Ive been thinking about the page layout and features recently and have wondered about what peoples first impressions of it are. i mean, the layout looks good to us but thats because we're used to it and of course because its our community so we usually see mostly the positives about the site.

So, my idea is that we conduct optional (but recommended) surveys for our newcomers to see their personal thoughts on this website and what their first impressions were. This way, we can gather the data with graphs and/or other methods and take a look at the strengths and weaknesses of the site as a whole for new people joining the interguild. This way, we can better understand why we are or arnt gaining members and why. with this data gathered, we can advance from there and improve the site.

Maybe (if this plan works) we will offer newcomers some sort of website currency (i still dont really understand the whole Karma system, but yeah) for taking these surveys as a motivational tool.

This being said, i need permission from the staff to go ahead with this

please post your thoughts

that's true. I've tried to explain to quirvy how bad the current design is for new comers, but he still likes it.

It'd be helpful if upon registering, we could get people to fill out a survey, and it'd have to be optional or else it would make registering more annoying for them.

But also giving out a survey would imply that we're putting a lot of effort into the layout, which after the release, won't be true. I'll be so sick of working on it that I'll pretty much want to ignore all criticisms. But this is a good idea for whenever we're considering a redesign.

But what would the survey be like? Will it ask people "what was the first thing on the page that your eye was attracted to?", or will it ask stuff like "rate this site's ease of use on a scale of 1 through 10 with 10 being the best".

I think a mix of both quantitative and qualitative data. if you dont know the difference, a quantitative question would be your second question, and qualitative question would be your first. quantitative gains statistics (like the amount of people who ticked a certain box e.g: Yes:5 No:3 for example. or, on a scale of 1 to 10 like your question) that we can graph and so look at the percentages. whereas qualitative data is personalised answers where each individual answer is unique. these cant be catagorised but they do give us an idea of everyones general personal thoughts on the site.. I think more quantiative questions, though, would be better for this sort of survey.

As for the questions in the survey, that would be put down to three main big picture questions that will be answered through the questions in the survey. these three main questions will not be in the survey, just questions we will need answered for ourselves to come to a solution on the layout.. So, these three main questions would be revolved around the issue which is the layout. if this doesnt make sense, then please tell me and ill give an in depth explanation

quantitative questions work best for when you don't want the survey to last too long, and then we could also put one question at the end asking if the user has any comments about the design.

I think I understand what you're saying about the three main questions.

Ok, so then this topic should be closed until further notice? or leave it open for peoples input?

you know, we could really use this idea for not just design stuff, but also figuring out how easy the level database is to browse, or for when I finally try to revamp the the video archive one day.

So be it then. i actually ment it for everything about the site, not just the layout. so if you want to use it for that then sweet