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Old, how so. You can get to almost anything here with two clicks.

First of all, the 2 click "rule" is just a goal to shoot for. It means that the organization of the information is fully optimized. An example? Why isn't there a direct link to instances on the bar to the right?

Without searching try to find what Harbinger Skyriss drops. You can use Bestiary (3 clicks), or Items by Zone (3 clicks). Either way you get to this page

http://wow.allakhazam.com/db/mob.html?wmob=21467


Now on www.wowhead.com it still takes 3 clicks. But after 2 clicks you're given this page which immeadiately gives you a jumping off point 8 related topics (Heroic Drops, Bosses, Comments, NPC's, Objects, Quests, etc.). After the third click you get to this page:

http://www.wowhead.com/?npc=20912

Now this page is far from perfect, but it looks so much cleaner and gives more information up front. The page has a picture first and foremost (I know Allah does that too but for whatever reason we don't have one at this point). It still has the related information "tabs" that allow quick access to more information. It has more information revealed (in this case listing the type of armor/weapon that is dropped and HP/MP text). It has an editorial text box (even if it isn't being used atm) for flavor text or guide information.


I don't know, maybe the more I think about it the more I like the tabbed seperation of information. It allows you to offer more information with little extra hassle. I guess I also prefer the clean tables of wowhead vs. the seemingly odd and inconsistent tables of Allah.



Edited, Apr 13th 2007 4:02pm by baelnic

What has passed it by? I looked at the other sites and they are No better then this. If they are explain how. I have searched for items and quests at the other site and Allakhazam does the exact same thing, just as fast if not faster.

But the forums here kick all the other sites in the dirt.

I just wanna say that I think Azuarc is doing a superb job, I look forward to his zone of the week threads, a plethora(sp) of information and good discussion!

I'll miss your avy too Ithurs. (insignia)

Heh, I'm not bashing anything. I'm offering constructive criticism. I, along with many others, believe this site looks antiquated. It's obvious when you ask people ingame where they look up information. Once they find WoWHead I don't know anyone who continues to use Allah for their information, and that can't be good. I orgininally paid my premium for the forums, but now I want this as a one stop shop. I want the best of everything here.



Because you don't know what the name of something is. That is why you can't use the search engine all the time.



Except once you get to a tabbed page on WoWHead you can move back and forth between information quickly because pages don't need to reload. Not to mention the tabs are located in a consistant place on every page so that you can move to the information quickly and easily.



Harbinger is listed on there 3 times on that page. How is that intuitive? Again, it's all about that second click giving you complete access which WoWHead does with it's tabs. The second click here on Allah only lists the mobs in the zone. WoWHead already gives you 7 other options than just the mobs names.

This site is fine at the moment. But that doesn't mean they can't improve it. They need to be back on the edge instead of lagging behind imo.

Diathon, as Kaolian has said before: The good thing about having a bunch of code monkeys is that they can code for them. I'm assuming they have a bunch of design monkeys as well.

Why do we have to keep coming up with ways to improve the site? Isn't that their job? Aren't they supposed to check out the competition and figure out what is useful and can be assimilated into the site?

It's bullsh*t saying that WE should give constructive suggestions instead of just ********* As a user, a customer, we don't have to do sh*t. Allakhazam is the provider, we're the buyer. If they don't deliver, we take our business elsewhere. If you're not willing to fight for your customers then you don't deserve them. So why haven't I left yet, you might want to ask. I know what it has been, I know what it could be again and I see a lot of wasted potential. The site has been "home" for me for over three years and writing it all off because of a business deal is silly (what, you didn't think I was going to leave, did you?), but watching the site go down the drain because people suddenly don't seem to care anymore is even worse.

The guy in charge needs to devote 100% of his time to this, not run it as a hobby thing. They leaped out of the hobby box the moment they decided to merge Allakhazam with the others. It's big business now, but a lot of events following the merge has given me the impression that none of the Allakhazam officials are aware of this. No disrespect, but to me it seems like Allakhazam is the stereotypical CEO who spends 80% of his time "at the office" shooting some balls out on the golf course. I don't know if it's a full time job anymore or not, but it should be, at least if he plans on staying in charge. The boss needs to know it all, needs to demand change. Times change and the site can either change with them or die a horrible death by outdating.

To be frank, it seems to me that someone did the business move to skim the milk and now the site can go to hell for all they care, because they don't really like the idea of being governed by someone else. Instead of killing the site they sold it, made a profit and are now starving it to death instead.

More information will be released on Affinity Media which will blow our tinfoil hats off, but those words sound familiar, to be honest. Kind of like when Allakhazam, a year ago, said that they would reveal more information about the parent company soon.

Still haven't heard anything official.

