News OpenCritic is preparing to launch a new look for 2019. Beta available now!
- Thread starter lashman
- Start date
OP
I doubt the dude that runs the site cares about my lowly opinion, but I really don't like it. Hopefully he sees these comments somehow and takes them constructively.
What information is immediately available?
Okay, cool. Not perfect, but still pretty good.
Honestly, this section is fairly useless to me, but whatever.
Now what does the redesign show in comparison?
Alright, we're already off to a bad start.
Okay, at this point, they've officially created a mess.
Okay, this is getting dire.
This is actually better, but I still overall dislike the huge information section, and removal of the larger score breakdowns.
This review section is also mess:
Reviews now have to be paged through.
Before, the review page showed all the reviews on one infinite list on the right side, as well as a quick numerical summary on the left side from highest to lowest:
Pretty much everywhere I look, there's just less information, and more things to scroll past or click through. It's actually just generally clunkier and more filled with superfluous info.
- The dark theme shouldn't be a toggle, it should be the default. It's a subtle, small thing, but having a dark theme made for a larger visual contrast with the other review aggregators.
- Because the site is now white by default, the default look is just a modern, streamlined Metacritic.
- Except actually, it's not streamlined at all. The redesign has put the important information further away, and added unnecessary stuff into it.
What information is immediately available?
- I have a video link to the left that takes me to the E3 presentation of the game.
- Under that, minimally sized are three screenshots that I can also open and view.
- To the right is the score, and the score's ranking compared to other games on the site.
- On the bottom left is an Amazon link (I assume an Affiliate link).
- On the bottom middle/right is the average critic score again with a total number of reviews and a % recommended.
Okay, cool. Not perfect, but still pretty good.
- On the left is what appears to be the developer given description, then under that is platform, release date and publisher info. Below that is a section for information and MTX and what genres the game falls under.
- To the right is a breakdown of scores bracketed off by range (Mighty, Strong, whatever). Visually, it presents a nice picture as you can see a representation of how many outlets fall into each bracket, with the added bonus of outlet logos if you're quickly scanning for your favorite.
- Conveniently as well, if you click on one of the logos, presumably because you like that website, it immediately takes you to a summary of their review with a direct link to the site under it.
Honestly, this section is fairly useless to me, but whatever.
- Most of this stuff is uninteresting to me in the context of a given review page, but at least it's at the bottom of the page.
- On the left we have more news/videos about the game.
- On the right, we have other newly reviewed games as well as a list of upcoming releases.
Now what does the redesign show in comparison?
Alright, we're already off to a bad start.
- A lot of space is being wasted to show you less information than on the old page. Granted, the score, % recommended and scoring bracket (Mighty) are all there. But now we have lost the screenshots and trailer, as well as the score compared/ranked to other scores on the site.
- We also, for whatever reason seem to now have folded critic and contributor scores, previously shown separately, (83+12 respectively) into the same number now, "95 critic reviews."
Okay, at this point, they've officially created a mess.
- If I scroll the equivalent amount down on the old design, I would already be seeing a summary of the scores.
- Now instead, they have blown up the old General Information section to take up an entire screen's worth of information. This information does not need to be this large. Hell, even Metacritic hides most of this information under the "Details and Credits" page because they know it's not what most of their visitors are looking for.
- This information could easily be smaller like it used to be, or at least half of it could also be moved up into the top screen with the SSBU image backdrop. There's a ton of empty space, and platform(s), genre, basic one-line description and release date could all fit up there. In fact, it could all probably fit under the title, on the line where it already says Nintendo. Here's a mockup I did in about 30 seconds with Firefox's developer tools:
-
- (less wasted space, more info, less need for this big wasteful area below)
- The other thing that's been added is a Review Summary. I kind of like this, but I also kind of don't know how I feel about a game aggregator trying to summarize disparate reviews into one blurb like Rotten Tomatoes does. It's okay, but it's not something I was dying for.
Okay, this is getting dire.
- Where we used to have a nice visualization of reviews, with all the outlet logos, we've now minimized the reviews into a simple set of four bars. I can no longer click from here to a summary (and then link) of a review from my favorite site.
- We've also now got blown up trailers taking up tons of space. This might not be so egregious if the reviews weren't so minimal.
- Okay, again like with the trailers, what were once minimal and unobtrusive are now huge and taking up a considerable part of the page.
- This is now technically the fourth time I've scrolled a whole browser screen down and we've only now just gotten to any actual review information, and all this seems to be is a summary of the four most recent reviews.
This is actually better, but I still overall dislike the huge information section, and removal of the larger score breakdowns.
Post automatically merged:
This review section is also mess:
Reviews now have to be paged through.
Before, the review page showed all the reviews on one infinite list on the right side, as well as a quick numerical summary on the left side from highest to lowest:
Pretty much everywhere I look, there's just less information, and more things to scroll past or click through. It's actually just generally clunkier and more filled with superfluous info.
OP
- Thread Starter
- #5
Totally missed this since I wasn't logged in on my vacation laptop. Sorry!
We need the light theme to improve our SEO. Dark themes are intimidating for most people, especially when they're unfamiliar with the site before getting to it.
That's why we've chosen to better organize the information, so that when a new user comes to OpenCritic, they understand "we're a review aggregator. That's what we do."
I'd encourage you to check out some of the updates. We made sure that every review number/display is clickable to take you right to the reviews section.
We also noticed a lot of people were missing the chart/card views, so we made it easier to toggle between them.
The Dark Theme is now the default for anyone who's ever visited opencritic.com in the past 12 months.
We need the light theme to improve our SEO. Dark themes are intimidating for most people, especially when they're unfamiliar with the site before getting to it.
Yes, and the problem is that, for new users, they can't tell what we are. All this information creates an information-overload effect, where they can't tell what's going on.
That's why we've chosen to better organize the information, so that when a new user comes to OpenCritic, they understand "we're a review aggregator. That's what we do."
I'd encourage you to check out some of the updates. We made sure that every review number/display is clickable to take you right to the reviews section.
We also noticed a lot of people were missing the chart/card views, so we made it easier to toggle between them.
That may very well be the intent of the redesign, but I find it hard to agree the redesign has actually created better organization for my tastes. It's also pretty hard to believe the issue is "information overload" when the new design gives even more prominence to non-review related information, like news headlines and "industry headlines" (which is pretty much the last thing I'm looking for when I navigate to an aggregator).
Honestly, it's probably just my dislike of modern web-design, because the update reminds me of many of the recent minimalistic, white "spacey" designs that everyone from Eurogamer to IGN to RPS are using now. The old design used to strike me as slick, the new design makes me want to go use something like GameRankings because it's brutally 2005-era design feels more functional to me.
I'm well aware I'm in the minority, but at this point I might as well just navigate to my preferred reviewers directly and cut the middlemen out.[/QUOTE]
We're hoping to be able to support this a little bit more with the redesign, though it's not yet implemented (should be this week).
One of the updates is that we've dropped personalized scores / publications.
In exchange, we've made it so that your top publications will automatically bubble to the top and be displayed first.
As I said, they're not yet live on the beta site. But you can imagine a filter on the review sections - All Critics, Top Critics, or My Critics