Ahem. *takes a deep breath* Okay.
Joel Fagin wrote:
If you're navigating a comic, your hand is on the mouse and it's quicker to use that than switch to the keyboard.
I disagree. I don't know how other people do it, but I use the mouse with my right hand and the backspace button with my left. Much faster than moving the pointer up to the "back" button.
Joel Fagin wrote:
It's hard to be immersed with a medium that releases one page a day at best. It's a bit of a problem with webcomics but it doesn't stop people wanting to follow it or stop it from being entertaining.
Is it really that hard? True, we make 2-3 pages a week and no more, and that can make it difficult to follow the story and be immersed. BUT, printed comics are often also released in chunks, just larger ones. And it's really up to the reader wether to actually go back and read every single time there's an update. I don't. I wait a while, like a couple of months, and then go back to actually have something with substance to read. Some webcomics tell stories that almost requires the reader to do that, in my opinion, and WBK is one of those.
Hm. I think one of the the reasons we we still update weekly, is that we need the constant deadlines to keep producing pages...
But anyway. It's up to the reader.
Joel Fagin wrote:
That is, indeed, the problem with interface design.
I suppose that when you step out of conventions, you could either end up with a new and exiting solution, or with a miserable failure. The stakes are high.
Joel Fagin wrote:
Put in a "Latest comics" link - whether a button or text.
We have one - the bird, remember? It just doesn't go to the comic itself, but to the latest part of the archive, where the updated pages are located. But maybe that's what you meant.
Joel Fagin wrote:
In positive news, I really do like the "venture in" bit but it's a slow way of getting to the archives. I think it would work better as a story telling tool than webpage navigation.
Yeah, it's tedious in the long run, I understand that. That's why you could skip it by clicking the link at the top of the page. But that link is too small, apparently.
c.w wrote:
It's just not built for any one audience - new readers, regular readers, one time readers... they all get burned by little quirks that are just simple little things to add.
This really hit home for me. It's true, because we've not been clear enough. It WAS supposed to be a kind of introduction to set the mood for new reders, which the regulars could skip if they wanted. But seeing as most people don't understand what to do, it closes the door to new readers and serves no purpose to the old ones.
We don't want to remove the interface entirely and redesign the site fromj scratch - we've put too much time and effort in it, and besides, we like being unique. We just want it to work, too...
But something has to be done about it. I think I have some ideas.
c.w wrote:
Therein lies a problem of webdesign - people do stuff differently. I use the backspace button on laptops, the mouse on desktops. I tend to use middle click to open pretty much everything in a new window (so javascript new window stuff annoys me). I use firefox and opera at the same time to load various gmail accounts. I hit F11 when i watch videos, or when i'm looking at big pictures, or when i'm reading a comic with a big archive with pictures that just barely don't fit onscreen. That's just how differently i go about stuff - multiply that by a few hundred readers and you get the idea. If you lock people out of how they're used to doing things, they tend to get confused or angry.
And that's why we should do it the regular way, I get it. Only, the regular way can be annoying too, to some people. Both me and Emelie love that the comic opens in a new window, and would've liked more comics to do the same. One that does, is The Broken Mirror (
http://www.the-broken-mirror.net). That's how we like things, so that's why we did it...
c.w wrote:
Don't worry about it. I have the exact same problem, so i know where you're coming from. To a certain extent, you just have to accept that some people will "get it" and others won't. The only thing you can do is keep improving so more people "get it". I'd suggest moving it from the top of the page to the bottom. The colour of the picture might be capturing people's eye, and then because it's the web, people just automatically start going down the page.
... I'll admit something. Somewhere in the back of my mind, there's a voice saying "if you can't even figure out how the webpage works, then you won't understand the comic either, and then we don't need you as a reader..."
But I stopped listening to that voice when I realized that WBK actually got fans, and we couldn't just make it for ourselves and the occasional person the might be interested. And I also didn't understand until now that so many people got confused with the site.
We did put the links below the image, but when no one seemed to see them, so we moved it to the top instead.
We need something else.
c.w wrote:
Things i'd consider adding to the list -
Some sort of notice of an update schedule (if you have one.)
We don't. Or sort of. It usually updates on sundays, but sometimes not. That's why we haven't written it anywhere on the website. But as I said, we will note on the index page when we have updated. Kind of like and RSS feed, but we were planning to do it manually.
c.w wrote:
Small text navigation
Hmm... Maybe so.
c.w wrote:
RSS - very important with a comic like this. (your LJ has an RSS feed, and you note updates in it)
We have a hallonpress LJ, where we write when we have updated. If we could make that into an RSS feed on the WBK site (and make it look good), that'd be great. Though I, for one, have no idea how that works.
c.w wrote:
Get rid of the excess pages on your last archive page
Yes. We should do that, or at least mark which pages are new. The reason we haven't is that it's so tedious with the archival system we have now. It would require to retouch the image on every single update, so we're hesistant to do that... But, yeah, I agree.
c.w wrote:
Because WBK is really good.
Thank you for that, but to read a webcomic like WBK and actually get something out of it, you need to get immersed.
But the website and the comic itself is two different things, right? Getting immersed in the website shouldn't be required to get into and be emmersed in the comic...
rkolter wrote:
I am pretty internet savvy. But that wasn't relevant. I went to your page, didn't see a back or forward button, saw a What birds Know button, clicked it, and it went to the same dratted page I was already on.
Okay. That "button" is not meant to be a button, but the comic's logotype. Oops? The only reason we made it clackable was to make it easy to return to the index page.
rkolter wrote:
It's not enough. There's a protocol for webcomics. People who read webcomics expect to see the comic when they go to your website. The sites that don't have a comic on their front page, have text of some kind and a clearly labelled link to the comic.
Well, we made a point of not following protocol, and as I said, that could lead to something new and exciting, or a miserable failure.
We'll have to add some clearer links to the archives, but at the same time make it apparent that there are different ways to get there. If it's too apparent that you should click the regular links, and to obscure that you could click on the picture, then the present interface would be obsolete, and we want to keep it. It's a hard one.
Warren wrote:
It should also be noted that the popups don't work in IE7, and don't let you know that you should have one to disable the popup killer. To most IE7 users, they'll never get beyond the table of contents.
WHAT?? Okay, that was more than I knew. Big problem there! What kind of a reterded browser blocks ALL popups? A lot of pages use them.
Mo wrote:
...Am I the only one who didn't have trouble navigating my way through WBK?
Thank god somebody said that.
You can't be, since we've had two podcast reviews and one interview with Comixpedia, and no one has even mentioned problems with navigating until now.
Warren wrote:
Clearly women from countries without potatoes are WBK's target audience.
Hey! We have potatoes in Sweden!
I think I've said what I have to say here, even though I haven't commented on everything... Besides, this long an enrty leaves me a bit dizzy. I have to eat lunch now.
-Mattias
