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#27 Sep 25 2014 at 5:17 PM Rating: Excellent
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Catwho wrote:


BTW if you guys need a volunteer for User Acceptance Testing, I'm a professional and would gladly volunteer some time to the network. I know you're caught between the desire to modernize the site and the reluctance of the rest of us to change. But with proper UAT you could anticipate some of the reactions people are having to these changes, and make adjustments before pushing something onto the live website that everyone hates.


I promise you, we talk about user acceptance :) I've been here since you had to remember how the heck to spell "allakhazam" to share a link in EQ, and I've been through a ton of changes, and we do, indeed get it. Unfortunately, with change, you're pretty much always going to disappoint someone.


Edited, Sep 25th 2014 7:18pm by Calthine
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#28 Sep 25 2014 at 5:21 PM Rating: Excellent
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His Excellency Aethien wrote:
ctrl+0 puts everything at 100%/normal size, if it doesn't fit like that it's an issue on the site's side of things.


Ah-HAH, that's what I was looking for. When I change my resolution to 1366 x 769 and reset the size, everything fits.
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#29 Sep 25 2014 at 5:24 PM Rating: Good
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Didn't work for me, Ctrl+0 didn't change anything from the way I had it set. XIV is still off-screen at 1360x768. I guess for the time being I'll just type ffxi in the address bar and choose the two sites that way.

Edited, Sep 25th 2014 7:26pm by Lyrailis
#30 Sep 25 2014 at 5:30 PM Rating: Excellent
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Lyrailis wrote:
Didn't work for me, Ctrl+0 didn't change anything from the way I had it set. XIV is still off-screen at 1360x768. I guess for the time being I'll just type ffxi in the address bar and choose the two sites that way.



How interesting. This is what I get under those conditions:

Screenshot

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#31 Sep 25 2014 at 5:41 PM Rating: Good
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I find the arrow to the side misleading, like there should be a menu there or something. Yet nothing appears, and clicking just takes you to the site page.

http://i.imgur.com/ZSKAaR0.jpg
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#32 Sep 25 2014 at 5:41 PM Rating: Good
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Ok, honest critique/problems I see right now:

1: The M in ZAM sticks awkwardly out of the bottom of the bar, enough to be just noticeable but not enough to look like it's done on purpose rather than someone just not paying attention.
2: The dark black bar clashes with at least some of the themes and always will unless you edit it for every theme or get rid of the themes.
3: 90% of the bar is empty, what is the purpose of an empty scrolling bar?
4: When I scroll to the top I now have 2 menu bars plus some loose floating logos and a search bar, all with loads of unused space.
5: When scrolled to the top there's now 2 ZAM logos almost next to each other, they also link to different pages for no apparent reason.
6: When you get to the bottom of the pages there's the huge footer with all the same links as the new menu bar and then some which seems more than a little superfluous when most of it is already in a menu that's permanently on my screen.
#33 Sep 25 2014 at 5:53 PM Rating: Good
I didn't read any of the above posts.

What the flip-mode? Do not like. I'm sure it will grow, but...I don't know :3
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#34 Sep 25 2014 at 5:57 PM Rating: Excellent
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After Ctrl+0
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a501/bryan_weber1/New_Zam_Header_Menu_zpse11545ec.jpg
Firefox 31.0 Minimum Font Size 16

Before Ctrl+0 with default 20 font size
http://i1281.photobucket.com/albums/a501/bryan_weber1/New_Zam_Header_Menu_20_zpsb16698c3.jpg

I haven't looked at the laptop yet, but I'm sure it's worse, as it's not a wide screen and pretty small display so fonts are large (15").

Yther Ore.

