This is something I've thought about for a long time, but just can't seem to wrap my mind around. I've always wanted, when people visit the site, to immediately know what the site is about, and what they can do here. Right now, I think that definitely is not the case.
I am a programmer by heart, and not a designer. I can make this site do the things I want it to, but when it comes to making the site usable for less tech-savvy individuals I know that it's impossible for me to look beyond the code. I can never experience the site, without having all it's functionalities in my mind.
What I want, is to boil the site down to what it does best, and present ONLY those things for first time visitors. I want it simple on top, and then when you delve deeper you can experience all the extra things that exists on the site.
So what are the best things about MP? Well, I'd like you to answer that as well, but in my opinion it boils down to only two things:
- The community
- The competitions
So what I want to do, is to really make those two things apparent for first-time visitors. I'm not quite sure how to do that, but I have some ideas. The first thing I want to do, is to trim the site of unnecessary content.
For me that means removing the featured artist pages...
To be honest, I never use those pages. And I mean ever. I know they are not properly working right now, but even when they did, I wasn't using them. I try not to think about them, cause I know they desperately need updating, but I just can't find the motivation for it. There are far better track-hosting services out there (soundcloud f.ex.), and I would prefer to integrate that into the site, instead of trying to come up with my own.
However, having a featured artist slot is something to strive for, to some it is a special honour to be put up there with the top artists of the site. I wouldn't want to take that feeling of accomplishment away. So I would need to have something as good, to fill in the void. I don't know what that would be yet...
But back to the usability issue. Right now our links to the left are Home, Forum, Releases, Competition and Random Music. I would keep only two of those links: Forum and Competition. The rest I would have accessible throught the front-page in some form. I haven't really thought this through, but are just putting it up there.
The front page is what really need to be worked on. I would really only like two columns, one saying Community and the other saying Competitions. Then I would list the features of each category (under community feedback, reviews, free upload, chat etc., under competitions prizes...hmm, can't think of anything else right now), and then two big buttons: JOIN OUR COMMUNITY | JOIN A COMPETITION
Joining a competition should only require 1(2) click(s) in my opinion. You click join a competition, fill out the form and upload a track and then youre automatically registered on the board and have joined the competition.
Join our community just take you to the registration page.
Sorry for making your eyes hurt from reading this much, but I think it's important, if we want to make this community grow, to make sure we make it simple for new visitors. These things are what I want to change on the site (and some may require a redesign of some sort).
Let me know what your view and ideas are. Do you think the site is fine as it is, do you agree with me or do you think something entirely else.
Thanks,