Club Redesign: Five questions to @jdcannon

Hey Jonathan,

on February 1 this was your announcement for the club redesign:

Five months later this redesign made it to Beta and will be tested. These are my questions:

1. What did you assume in February, "how clubs work and feel"?
2. What do you know now, "how clubs work and feel"?
3. You've stated, the current club design "kind of sucks": What are the main problems?
4. Which innovations and novelties in the club redesign will manage a better experience now?
5. Several club admins are complaining about a lot of difficulties for their clubs and for themselves. What will you do next to better this situation? 

Last update about unanswered questions

You think jdcannon is gonna reply to these? I don't think so!

@ranganh1: I'm surprised. Do you think, there is something wrong with my questions?
Thought, they're very close and precisely referring to his announcement, aren't they?

yeah that's what I meant. Your questions are reasonably good, but he may not even look at this post with all the work he has.

@S4MYZD4T: That's a good point. Have seen many of his comments in other forums. Thought, I'll wait a bit before sending him a personal message as a reminder and with the link to this forum.

Tell him they need to test the mobile browser UI with this redesign. Mobile seems to have gotten a little harder to use.

He's commented in a few other threads and PMed me personally after mine

Also who told him that the old UI sucked we need to scold that guy 😭

@MasterMatthew52: Most of the demands until now are about details, which are making the redesign worser than the current design, which – remember @jdcannon's words – "kind of sucks". Curious to get the information, what he thinks makes redesign a more user-friendly and better experience.

Seen, what's arriving now, probably we should. Imagine, how many bugs and broken features could have been fixed with another priority during the last five months.

Yeah I'd think everyone would enjoy a higher focus on putting devs on bug fixing much more

hey guys, are you noticing a theme here

Live chess was removed and replaced with Play. Did anyone ask for it? I don't think so, at least, the majority did not ask. But it was done anyway. Is it better? Maybe, maybe not. But I think we can mostly agree that people would rather have the Live server back.

The 4 player chess server was merged with the variants server. Did anyone ask for it? No. And all of us variants players can agree (except for like two people) that it was unnecessary and that we were perfectly happy with the old server. Instead the merge happens and we have unstable servers that randomly disconnect for over a year before they finally got fixed. And we lost 3/4ths of our playerbase. What's worse is that Danny publicly called the server crashes a conspiracy theory. And we didn't even have time to "test it in Beta". They just went straight to the merge.

Oh yeah, then chess.com bought Play Magnus. And if I remember correctly, this is also something no one asked for, in fact I think people were hating on it in the comments of the announcement that was posted.

I'm not trying to complain or anything, it's just that once chess.com decides they're gonna do something, it's probably going to happen regardless of what people say. And I'm kinda just mad about the variants situation (which we have received little to no help for despite the obvious capacity that chess.com has to at least spend a little money, time, and effort into helping develop). So I hope I don't sound like I'm hating, because at the end of the day, we're still members of the site. But if you're going to "update" something, I suggest you let people know that you're planning to do so instead of giving them 5 days to take it in and then going with the new changes almost instantly. I personally don't think everything has to be in the financial benefit of chess.com; maybe it's sometimes better to fully consider users' thoughts?

Open to discussion, again this is not a hate speech, so I fully apologize if it sounds like one. And maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I was misinformed, and all these things were done with the full approval of users. And it's not all updates that people didn't like; I loved the new UI design that was released a year ago and the new Rating Estimator in Game Review. Either way, I want to see how this possible theme continues in and through the future. What are your thoughts?

The designers and developers at chess.com are trying to make the user experience better and fresher. There are almost 8,000 Beta members, with X * 8,000 opinions on what makes a good UI. X can vary between 1/8,000, rarely, and something greater than 1.

UI design is not easy, and an approach can't possibly satisfy everyone.

Beta feedback does make a difference. The recent experiment with the Game Review Score graph is an excellent example of an attempt to improve the presentation. Plotting the eval bar and flipping the score chart when the board flipped was thought to clearer and more logical. Based on user feedback that design was retracted and the old design was improved.

Beta is here to provide the opportunity to users to give feedback. This is how Chess.com asks for your opinion. Giving a is not enough. Providing specific feedback with constructive alternative suggestions is a way better approach. Unfortunately with regard to what makes a good UI, many users are of the mindset of "I'll know it when I see it!" and can't articulate how to make it better; only that they don't like the new way.

Providing constructive, thoughtful feedback via this Beta forum and/or Report a Bug and Make a Suggestion is the way to influence things.

Absolutely agree with @Tournamentix. Unfortunately, the proposed version is currently far from perfect.

There are a number of minor and significant uncomfortable innovations/bugs, which include:
— removed Announcements from the main page of the club (but after all, administrators use them to notify about important events - how could it be removed?);
— favored the Forum at the expense of the Notes (but the Forum has never been a place for live communication, it is rather a place for communication by interests and learning - no more);
— convenient divisions for Daily, Live (moreover, Matches and Tournaments - separately) and Vote Chess were replaced by "Events", which essentially does not work since the beginning of testing - it cannot be used;
— incorrect display of the header board on the main page of the club (all fonts, hyperlinks, pictures, etc. are lost. Normally displayed only in the «About club» tab);
— the number of participants is not displayed on the main page of the club, you need to open «About club»;
— removed information about the date of creation of a particular club...

And many others... In fact, this list is long - I wrote only about what immediately came to mind.

Given all the problems with the testing version, I urge the site staff to add the ability for beta testers to switch from the testing version to the current version for other players, because the testing version is limited at the moment and does not allow team/tournament admins who are beta testers to continue developing the internal architecture of the site.

@jdcannon is a club admin here and active in the club.

That's already possible by leaving the beta and rejoining.

Yes, that's why I've asked here ... As he has already posted several comments in the meantime, he probably will ask very soon.

Without exiting the beta? I want to remain a beta tester, but be able to switch to the old version without leaving Beta members. Can I do it?

No, but that is the solution to test non-beta. Leave to test, then rejoin.

@adv_68: It works like this: After you've done, what you like to do in the club "Chess.com Beta", you go to your homepage and leave "Beta" in the settings (last icon on the bottom). This brings you the usual and recently much more appreciated current club design back.

Now you can do, what you're doing usually without being disturbed by the ongoing mass test of disfunctionalities, inconsistencies and missing work for a future club redesign. After a while, you will be excluded from the club "Chess.com Beta".

Only if you want to check another detail of the redesign, you need join "Beta" in the setting and to join the club "Chess.com Beta". If you only want to post a comment, it's enough to join the club "Chess.com Beta" to do so.

Since Friday I've this particular fun several times a day. It takes a moment to adapt yourself, but at least it allows you to limit the negative impact of the premature release of club redesign to "Chess.com Beta".