But enough about that. How can we make this site better? From August 2005 to September 2006, I was studying to become a multi-media designer or new media architect, I'm not sure which title is used the most. It's a relatively short education (2 years) and basically you learn how to design, program and maintain a website. I never finished the education because it was a bit too technical for me, but the first year we focused on designing and user analysis. Basically they taught us how to make a website look appealing and user friendly.

The following are chunks of knowledge I picked up during this year. Some of it is knowledge picked up from the business economy class I took as well.

Three (relatively) easy steps towards improving the site:

1.) Know your enemy.

Swing the whip and get some people to check out your competitors. How can you expect to compete with something if you don't look at the competition? Send some code monkeys over to WoWHead.com. Have them rip Thottbot apart and bring back parts that can be used to make Allakhazam stronger, bigger and better. Also, have them rip through Allakhazam and throw away stuff that is inferior to the competitors' parts.

2.) Winds of change.

Things get outdated and updated constantly. Perhaps this site was rockin' in early 2000, but it's old school now. Hire some new guns who can bring in some new ideas and know how to make results fast. Flashy images, self-promotion and bling-bling perhaps isn't the style you like, personally, but a flashy website has the same effect on the average internet user as a 400 gigawatt light bulb has on most insects.

Hire some designers to look over the site and, along with the programmers who should be bringing home loads of information about useful changes, create a better site.

3.) Customer care.

Perhaps you have a lot of users right now, but unless you tend to them, and make sure to fulfill step 1 and 2, people will leave. I work in a supermarket (largest grocery market in the country) and while I am fairly young and inexperienced in the corporate world, I know about customer care, because that's what I do all day long. Perhaps going out of your way to please a customer made you scream on the inside, but insulting the customer or ignoring him, while providing instantly relief and pleasure, will result in a catastrophic chain of events.

People talk and with websites like this one, the advertisement is mainly caused by people who tell a friend about it. If you give one person a very bad experience here, he will be sure to tell anyone he might come across who might have an interest in the site. He'll scare future customers away and they would spread the message too. Domino effect.

Furthermore, your website is extremely user hostile. Or well, not extremely, but very at least. I know Illia doesn't like Back-buttons, but from a user friendly perspective it's the alpha an omega. The user needs to know where he is at all times and he needs to know how to get back at all times. Referring to the Back-button on the browser isn't an option. It might be logical. It might be faster. It might even be easier. But it's not an option. Put Back-buttons on every goddam page until the users have Back-buttons coming out of their goddam ears.

You seriously need to get a professional to look over the site. No disrespect meant to anyone who might be professional here. Programmers are excellent for doing the heavy lifting, but you need a designer to optimize the site's user friendliness. We had our programming team make a program for our school when I was still taking classes there. The program was superb with a database and everything, but unless you knew programming or was somehow involved in the process of creating the program, you had no idea how to navigate it. In other words, the program was completely useless for newbies.

Have your programmers build up the site's infrastructure, but please, please have a website designer create the layout. I'd offer my own assistance, but I never finished the education. Too much database programming for my liking.

Hopefully this gave you some points to go from. And sorry about the long post.

Edited, Apr 15th 2007 1:02am by Mazra

If you don't want to help the site that you like and you just want to complain, *****, and moan. Please do it else where. You seem to have found a new home at your other site.

Yes there are code workers here but apparently your not happy with them. That is why I threw in about building a front page that you think might work. If you don't want to do that fine.

If all you want to do here is use the Forums, please do but quit complaining about the site.

No, I understand your point. You think the website is crap except for the Forums. This is a personal thought as I seem to be able to find everything I need here just fine. I love the look of the site, I like the feel of the website, I love the ease that I and many others seem to be able to find information here.

You, Marza, do not like the site anymore. May you find a site that meets your needs.

In all fairness, it is not an Admin that is "flaming you to hell and telling you to leave the site." The admins cannot control what other posters might say to you.

I wasn't talking about admins, Belkira. Diathon told me to leave if I couldn't do anything but ***** at the current state of the site. When I came up with suggestions, he told me to leave anyways because he liked the site as it was.

We're not trying to fix something which isn't broken, Darkenbuddy, we're trying to secure its survival in the near future. To be honest I don't see why we need to be bashed at for trying to keep the site alive. So far I haven't made personal attacks on anyone, I've simply given suggestions as to how they could improve the site and secure its place in the race. No one is pointing fingers and laughing, we're just trying to show Allakhazam and the staff how they could improve the site to stay in the race. In return we have the Akz Fanclub karma bomb and flame us for suggesting changes.

The metathesiophobia on these boards is so thick you can almost taste it.

First google link: http://www.changethatsrightnow.com/problem_detail.asp?SDID=290:1681