Harringay online

Harringay, Haringey - So Good they Spelt it Twice!

Sorry, but I don't like this 'You may also like' stuff

Am I the only one?

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Permalink Reply by Con on October 1, 2012 at 20:00

get rid Hugh.

Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 1, 2012 at 20:03

I'd be very interested to know what people don't like about it? That will help with future developments.We can't stay the same forever.

Permalink Reply by ant on October 1, 2012 at 20:11

I don't really like it either, its too random and some things it brings up are way too old and out of date, like this old sofa being given away from over a year ago it keeps showing me. That said I did really like the bollard street art that i'd missed when it was originally posted.

Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 1, 2012 at 20:26

Cheers, Ant. There's the sweet and the sour of it in a nutshell. 

Permalink Reply by Alison P on October 1, 2012 at 20:18
This doesn't come up for me at all, but there is now a blank space at the top of the home page - is that where it is? I'm viewing on an IPad.
Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 1, 2012 at 20:25

Yes, there's another thing I'm trying on the front page to help curate some of the content, but it's flash-based and doesn't work on Apple devices.

Shoestrings are damnably tricky budgets do things on!

Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 1, 2012 at 21:01

OK, having found out that the Apple device user testing section of our product development department messed up, I've fired the whole team and killed the new front page module. My product development director left a slightly snitty comment on the provider's feedback area (along with many others, it seems who also didn't realise that flash wasn't supported) and the module has been replaced with something that almost does the same job but is much less pretty and more suited to the job. 

So two steps forward, one step back for that development. 

The genesis of that little change BTW was the number of requests I've had for more curation of content. Their number seems to increase all the time as the level of content increases. I just happened to stumble across the 'You May Like' thaing  over the weekend and thought I'd give it a whirl at the same time.

Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on October 1, 2012 at 21:17
Love you for trying something new but like Caligula said "the horse didn't like it". (Sounds better in Latin)
Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 1, 2012 at 21:24

Thanks Michael. (I've quietly killed it off. I was rather disappointed with the very restricted selection of randomness it served)

Permalink Reply by Richard McKeever on October 1, 2012 at 23:03

Interesting feed back Hugh - I've set it up on B&B - agree about the randomness (past events etc!) and its a shame if its not rendering on mobile platforms.But I doubt it'll generate the same "marmite style" engagement in our neck of the woods.

Cheers

R

Permalink Reply by Hugh on October 2, 2012 at 8:47

Cheers, Richard. I think it was the flash based featured stories slider I added to the front page that wasn't working on Apple mobile. Given the popularity of iStuff, this seems like a daft solution choice by the company who produce it.

I think the idea of the "You might also like" feature is bang on. In the day or so that it was operational on HoL, a couple of stories were rediscovered and reopened as conversations. Others, as we read above were discovered yet not commented on.

However, the dissatisfaction expressed here chimed with what I felt and confirmed my doubts. For me, it confirmed that it's not quite there, or it doesn't work on this site with this content inventory. Here's what swung it for me:

  • Too narrow a selection of links selected from the thousands available.
  • Too many date limited stories (just a fact of our site).
  • Too many random malfunctions (where the picture based module is replaced by a bulleted text based one which is out of sync with the site's design parameters - seems to be an even worse problem on B&B).
  • Noticeable lag effect on page loading (less of an issue, it seems, on B&B).
  • Too prominent from a design point of view.

If I could find an alternative that dealt with enough of those issues, I'd introduce it tomorrow - having checked it works with iStuff!

BTW, where did you come across it?

Permalink Reply by Justin Guest on October 2, 2012 at 10:18

Was not a fan either Hugh. I see you have pared it back to a list of four (no images) on the front page. Better I think. I quite liked the spirit, and I did see a couple of things I thought, oh, that looks intersting. Was not a fan of it on the discussions when you clicked through though...  If you are to keep it, the current format is more conducive I reckon!

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