Edited, Sep 25th 2014 8:16pm by Yther
#35 Sep 25 2014 at 5:57 PM Rating: Decent
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Hmm, in an age were wide screen monitors are the norm, someone thought it would be a good idea to waste almost an inch of screen space along the top of the screen instead of utilizing the massively underused sides. That right there is some quality design.
#36 Sep 25 2014 at 6:03 PM Rating: Excellent
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TirithRR wrote:
I find the arrow to the side misleading, like there should be a menu there or something. Yet nothing appears, and clicking just takes you to the site page.

http://i.imgur.com/ZSKAaR0.jpg

^This

His Excellency Aethien wrote:
Ok, honest critique/problems I see right now:

1: The M in ZAM sticks awkwardly out of the bottom of the bar, enough to be just noticeable but not enough to look like it's done on purpose rather than someone just not paying attention.
2: The dark black bar clashes with at least some of the themes and always will unless you edit it for every theme or get rid of the themes.
3: 90% of the bar is empty, what is the purpose of an empty scrolling bar?
4: When I scroll to the top I now have 2 menu bars plus some loose floating logos and a search bar, all with loads of unused space.
5: When scrolled to the top there's now 2 ZAM logos almost next to each other, they also link to different pages for no apparent reason.
6: When you get to the bottom of the pages there's the huge footer with all the same links as the new menu bar and then some which seems more than a little superfluous when most of it is already in a menu that's permanently on my screen.

^and This! The two zams in the top-left is annoying with the EQ1 skin. The fixed position one, is annoying, 'cause the menu appears whenever trying to hit the back button on Firefox.

Yther Ore.
#37 Sep 25 2014 at 6:05 PM Rating: Good
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Calthine wrote:
Lyrailis wrote:
Didn't work for me, Ctrl+0 didn't change anything from the way I had it set. XIV is still off-screen at 1360x768. I guess for the time being I'll just type ffxi in the address bar and choose the two sites that way.

How interesting. This is what I get under those conditions:

Screenshot

I see it the same way Lyra does. 1366x768 resolution, default font size (ctrl+0), firefox.

http://i.imgur.com/KSjOJdM.png
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#38 Sep 25 2014 at 6:06 PM Rating: Good
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Calthine wrote:
Lyrailis wrote:
Didn't work for me, Ctrl+0 didn't change anything from the way I had it set. XIV is still off-screen at 1360x768. I guess for the time being I'll just type ffxi in the address bar and choose the two sites that way.



How interesting. This is what I get under those conditions:

Screenshot



Odd.

I even hit Ctrl+-, then looked at the menu. FFXIV visible, touching the taskbar exactly.

And then I hit Ctrl+0 and we're back to XIV being off-screen and only seeing half of FFXI.

Default font size 16, FF v32.0.3. No extra toolbars, or anything as you can see from my SS above.

Edited, Sep 25th 2014 8:10pm by Lyrailis
#39 Sep 25 2014 at 6:38 PM Rating: Excellent
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I'm collecting all your feedback. I've got enough on the menu size in 1360x768 :)

I can appreciate that many of you are unhappy with the esthetics of the bar. The bar has to be universal to all ZAM Network sites, so it's inevitable that some folks will find it displeasing.
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#40 Sep 25 2014 at 6:39 PM Rating: Excellent
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My resolution btw is 1920x1080. And wouldn't it be simpler, if every skin has the ZAM graphics, to make it a click-able (not mouse-over) menu, and make it multi-column so it all fits on shorter displays?

Yther Ore.
#41 Sep 25 2014 at 6:53 PM Rating: Good
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Calthine wrote:
I can appreciate that many of you are unhappy with the esthetics of the bar. The bar has to be universal to all ZAM Network sites, so it's inevitable that some folks will find it displeasing.

I'm not unhappy about it's existence. Just confused by it. The bar is mostly dead space. Why bother having an entire bar blocking the top section of the screen if you're only using an inch or so in each corner? Wouldn't it be better, both functionally and aesthetically, to have two smaller things in the corners, leaving the middle of the screen open and not interfering with anything else?

Edit: And really, is anything on that bar really so important that I need to see it at all times?

Edited, Sep 25th 2014 8:19pm by Karlina
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#42 Sep 25 2014 at 7:01 PM Rating: Good
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Calthine wrote:
I can appreciate that many of you are unhappy with the esthetics of the bar. The bar has to be universal to all ZAM Network sites, so it's inevitable that some folks will find it displeasing.
It's not just the aesthetics, although that is a problem (with the site as a whole really), it's that in its current form the bar does nothing. So it's either unfinished in which case it shouldn't be there yet or it is not supposed to do anything in which case it shouldn't be there at all.
#43 Sep 25 2014 at 7:28 PM Rating: Excellent
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At the moment the bar does what we intend it to do, and does it correctly. The bar will soon(tm) allow us to implement a truly unified login system across all network sites.

