New Dooyoo? (Testing in general)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Testing in general
Date:	08/05/01 (28 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: See Opinion

Disadvantages: See Opinion

I’ve been using the new Dooyoo site for just under a week now, and I bet you’re all dying to know what I think of the new look. First things first – thanks for listening to us, Dooyoo – it’s nice to see that those people who have written on the off-site Dooyoo forums and on-site “Suggestions…” category weren’t wasting their time! Secondly, both at home and at university, I use a screen resolution of at least 1024 x 768 and so some of the problems that other members have expressed (i.e. horizontal scrolling etc.) do not apply to me.

I don’t really know what I was expecting of the new redesign – I think I was expecting it to be more of a tweak under the bonnet rather than a brand new car type of affair. So, when I first viewed the new Dooyoo I was very pleasantly surprised.

The overall site is a lot tidier looking – I appreciate that there’s more going on at one time than in the previous incarnation, but Dooyoo manages to present all this new and extra information in a manner that quickly becomes second nature to take in.

The new log in box is now in a more sensible place near the top of the screen, so that those with a lower resolution do not have to hunt it out.

I like the fact that Dooyoo has separated the Speakers Corner ops from the rest of the ops. In a previous opinion on Dooyoo, I had stated that I didn’t really like Speakers Corner and that I thought Dooyoo was having an identity crisis by not knowing if it was a consumer review site and community. Well, I still don’t really like Speakers Corner, but I am coming around to the fact that Dooyoo is a community, so by keeping Speakers Corner in a separate place they’ve got the balance right.

The most useful upgrade is the “most recent opinions” list and I think that this has been extremely well implemented. Being able to see the most recent opinions in a certain
category or site wide is a real plus point, enabling users to spot churners, or new opinions in a category that holds some interest for them.

Likewise the “new items” category presents a list of recently added items for us members to write our opinions on, and this is more helpful than the previous method of informing us via email.

The site, if you haven’t noticed, is more colourful. This is a definite improvement over the simple green and black design, and the colours are used well, and are not too bright. I’ve also noticed that the site hasn’t slowed down since the new paint was applied, so hats off to the Dooyoo staff again!

Do I have any bad things to say about the new design, or am I just running around kissing Dooyoo butt? Well, there are a few things I’ve noticed that have changed for the worse.

Rating. It now takes 3 clicks instead of one to rate an opinion, but the use of drop down menus helps tidy up the site. How come we have to select our rating from the menu and then click a button? The “most recent opinions” drop down menu automatically sends the information to Dooyoo when you select an item, so why not rate in this manner?

Commenting. Once you’ve rated an opinion, you’re taken back to the top of the opinion which means having to go to the bottom of the page again to comment – could we have a “Comment” link at the top of the opinion as well as the bottom?

Profile Stats. I still wish to know how many opinions I have read in total. At the moment I’m told how many member and non-member reads I have, but I’m only told how many opinions I’ve rated and commented on. Why are we not given a total of reads?

Opinions. We’re still not given the opportunity of setting our own defaults for the ordering of opinions both on our own profiles and over the site generally, hopefully this will be included soon
.

Hall of Fame. I think that the current Hall of Famer should still be presented on the front page. I appreciate that this is a Community aspect and is not out of place on the Community page, but if the HoF is a reward for being an active member of Dooyoo (not just reading and rating) then they should be rewarded with recognition and (hopefully) increased reads.

Quick ratings: the number of each rating that an opinion has is no longer visible, and you have to click a link to see who has rated what.

A petty observation: in the box on the top right where it says “Welcome The Duke” you are given your miles and number of reads there is a link to your profile and a button to log out. Why not have the link as a button too? I think it looks messy in its’ current form.

Overall, I really like the new design. The site, despite my gripes about the number of clicks to rate, is more efficient to surf. It looks a lot better than it used to (and not as much like ciao as some other people seem to think) with clever use of colour. The other tweaks regarding more profile information and separation of Speakers Corner are the icing on the cake. I suppose I’ll have to update my “Suggestions…” opinion now which is now hopelessly out of date.

Summary: