EDIT: IMO the like buttons on the front page are unneeded clutter. In fact I think the front page would have far too much clutter even without those like buttons.

EDIT: For me everything on the front page, apart from the latest forum posts section, goes without a second glance because it seems like the worst kind of spam and thus I apply a very effective mental filter to it. I say the worst kind of spam because most of the content on the front page seems to be a flood of advertising disguised as news, where the disguising as news makes it not as good as, and less effective than, honest and undisguised advertising spam. But I suspect it only seems like that because there's too much of it.

I would like to see a dramatic decrease in quantity of content on the front page coupled with maintained or increased quality. Failing that I would like to be able to personalise the front page by choosing which modules are displayed for me.

While I'm at it, I would also like to be able to chose a less blindingly bright theme for the site as a whole.

Having said all that I would like to express my gratitude to gamedev.net. The quality and value of its community seems to be great and unique.

Here, or using the "feedback" button?

Either place is fine. I'm monitoring this thread now, so any feedback will get put into our system.

EDIT: IMO the like buttons on the front page are unneeded clutter. In fact I think the front page would have far too much clutter even without those like buttons.

EDIT: For me everything on the front page, apart from the latest forum posts section, goes without a second glance because it seems like the worst kind of spam and thus I apply a very effective mental filter to it. I say the worst kind of spam because most of the content on the front page seems to be a flood of advertising disguised as news, where the disguising as news makes it not as good as, and less effective than, honest and undisguised advertising spam. But I suspect it only seems like that because there's too much of it.

I would like to see a dramatic decrease in quantity of content on the front page coupled with maintained or increased quality. Failing that I would like to be able to personalise the front page by choosing which modules are displayed for me.

While I'm at it, I would also like to be able to chose a less blindingly bright theme for the site as a whole.

Having said all that I would like to express my gratitude to gamedev.net. The quality and value of its community seems to be great and unique.

We agree that the front page needs work. Unfortunately it's going to be a little longer than we had hoped before we address it (addressing other areas of the site first). The front page now actually has a lot less information than it had in our old design, but we think the style is causing it to appear more cluttered than before so our focus will be on the layout and styling more than the actual content.

Having said that, the personalization you mentioned is the direction we're looking to go. It'll just take some time because we have some intermediate steps to get there.

Kev, I think the problem with the news feed style is just that there is an information overload. Handpicking the relevant stories is much better than then throwing a torrent of all possible stories from all possible sources our way. Reminds me of the feed at OpenGL.org, where I'd visit and there would be 3 news stories about kids making their first GL based chess games, or something similar. Who cares? We don't need a fatal info overdose all the time.

The section also looks a bit ugly, because it seems to have been added in while ignoring the existing scheme on the site. I've made many comments about the color clashes and such in various threads already. But in this case, everything on the site is flat, and then you have these 2 buttons here with gradients on them. They should be flat shaded, and use the existing scheme colors. It would look much better using the existing thumbs up button from the threads, and putting on the bottom line with the comments.

We agree that the front page needs work. Unfortunately it's going to be a little longer than we had hoped before we address it (addressing other areas of the site first).

I do hope this is a joke. The front page is:
The landing page where you would like people to enter your site.
Which gives the first impression of the site.

Where companies pay for articles and adverts to appear.

...

Thank you, I liked that reply. It made me take a closer look at the front page and I think I can pinpoint two specific points of the design which significantly contribute to make it seem so cluttered/spammy to me.

1. Not counting the main menu, there are eleven different modules displayed. I read somewhere that in order to avoid choice/information overload five or six branches is about the upper limit, which seems about right to me. So if the number of modules on the front page could be reduced to about five or six I think that would help a lot. That could be achieved by personalization as previously mentioned (seems like the ideal solution but might take time to implement), or simply by the site managers reorganizing the modules (which would likely be a quick solution though not as ideal as personalization, perhaps a temporary solution till personalization is implemented?).

2. The news feed is enourmous. There are twenty six news stories in the first page of the feed. I think it would be a good idea to reduce that to a digestible number like [s]ten[/s] six or lower. Simply reducing the number would be a solution, but if increased selectivity of news stories/sources were applied so the frequency of new items would be lower, then the exposure time for each item would not be adversely affected.

[quote name='Kevin Hawkins' timestamp='1303215856' post='4800323']

We agree that the front page needs work. Unfortunately it's going to be a little longer than we had hoped before we address it (addressing other areas of the site first).

I do hope this is a joke. The front page is:
The landing page where you would like people to enter your site.
Which gives the first impression of the site.

Where companies pay for articles and adverts to appear.
[/quote]

Understood and agreed. Reasoning is that the front page fits into the "good enough and functional" category while we both address other areas missing from the conversion as well as plan the content reorganization we've mentioned in our staff blog - both of which a front page redesign is dependent on.

For the record, I think the current like button is better but still a bit too greenish and a bit too saturated. How about something a bit more subdued like



(which I made just now with The GIMP)

For the record, I think the current like button is better but still a bit too greenish and a bit too saturated. How about something a bit more subdued like



(which I made just now with The GIMP)

That button is almost as scary as your avatar

I got used to the front page already. I agree that less news would be better though.