I should also let y'all know that, while I'm collecting your feedback and bug reports, I am not the decision maker.


Edited, Sep 25th 2014 9:35pm by Calthine
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#44 Sep 25 2014 at 9:46 PM Rating: Good
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Calthine wrote:
I should also let y'all know that, while I'm collecting your feedback and bug reports, I am not the decision maker.

We know. You're just the only one here posting.


Anyway, I have never seen the "menu bar that follows you around" thing done well on any site ever. It's becoming more and more common but I have yet to see a site actually be better off because of it. It is ALWAYS more annoying than useful. Rarely do people need anything from the bar while in the middle of a page and it takes up screen space and messes with page up/down scrolling. Those links are already at the top and bottom of every page. Why do we need to see them all the time? The whole thing just seems completely unnecessary.
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#45 Sep 25 2014 at 10:18 PM Rating: Good
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I keep getting excited thinking I have a message. Then disappointment follows.
#46 Sep 26 2014 at 4:02 AM Rating: Good
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Calthine wrote:
The bar will soon(tm) allow us to implement a truly unified login system across all network sites.
So it's part of an unfinished project and whoever decided it had to go live made a mistake.
#47 Sep 26 2014 at 8:15 AM Rating: Good
Another thing is that sites chosen from the drop down menu open in a new screen.

I keep one bookmark for ZAM in my bookmarks toolbar. I switch between the XI and XIV sites within that one window. Having the site open in another window defeats the purpose of me only having one bookmark.

Is there a reason XI and XIV got shoved to the bottom? Are we that unloved?
#48 Sep 26 2014 at 8:31 AM Rating: Good
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Calthine wrote:
I should also let y'all know that, while I'm collecting your feedback and bug reports, I am not the decision maker.


I appreciate that you've taken the time to respond to our concerns, and having worked customer relations myself, I'll do my very best to not shoot the messenger. Smiley: smile

Calthine wrote:
At the moment the bar does what we intend it to do, and does it correctly. The bar will soon(tm) allow us to implement a truly unified login system across all network sites.


I have to comment on this, because if I'm understanding it correctly, this is worrisome news. Are you saying the header, as it is right now, is the final product? That the only menus on it will be the ZAM Network list and the account management menu? That's the intended purpose of the header in the future?
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#49 Sep 26 2014 at 8:43 AM Rating: Good
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Catwho wrote:
Is there a reason XI and XIV got shoved to the bottom? Are we that unloved?
It's because the F from Final Fantasy comes after the E for Everquest in the alphabet which in turn comes after the.. uh.. X from XIVDB... as everybody knows...
#50 Sep 26 2014 at 10:10 AM Rating: Good
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Just to point out something pretty obvious:

On every Zam site I've visited, on various resolutions, there's always dead space on the left hand side of the screen. While I'd absolutely prefer the bar gone completely, by a pretty huge margin, scrolling bars are WAY less invasive when they're on the side of the screen. Especially since that's blank space on all your templates anyway.

So... use that? I don't understand why anyone thought it would be a good idea to actually cover up content with dead space when literally all of the network sites have available space in the same location.

Side note: you're actually undermining your own branding for the individual network sites right now, because this bar is (at best) adding clutter to the area of the individual logos or (at worst) actually covering them. Unless you actually intend to to roll all the zam network sites into a single master site accessed at zam.com, it seems like a really poor decision. I mean, I'm assuming you're trying to grow your user base, not shrink it. People don't exactly like accessing cluttered sites.
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#51 Sep 26 2014 at 10:36 AM Rating: Excellent
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Mazra wrote:

I have to comment on this, because if I'm understanding it correctly, this is worrisome news. Are you saying the header, as it is right now, is the final product? That the only menus on it will be the ZAM Network list and the account management menu? That's the intended purpose of the header in the future?


I'm not privy to all our plans, but for now, until we finish developing the unified login structure, yes, that's it. The bar is a black bar on all the network sites. The left-hand ZAM is the network menu. For now, the right-hand side contains the login and user info for that site. Over on http://www.wowhead.com/ and http://www.hearthhead.com/ there's a lot more of the bar being used.

We've just got less stuff over here.

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