Homepage Redesign - Update, Feedback Results and New Feature

Hey All,

As you know we recently gave the homepage a bit of a spring clean to add larger and more graphical icons and images.

The overall feedback was hugely positive and we have received 100's of comments of feedback. We also opened up a feedback form to capture all your thoughts/opinions on the new design. To date we've received over 230 completed feedback forms.

We're very grateful for every submission and it's hugely satisfying that so many people care about the site enough to take the time to fill out the feedback forms and to provide comments.

Based on your feedback we've released a slight update to the homepage design as well as a new feature (see below) that I think a number of you will like.

Before we get to look at these changes, I thought it would be good to take you through an analysis of the feedback and our comments on this.

What Style of Thumbnail do you prefer

58% Rounded Rectangle
18% Square
14% Sharp Edged Rectangle
6% Circle
4% Other

Our thoughts: It seems that our initial design was a popular one. As a result we'll be keeping the Rounded Rectangle images.

What image placement do you prefer

95% Left Aligned (as it is now)
5% Right Aligned

Our thoughts: I think these results speak for themselves

Image Thumbnail Size

67% Too Large
31% Perfect as it is
5% Too Small

Our thoughts: As a result of this we will be reducing the size of the thumbnails (see below).

Which Standard Icons do you prefer

56% I like them as they are
44% Prefer a simpler image as before

Our thoughts: Although the slight majority of you preferred the updated images for our standard icons, we have decided due to performance and speed issues, as well as compatibility with all browsers to use a slightly more simplified images (See below).

What Browser do you use primarily to access the site

44% Chrome
34% Firefox
11% Safari
8% Internet Explorer
2% Opera
1% Other

Our thoughts: As we suspected most people prefer the more modern, faster and secure browsers of Chrome and Firefox.

Do you Access SpoilerTV from a mobile device

37% No
63% Yes

Breakdown of the Mobile 63%

23% Android based Phone
18% iPhone
12% iPad
9% Android based Tablet
1% Other

Our thoughts: As we suspected more and more people are accessing our site via mobile devices. As a result we've made a few changes to the mobile version (see below)

New Design Update

Based on all the feedback we have implemented the following changes to the current design.

- The thumbnail images for desktop users has been reduced by 15%

- The thumbnail images for mobile users has been increased by 10% to make the images easier to read on more devices

- Number of posts on the homepage have been increased from 19 to 21.

- The standard images have been replaced with faster loading images. These new images can be seen below. A massive thanks to CJ for doing all these images.



However the biggest new change is that we will now be using standard show specific thumbnails for articles that do not contain an image. A big thanks to the SpoilerTV team for rallying together to create these images so quickly. Some are not perfect and we'll be looking to improve any that don't look great.



Basically if an article contains an image then we use that. If the article is just for a single show and does not have an image, then we use the show specific logo/icon. If the article does not have an image and has more than 1 label then we show a standard icon like Poll, Video, Press Release etc.

Here are some examples.

- We make a post which just has a single label of Castle but the article does not contain an image. This will display a Castle logo thumbnail.
- We make a post which just has a single label of Castle but the article does contain an image. This will display that image as a thumbnail.
- We make a post which has multiple labels eg Castle, Modern Family, The Middle etc but the article does not contain an image. This will display a standard logo eg Poll, Press Release, Video depending on the article type.
- We make a post which has multiple labels eg Castle, Modern Family, The Middle etc but the article does contain an image. This will display that image as a thumbnail.


We have standard images for 95% of the shows we cover, the remaining 5% are for new shows that have just been announced and don't yet have any official key art.


Other Concerns

- Some people mentioned that they were worried that some article images might be "spoilerly". We've asked all the team to ensure that the article they use in their articles for the Thumbnail will not contain any major spoilers.


New Feature

Also as part of this update, we're adding a new feature to the site. We've updated the site so that you have the ability to control the thumbnails a little more.

We've enhanced the site configuration screen to allow the following.

- Provide the ability for users to change the thumbnail style themselves. eg Rounded, Square, Circle, Sharp
- Provide the ability for users to turn off thumbnails

To access the site configuration you can click on either the Config Icon in Menu.



Or in the Start, Help or Features menu.



Clicking on this will load up the Site Configuration screen.



This allows you to change the following items.

- Background Color
- Thumbnail Type
- Banner Image

We hope you like these changes and whilst we know that we can't please all the people all the time we hope that through feedback efforts the site will suit as many of our readers as possible.

If you have any comments, suggestions, questions or find any bugs please let us know in the comments below.