- Timer display causes unresponsive UI when under 20 seconds, on medium-performance devices (i7 laptop in balanced performance mode). This is seen as a visibly stuttering mouse pointer and minimum 1-2 seconds per turn. Obviously this is a severe disadvantage during rapid games.
- The click-to-move functionality has a non-intuitive piece-selection mechanic. Opponents' pieces can be selected for movement. If an owned piece is selected, selecting another piece will deselect the first, rather than changing the selection. Selecting an already-selected piece to move also "deselects" it. This entire mechanic leads to very frustrating repeated attempts to move pieces. This is especially problematic in conjunction with the above UI latency. This makes drag-to-move the only reliable way to move pieces, however, this is a very poor solution for increasingly-popular touch-screen display devices.
- Poor feedback is provided regarding network connectivity issues and "waiting for movement confirmation" status from the server. It is obvious from application interactions that there is a "keepalive" implemented. Using this information, as soon as a connection issue is detected, this should be conveyed (in a non-intrusive manner), rather than waiting for some indeterminate period after an attempted movement to hang the display. Frustratingly, when connection is reestablished, the requested move has been discarded. Additionally, the UI should have a "movement submitted but not acknowledged" status. Finally, I'd ideally like to see a summary maintained of time lost to network issues throughout a game.
- The game abandonment algorithm needs to be revisited. At a minimum, please find out why the server can abandon a game earlier if a player successfully reconnects after a network issue.
- The "fair play" algorithm is inaccurate, yielding false positives, and also doesn't do enough to stop this rude practice. Perhaps a community-moderated system of reviewing abandoned games could make more severe and permanent action feasible. I'd think it could be enjoyable to flip through abandoned games, both to act on a sense of "justice", and because a lot of abandoned games are probably amusing or interesting positions to review. http://www.chess.com/forum/view/suggestions/how-to-fix-the-bad-quotfair-playquot-policies
Live Chess Web Defects/Suggestions
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