Phantasmagoriat wrote:This is the current structure of the Members.Main Page:
My Account.??
o View profile
o Edit profile
o Local downloads
o Download queue
o My journal
o Submitted banners
Search For AMVs.??
o Super Search
o Newest Videos
o Newest Downloads
o Search by Avatar
o Search by musician
o All Search Options
Fans.??
o My Favorite Videos
o Opinions Given
o Interviews (10)
o Newsletter
o View Alert Log
o Modify Alerts
Editors.??
o Opinions Received
o Enter new video
o Edit video info
o Upload A Video
o Bandwidth Usage
o Video Embedding
Community.??
o Chat rooms
o Forum
o My journal buddies
o Search for members
o Site Store
Donate.??
o Make a Donation
o My donation history
o Site donation stats
Guides.??
o View all guides
o How to play videos
o How to use the site
o Everything A/V
Contests.??
o Avatar Music Video Contest List
o Avatar Music Video Contest Forum
o Banner Ad Contest
o Logo Contest
o Viewers Choice
Site Help.??
o Site Help Forum
o FAQ
o Site Rules
o Report a bug
o About Us
There are 46 subheadings in this list. This is way too fricking many, even set up collapsable like they are currently. Some of them can probably be merged, some are dead content and need to get out of these buttons and over somewhere else. The discussion of what's going to remain of these should probably take place in addition to the discussion about how they're presented.
What follows is an attempt to purge these menus down to a more reasonable size. The .org has a lot of functionality, which is a good thing, so it's not going to be a huge reduction. I normally have such tabs open as to see 17 of the 46 available buttons; if the below was implemented as-is, I'd have 13 buttons of 28 to 32 visible.
My Account.?? (original)
o View profile
o Edit profile
o Local downloads
o Download queue
o My journal
o Submitted banners
My Account.?? (new)
o My profile
o Local downloads
o My journal
Merge View and Edit to a view/edit control on the profile page. If the layout on the queue page was cleaned up, it could easily be integrated into the local downloads page (suggestion: above the videos already downloaded)? Banners would be associated with the banner contest. further down.
Search For AMVs.?? (original)
o Super Search
o Newest Videos
o Newest Downloads
o Search by Avatar
o Search by musician
o All Search Options
Search For AMVs (new)
This should be a button on its own, taking the user to the current 'all search options' page. The quick search box needs to move up the page as well, but this has too many options and they are all duplicated on the 'all search options' page. (which will get a post of its own later.)
Fans.?? (original)
o My Favorite Videos
o Opinions Given
o Interviews (10)
o Newsletter
o View Alert Log
o Modify Alerts
Fans.?? (new)
o My Favorite Videos
o Opinions Given
o Alerts
The interview and newsletter pages are dead content (newsletter, no updates since 2007, interviews, no updates since 2004) and need to be moved out of the main menu (see comments on the Community submenu below)? There is no reason why 'modify alerts' isn't a control on the alerts page. (at least AFAIK, but it would have to be a really weird reason if the implementation was actually dependent on that.)
Editors.?? (original)
o Opinions Received
o Enter new video
o Edit video info
o Upload A Video
o Bandwidth Usage
o Video Embedding
Editors.?? (new)
o Opinions Received
o Enter new video
o Edit video info
o (Upload A Video)
o Bandwidth Usage
o (Video Embedding)
Most of the options here are actually useful; this is one of the core sections of the .org and, being established, has not seen a lot of feature creep. It might be possible to get rid of the upload and embed options here by adding Upload This Video to Local and Generate Embed Code For This Video controls to individual video pages, but I can also see the utility argument for keeping them split out to where they are now.
Community.?? (original)
o Chat rooms
o Forum
o My journal buddies
o Search for members
o Site Store
Community.?? (new)
o Chat rooms
o Forum
o Search for members
o Fun Stuff
Journal buddies is a duplicate of a control that's on the journal page, and should stay associated with that. The new Fun Stuff option subsumes the interviews and newsletters page from Fans.?? above, plus the Site Store. I don't have a design for this, but as a raw idea, this might be a good place to revive the old Avatar Music Video wiki, but add in more .org-specific content. This helps clean up the main menu without losing the content that gets moved off, and also creates a DIY space for people to add stuff on their own that they feel the broader community might find helpful or interesting. This would be extra work to oversee, but it's worth considering whether this is a tradeoff worth taking.
Donate.?? and Guides.?? remain unchanged.
Contests.?? (original)
o Avatar Music Video Contest List
o Avatar Music Video Contest Forum
o Banner Ad Contest
o Logo Contest
o Viewers Choice
Contests.?? (new)
o Avatar Music Video Contest List
o Banner Ad Contest
o (Logo Contest) -- seasonal
o (Viewers Choice) -- seasonal
The Contest List should lead with a link to the contest forum. The Banner Ad contest should lead with a link to My Submitted Banners (moved from the account menu)? If the logo contest or the VCAs is not currently running, there is no reason to have these buttons on the menu; site history including a collection of past logos and results of previous years' VCAs should go on the Community->Fun Stuff anchor page alluded to above.
Site Help.?? (original)
o Site Help Forum
o FAQ
o Site Rules
o Report a bug
o About Us
Site Help.?? (new)
o FAQ
o Site Rules
o Site Help Forum
o Report a bug
o About Us
Just a minor reordering here, intended to reduce RTFM questions; the FAQ is actually really good content-wise, but needs internal navigation work.
Making these cuts gets us down to 28-32 submenu options, depending on how much gets preserved and what time of year it is. I would also vote for this and other interface posts getting split out into a separate structure/layout thread.
--K