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Some dislike new simFlight!

Sometimes one realizes that the time has come to not listen to just everyone and one should just do his thing! One recent example is our poll asking our users how they like the new site… 28% think it is ‘Bad’, see the full results:

[poll id=”1″]

Of course we are happy to know that most of you like it, 47% think it is good or even excellent and 22%  belong to the diplomatic front saying that ‘it can be improved’… of course.. we know, we will always keep improving it! promised!

0 Responses

  1. Hi!

    Just a hint: Maybe a few people are not satisfied with the loading times (I measured 34,65 seconds with cable access). WP is not (naturally) a CMS like PHPNuke, it would help to focus on plugins that enhance user experience without using too much ressources (parsing of external content, javascript, db-access and so on and so forth).
    ..

    Markus

  2. just a few moments ago i found an obsolete javascript query, a left over from a plugin experiment. i removed it now.. it should contribute to some faster reaction times … thanks for your tip markus!

  3. There are times indeed when we dread a feedback we did not hope to get… This is in every business the same (including mine!). Unfortunately there are also times when we have to admit that we goofed with the best intentions in mind!

    Your new layout is not easy friends, it is not as user friendly as the previous one and makes reading a tad confusing. This – of course is only one and my opinion. it’s your choice to consider or ignore it. I regret to have to write what you would rather not want to read.

    Good luck in your options.

  4. While liking the new design, I would like to see a longer page to allow more news items to be read without having to change the page. It would also be nice to have the option to change page at the top of the pages too.

  5. thank you for the input!

    jean-claude: can you specify why it looks a bit more confusing to you? is it really more confusing or is it taking time to get used to?

    nick: a longer page means a few things that we do not want like a) longer loading times, b) less shown adverts (yes we have to think about that aswell, hehe). we could think of making the font smaller so you can zapp faster through it, we can also divide the main news column in half and make two news columns with a much smaller font..
    but anyway we move someone is not going to like it, we can never ever please all.

    an option to change the pages on top can be made.. but i do not see this done on any of the major pages on the net, meaning that it is not a standard.

    i am not saying that what we have now is the greatest! it is not, but it sure is currently the most viable.

    ps: may i suggest using our RSS feed http://feeds.feedburner.com/simflightcom for actually even faster service.

  6. “An option to change the pages on top can be made.. but I do not see this done on any of the major pages on the net, meaning that it is not a standard.”

    Nothing wrong with setting trends 😉

  7. Nick,

    To answer your question: Your medium is meant to be informative and thus has to contain as much information as possible (including ads) on a minimum space preferably on the whole screen. I see that presently you remove yourself 5 cm of space in margins (at least 2 x 2.5 cm), meaning that your main informative column is reduced by at least 3 to 4 cm. Is it justified? This is more elegant indeed but less functional. Given the nature and aims of your medium, this is a debatable option.

    Having said the negative, I also want to mention the positive, your site is certainly now more attractive than most of its kind by the number of various information provided.

    It is just the layout that would need some rethinking (in my view of course).

    Have a great day!

  8. Hey, as an avid visitor I have quite a long (and hopefully helpful) post to make.

    The website looks fine, but it’s layout is wrong. You have everything pushed on to the screen and in a 3-column layout.

    I see that you tried to get the news (main content) left-aligned, but the problem is that the page looks lop-sided now, there is too much going on on the right side of the page and is detracts from the actual content. The center column should have the main content to make it more symmetrical.

    Just about the entire right-hand column is a waste of space. You don’t need the latest comments and latest forum threads in there, at all. With only 6 items in the nav-menu (which isn’t nearly pronounced enough, it looks like the rest of the content and should stand out from the crowd) you should really have thought about making a horizontal CSS menu below the header and above the content – this would free space and make navigation a breeze. Tag cloud? Well, personal choice, but I think it is unnecessary and adds to load time by querying the database. The google ads look out of place, you know you can style them right? At least make the background color match the column background color. Even better, try text-link ads – they make more cash and are quicker to load.

    the actual news posting column is just fine.

    The center column should either go on the left, or replace the right column and add the items I didn’t mention should go to it. But do you really need all the adverts, they are the single biggest killer on load time.

    Okay, that’s the layout. now the actual reasons the website is slow. I don’t know if this will display in the post correctly – so I apologize if it doesn’t, but the following are your websites stats.

    Empty Cache
    41.6K 1 HTML/Text
    0.0K 1 Redirect
    5.6K 2 IFrames
    146.0K 16 JavaScript Files
    26.7K 9 Stylesheet Files
    4.3K 6 CSS Images
    498.8K 27 Images
    723.3K Total size
    62 HTTP requests

    Primed Cache
    41.6K 1 HTML/Text
    0.0K 1 Redirect
    5.6K 2 IFrames
    31.5K 15 JavaScript Files
    0.0K 8 Stylesheet Files
    0.0K 6 CSS Images
    0.7K 22 Images
    79.6K Total size
    55 HTTP requests

    While the webpage is 723.3K in size when a new user turns up, a returning user is still faced with 80k to load. 146k in javascript files? 498k in images and this is just on a sub-page, not the front page. You need to go to developers center at yahoo and read up on website optimization tips. I use Yslow, with firebug as an addon to firefox, which gave me that data.

    You can minify jquery and then gzip it (plus a new version just came out) – http://www.julienlecomte.net/blog/2007/08/13/.

    This below is your performance index with A being best –

    F 1. Make fewer HTTP requests

    This page has 16 external JavaScript files.

    This page has 9 external StyleSheets.

    ===============================================
    F 2. Use a CDN
    ========================
    F 3. Add an Expires header
    ==================================
    F 4. Gzip components
    ============================
    C 5. Put CSS at the top

    2 external stylesheets were found outside the document HEAD.

    http://s7.addthis.com/css/addthis_widget.css
    http://vodpod.com/stylesheets/widgets/sidebar2.css
    ==================================================
    F 6. Put JS at the bottom
    9 external scripts were found in the document HEAD. Could they be moved lower in the page?
    ================================================
    B 7. Avoid CSS expressions
    4 rules containing “expression” were found across all the CSS text. (thickbox 😉 )
    ================================================
    F 9. Reduce DNS lookups
    This page has more than 4 domains.

    * simflight.com
    * ads.simflight.com
    * pagead2.googlesyndication.com
    * dg.specificclick.net
    * s7.addthis.com
    * widgets.vodpod.com
    * forums.simflight.com
    * http://www.w3counter.com
    * s48.sitemeter.com
    * vodpod.com
    * assetscdn.vodpod.com
    * s3.amazonaws.com
    * http://www.feedburner.com
    * buttons.googlesyndication.com
    * us.i1.yimg.com
    ===========================
    F 13. Configure ETags

    All the above is again using yahoos rules of performance, if you need help with any of them they are all linked in this document:

    http://developer.yahoo.com/performance/rules.html#etags

    I hope that helps and keep up the good work!

  9. Hey, just wanted to reply with a “well done”, you have done a great job so far – the site looks way less cluttered, the top-menu has good functionality and the loading time has come down from 34.6 seconds to just 1.6 seconds!

  10. The enduring snippets of gold to someone who was fumbling around to find out something is still intact. And, that my fellow readers, is what this site is really all about…

  11. I think it is just a matter of getting used to it, I particularly like the simplicity of it and the fact that you can react and rate the items 🙂

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