New BS.com Beta!

[EUOL]

Folks!

We're beta testing the new version of my website, and could use some help.  We want to know how tough/easy it is to find things on the new site.  (One of our main reasons for updating it was because it was really tough to find things on the old site.)

So, here's a link to the beta:

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/beta/

Here's a link to a survey/scavenger hunt we'd like people to fill out:

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/beta/survey.php

(Open a new tab/window to do the hunt, then write your impressions on the form provided.)

You can also post feedback here on this thread.

(Note, I know that some people like the more text intensive older site better, and we understand that.  However, we've decided to go with this one.  The existence of the flash pages isn't going to change; we're just looking to see if we can streamline things any more.)

[WriterDan]

Done.  Hope it helps.

[Spriggan]

Thought I'd make a post to deal with several of the frequent bugs I've gotten via the survey just so people don't have to worry about reporting them.

 -- This is a Firefox only bug.  Firefox freaks out (and can mess up the CSS layout) when any html text file has a default Unicode Signature (BOM) which most text editing programs add.  I know how to remove them, I just haven't done so yet since every time I save the HTML it adds them back in.  It's really annoying and I don't know why Mozilla doesn't fix this.

Search:  I'm glad to see people interested in the site search since they often go overlooked.  The reason for this beta not having on is 2 fold: 1) is I wanted to see how people interacted with the site without a search (and google site search isn't helpful since it shouldn't have much if any of the site indexed) and 2) The search script isn't where I want it to be.  I'll probably have a search beta later on once this is over.

So far the feedback we've gotten is good, and you can submit multiple comments if you want--so if you find something later on you can let us know what you think of it, and I'm pleased that generally people are liking the overall layout and organization of the site.  The beta will be open until next Monday so please keep the feedback coming but remember to be as consise as you can by providing URLS, OS (especially for firefox who's OSX version renders differently then the PC), and Browser.

[goldfish]

A few thoughts:

1.   I like the background.  Sorta Elantris-y.  But, I'm not sure about the background + the font + the little gems + different colors.  It's vaguely starting to resemble one of those captchas, where you have to find the hidden word, among lots of lines, to get past the spam filter. 

Can the background be possibly made . . . um, less intense?  Less complicated, perhaps? 

2.  I like the bla bla bla popups.  But I think they last too long.  Say I'm looking for Warbreaker, and I scroll over the Alcatraz gem.  I get a bla bla window that largely obscures the Warbreaker button.  And it stays up a few seconds, even after I scroll off of the gem. 

3.  I kinda like the schedule page myself, currently at http://brandonsanderson.com/article.php?id=45 .  I use it to check, once a week more or less, that MB3 hasn't come out yet.    

It generally takes me a click or two on BS.com 1.0 to find it.  If possible, I'd appreciate having it more prominently available on BS 2.0. 

4.  Is there a reason not to put annotations as a separate gem?  I suspect a lot of people come for those.  (Do they?)  Sure, you can get to them from the books.  But a separate annotations gem couldn't hurt. 

5.  By the way, what's the relationship between the Menu link, and everything else?  Some menu items are separate gems (blog), others (annotations) aren't.  It may be confusing to a first-timer.  Do they go with the menu, or the gems?  Why are they different?  Oh no, I can't decide.  And there's another reader lost. 

6.  That nice four-pointed star around Books is great.  And, um, where does Dragonsteel go when it arrives?  And Scribbler?  There may be expandability issues with the current layout.  Maybe it would be more expandable with a firmer boundary between books, and rest-of-the-stuff?

7.  Why is About Brandon still a link on the bottom?  Should that be a gem?  I mean, if we're coming to your site, we must care at least a little about who this guy is.  (Who is he, anyway?  Why am I typing this?) 

8.  By the way, where are the Euologies?  In "other fun stuff"?  Why not break out a new gem, and call it "articles" or something.  Euologies is a cute title, but maybe a little too inside-baseball for new fans.  But really, title aside, new fans might like to read about the rules of magic.  And why they should always buy hardback.    

9.  Also, there's too much duplication.  Pages are orphaned, still in little cul-de-sacs.  For examlpe, there's basic bio info at http://www.brandonsanderson.com/about .  And at http://www.brandonsanderson.com/faq (sort of).  And at the Welcome page.  A lot of information seems to be around in multiple places.  I don't know if that's intentional, but it comes across as a little fragmented. 


