DG home page needs funnel (sluuurrrpppp) to Forums

johpower · Post by **johpower** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 3:15 am

Might I suggest a small but important change to the DOS Games home page? The "Discussion Forums" link is pretty buried. Newbees loose it in the clutter and rarely find our wonderful wayward band (of wookies, wombats, weasles and wolverines -and Wardriches) awaiting fresh meat to wrestle and nibble upon). To improve the odds the following could help, singly or in combo:

Enlarge the type of the link.
Add color and/or flashing text to the link.
Place the link away from the other links.
Move the link to a more conspicuous place in the top half of the page.
Play a pleasing sound when a cursor moves over the link. (sorry, Poison and Alice Cooper not recommended

)

Just as long as it doesn't scare them off before they sign on. After that....

Post by **emmzee** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 1:21 pm

Hmm well the forum will be more integrated into the new dosgames.com design (see http://www.dosgames.com/preview/index.html ) since people will have to register in order to post reviews for games ... so that should help a bit. Maybe I'll put links at the bottom of each page to the forum or something too ...

Bobo · Post by **Bobo** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 1:23 pm

If you do put sounds on. Make sure there not annoying or yo'll scare people off

Post by **Dogbreath** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 5:24 pm

Why not just follow my suggestion in Admin?

Asides from all of the above maybe a quick links section at the top (where it currently says "You are here: HOME and ?? HELP ??" for the existing four categories and a 5th one for news would be nice and shorten the amount of time spent searching through the side-bar. (Which would be useful for searching, finding games by various categories, and a general link section to other parts of the site, of course. )

And have one of those quick links be "forum" instead of the proposed "news" link?

Post by **emmzee** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 6:56 pm

I could do something like that ... if I understand your idea correctly, I would need to create some new pages ... specifically, GAMES, HELP, FEATURES, and LINKS ... because currently those are just category headings that don't lead anywhere.

That could be a good idea tho, I'll think it over ...

John The Ax · Post by **John The Ax** » Sun Dec 28, 2003 7:36 pm

Hmm, MZ, nice new design. New, but oldskool at the same time.

Post by **emmzee** » Mon Dec 29, 2003 8:08 pm

Added tabs to the top, ala DB's idea. Also you can see an example of the graphic/text page header that I'm going to make up a for each page ... should make it more obvious where in the site hierarchy a visitor is.

Bobo · Post by **Bobo** » Tue Dec 30, 2003 10:43 am

Would it be better to have a blue, white, or sandy colored scrollbar?

johpower · Post by **johpower** » Sun Feb 08, 2004 8:26 am

I think I've got it: make Commander Keen on the top of the home page the forum button! Put your cursor on him and a balloon opens saying: "Check the DOSGames forum action. Click here!" or something appropriately "Keensian".

And don't remove the forum link on the left sidebar.