Proposed redesigned geocache page

Discussion about the Geocaching Australia web site
Laighside Legends
10000 or more caches found
10000 or more caches found
Posts: 1304
Joined: 05 October 10 10:20 pm
Location: Australia

Re: Proposed redesigned geocache page

Post by Laighside Legends » 23 July 15 9:09 am

caughtatwork wrote:As far as your image above goes:
- we have a prominent description
- we have a prominent hint
- we have a built in geochecker
- opencaching encourages dual listings, we don't, so there is no need for the dual listing link (they encourage dual listings to bulk up their numbers, we'd prefer geocaches to be unique to a site)
- log count is behind the "Log Count" button
- nearby caches, we don't list them, but you can get to them from the nearby links GCA, unfound, recommended, etc, in the navigation.
- we have prominent logs
All of those neat features are at GCA.

My personal opinion of that page is that it's too cluttered. I prefer data in columns so it can be read straight down. With data laid out in lines, I cannot easily distinguish where elements end and start, so I find I have to read each word to identify what is what. In columns, I can cast my eye down the list and move right when I spot the element I'm interested in. When I go caching, I want to know about the physical cache (difficulty, terrain, distance and direction from my home and a map showing surrounding roads), about the cache (description), any hints and whether the last logs are finds or not. Close caches are not in my sphere of interest by the time I am looking at the cache page. I would like to be able to get to them, but not have them there immediately. Most of the time I am running off a search, so I return to my search for any other caches of interest. We can do this, but it's a bit of a drain on the machine while it finds close caches. The http://www.geopeitus.ee/ site only lists 2,500 or so caches, so geospatial queries are ever so much faster with that smaller number. Our new machine will help that sort of query, but I question the immediacy of the data on the page.

The data seems to be the same. It's the presentation that is different. I am open to ideas and information and appreciate your feedback. I see nothing compelling me to change the design with the possible exception of adding "close by" caches in an AJAX box and your initial comment about a more prominent LOG ME link.
I acknowledge that that site has a lot of problems and I don't fully understand it. I was just pointing out one part that they do well which is a geochecker that is prominent, easy to find and at the bottom of the description where you would expect to find it! (I have had people email me about my GCA puzzles asking "Are my coords correct and have you considered added a geochecker?" when the in-built GCA is enabled - they just haven't found it.)

The nearby caches was more of a "here's an idea - what do others think?" sort of thing - I'm not entirely convinced it's worth having...

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