This may sound like a lot of complaints.  Actually, I like the new look quite a bit.  It's a good look, and I'm just, ya know, giving a little feedback.  Hope it's useful. 

Oh, and by the way, the little gem image obscures half of the b in Warbreaker, and (barely) part of the t in Alcatraz.  In Firefox.  They're both still readable; Warbreaker is the more covered of the two. 

(Edit:  Added #9.) 

[Spriggan]

Only going to address a few issues since a lot of things are a work in progress and don't really need to be commented on since I don't want to give out my thoughts on them until after the beta.

1) Background isn't going to be changing though we're still looking at font color which I think will fix your complaint.

5) Simple explanation is that menu isn't finished, we haven't decided what's going up there.

7) It's fairly common, if not standard, to have  contact, about and copyright in the footer or the header--we choose the footer for this design.

There's an articles link in the menu.  The other stuff portal never actually got created--nor did the link get removed--by beta time.  But I would guess there would/could be a link to EUOLogies there.

9) The about , is again, a standard thing.  FAQs will cover a lot more in depth and also non-Brandon related questions--the content for this section isn't finished yet-- and the Welcome page serves as an introduction to the site as a whole.  I think, when finished, that the three will be distinct enough to warrant 3 pages.

[Phaz]

I noticed the "store" section that seems to be a placeholder currently.

Does this mean that I'll finally able to fulfill my dream of owning a t-shirt with the MB Alomancy diagram on it and a bumper sticker that says "My other vehicle is a mistcloak/coin purse"?

[EUOL]

lol. 

We'll probably do some design suggestion threads when the store goes up.  The first shirt is the awesome "Mistborn Llama" T-shirt.  You'll see what I mean eventually.

Once we get on the ball, I plan to also sell one with the Allomantic table on it, as well as some text based ones, a book that collects all of the annotations and deleted scenes for Elantris, and perhaps copies of some of my unpublished early works. 

[Shuez]

The new site is great! When I get another spare moment I will do the survey. In truth, I never have a hard time finding anything; never had problems with info on the current site, but the new site is just so nice looking! It has a look that is truly befitting an established fantasy author.

[Spriggan]

Beta is over, thanks to everyone that participated.

While you'll still be able to access the beta site we're not taking active feedback until we've had time to digest all the information we got from people, implement the changes from this beta and the features we haven't finished yet.

[Spriggan]

Beta search is up

while for the most part this is done there's still presentation elements that aren't finished as well as a few other small things.

This is a boolean based search, you can read how that works at http://dev.mysql.com/doc/refman/4.1/en/fulltext-boolean.html

feel free to give feed back on search results, if you think something didn't get as high as a rank as you thought let me know which article, which query, what result number is was (roughly) and why you think it should be higher.

http://www.brandonsanderson.com/beta/search.php

[Spriggan]

We got a little interrupted by a book tour and some projects on my end but I think we'll be going live ASAP--my guess would be in a week-- and I'm not sure I'm going to do a full Beta 2 so if you see any bugs just list them here.  The only places we're intrested in feedback is the search (mostly the results) and the portal layouts which have been reworked.

As of right now just about every suggestion we got from the Beta has been implemented, there were a lot of good and interesting ideas but many didn't fit with the site, didn't add anything new to the experience or just plain required more work to implement then the return would have been worth.

[Cheetaur]

looking forward to it! 

[Spriggan]

We're working on a new layout for the book page and any feedback is welcome, this is more or less the last section that needs to be finished before we go live (on my end at least) so we're nearing the end, and this new layout could allow us to add some information (such as release dates) to it as well.

http://brandonsanderson.com/book/

[Phaz]

I know this is probably a long shot, but is there any chance of the Store being up and running before the holidays?  I was thinking of getting a few copy of Alcatraz to give out as Christmas presents, and being able to buy some signed ones would be awesome.

[Spriggan]

Depends on how much time I have, probably won't get it done until sometime in december.

Whether that's enough time to get things delivered in time is what's up in the air, that and whether or not Brandon will actually have any copies of signed books to sell.