAY NOW" page?

For example, the Top 10 XP players would fit on the main home page (just like it used to show the Top5).
And your personal placement leader-board on the user home page (as the new page shows now).

On the whole it's the right idea, just done in the wrong format.

[Cheery Dog]

This is going to take forever if it's even possible to get used to.

I just load that new front page up, and I'm extremely confused as to what website I'm even using. Other than the header at the top of the page I would have no idea and think I'd accidentally opened something I sohuldn't have.

and I have also no idea how the new mobile experience is meant to be "better", I may already been using desktop mode on my own phone, but it's just why?

That redesign isn't going to grow the website's popularity back to the levels we had a couple of years ago at the start of the pandemic. It's just as well I'm just here for the boardgames, because nothing else on this website makes me want to stick around.

[The Nuzzer]

The items relevant to "me" should be first, not the adds for games.

[Ez0ah]

After some time to readjust and a bad first impression, I kinda like this new homepage.
A few comments:
* it’s feels overloaded (probably a gut reaction from the former page)
* not sure how the « latest news » section is organized. Why isn’t it by publication date?
* for the newsfeed, it used to be my main use for the homepage. Now, it redirects to the profile page when a message is too long or you want to read more replies. I feel like, overall, the group messages (including reviewers groups) have lost in visibility.
* I really like the « New/Popular/Recommended/Discover our Classics » section.
I hope there is still room for minor improvements on this homepage, from all the comments.
Thx for the work.