Forum topic: UI Update Suggestions

On the beta site, http://beta.pitwall.org, apart from the points update, a new UI can be tested. The aim of the UI update is to make it responsive, to help users who want to play on mobile devices. The following posts in this topic are some suggestions and small issues which should be fixed.

Chat Sidebar
I know this isn’t a groundbreaking idea but I’ve read some messages about the fact that the chat will get hidden by the new UI. So I thought that, maybe, a chat sidebar that takes the whole height of the page could be added. What I mean is something similar to the current chat box that opens up when you hover on the Chat icon but expanded on the right hand side. In my thinking, this should not be a big problem to do because the UI should be responsive. I do not think, however, that this should be always visible but something that can be enabled/disabled. Maybe the ‘Chat’ heading on the current Chat box could be replaced with Expand and Close. In this way, if the user’s display has enough space, the user can open this sidebar which will give the Chat functionality the same (if not slightly more) exposure than the current www site.

Frank's reply - "The chat widget will also be added to a new desk page. This will give everyone a glimpse at the chat. But I don't feel it's necessary to include it on every page. Including it on the session pages is a possibility. "

News
In my opinion, it would be a good idea to put the News in a separate page as they were before. Maybe the page could also be accessed by non-logged in users since the posts do not contain (in my opinion) information that is more private than the chat and the forums.

Frank's reply - "That's an option yes. A logged out experience overhaul is also planned as part of this graphical update. "

Update - April 2018 - This has been implemented.

Sign In Page
As has been pointed out, the GUI update is mainly done to improve mobile usability. Even though I haven’t yet tested the new UI on a mobile device, I think usability could improve if a dedicated Sign In page is added. That way, the user (who may be on an expensive data plan or slow internet) would not need to wait for the home page to load but have a lighter page with the login form which takes him directly to the Desk page. If something like this is done, it would be helpful if error.php?type=login_required redirects the user to the Sign in page instead of adding an extra step. To be honest, a current user of the game would not need to read the description and see the screenshots every time (while not talking about waiting for the Facebook button to load that causes the page to scroll up and down until it loads - not a problem with Pitwall and was fixed in Chrome if I remember correctly).

Frank's reply - "Yep, this is planned. To have a better log in/sign up flow. "

Lite Mode (could be complicated but might be very helpful)
Since not everyone is on the latest flagship phone and the fastest internet, many of the AJAX loadable features might be annoying for users who might have the page freeze to load something they might not want. For this reason, I’d propose that a Lite mode-like feature is added. This feature would be activated in the Settings page and would disable or limit the AJAX features. Some examples are
- The Chat box demo not update itself automatically but instead have a Refresh button that makes this on demand
- The same applies to the Notifications box
- The same applies to the Desk’s news feed
- The intervals in the session pages (commentary, strategy, timings) get longer intervals (for example from 10 seconds to 20/30 seconds)
- The cars page gets a Save button instead of automatically sending an AJAX request to assign a part
These are just some ideas and do not have to be the limitations or only some of them can.

Frank's reply - "The reload time for the chat has already been made 3 times as slow (every 30 sec now). And the chat will only load when the user is hovering over that part of the site. More optimizations might be included, but I'm not going to go mega customizable as that only increases my workload. "

Press Releases
Would it be a good idea to have a page that lists only Press Releases, taking them out of the current Press page and making them more visible? That could re-open the tradition of teams writing press releases because they would be more visible and not easily lost. Maybe even add a voting count to start some competition to write the best press release.

Frank's reply - "I have that planned yes. As part of a overhaul of the press section. "

Slight Issues

The Modifiers link in the menu bar is written with the ‘m’ in lower case and not upper as the others.

Frank's reply - "That's normal, not translated yet. "

The News link redirects to the Desk page and not the actual News one.

Frank's reply - "Will be updated. "

Non-logged in users can’t access any page since they seem to be broken at the moment.

Frank's reply - "This should be fixed. "

Update from me - Yes, it is. Thanks Frank.

The current Chat sidebar is set to open to the left of the Chat button. Can this be set to open on the right like the Notification and the Help boxes. That is the only annoying thing about the current UI in my screen resolution because it creates horizontal overflow.

Frank's reply - "I'll have a look yes. "

Update from me - This has been fixed.

Is the Rulebook box really required in the Development Research page? It takes up almost all of the screen height.

Frank's reply - "I believe this was from before the update? Now it's responsive at the bottom. "

The Development page has a horizontal overflow.

I've updated each topic with the reply received from Frank.

Now that the GUI update has been transferred to the official site, I've updated the topics, striking through those that have been implemented.