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Give us your feedback!
Author: Joe MartinPublished: 5th March 2008
On the left is where we started. On the right is where we are. The question is - where are we going?
It's been a hectic, fast moving year for bit-tech and the last twelve months has seen new (and incredibly good looking) staff be hired, a new site editor put in place and changes to the forums structure.
We can't thank our readers enough for pushing us to continue expanding - don't forget that we're still in the process of hiring new staff if you fancy writing for bit-tech.
So, what can we do to make the site better? Would you like to be able to sort reviews using new filters? Do you want to see more of a focus on console games or handhelds? What about hardware - is there a specific set of subsections you'd like to see?
To help collect your opinions all in one place we've put together a poll thread so that we know exactly what you want the new bit-tech to look like. All we're asking is that you spare the time to give us your thoughts if you can. Head to the forums if you'd be so kind as to do so!
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Comments (39)
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From that perspective the tagging system is still a PITA.
(oops sorry, I didn't see that this was site only)
fuzzy, i believe there is an ignore feature. or at least there was i haven't used it in a while
Aha just found it, you have to go through the users profile, cheers ;)
The layout, design and features available in the forums bit of the discussion are much better imo. I also find them easier to read, which is a bit odd I suppose.
I'm not to keen on the comments section, I'd rather just jump straight into the forum discussion from an article.
Bit-Tech has to be the best hardware enthusiast website I know of, I find myself constantly linking to your articles in forums posts I make all over the sticky mess that we call the web.
As of now I can't think of how you can improve the site, if I think of anything, I'll let you know.
Thanks (to everyone at) Bit-Tech!
I think I mentioned before, but as a daily read Bit-Tech is great, but as a reference site it's pretty poor.
2nd'ed
Much prefered the days of just jumping into the forums from the article, rather than passing though the comments section.
Bauul makes a valid comment about it the site being a great every day read, but can sometime be a bit tricker to use as a refrence for older articles.
Saying that the search engine does work, and sometimes when searching for articles I may not find the one im looking for (mainly due to forgetting the articles full title), but would find a similar one, of which has related articles at the bottom, this has saved/helpped me on a numbeer of occasions, so dont even think about removing them! hehe
Other than that, I love the current layout, and prob make about 40+ hits to the front page and forums on a daily basis.
You can pick say, monitors from a list, and because you don't want those silly regular monitors, you could select widescreen aspect ratio and 'cos you don't want a tiny one you pick a larger size bracket and click search. Then a list of monitors you have reviewed would pop up, with the date of the review and what score it got, a link to the review and a link to the shopping page if it has one. This could work for the entire site, so say I actually wanted to find news on monitors, like new products coming up or a new tech in development, or an article about monitors.
I think if you made this, I imagine it would be a huge amount of work, but you wouldn't really have to change the front page at all except to incorporate it in.
Oh one point off topic with games reviews I just thought of. When you have a multiplatform game reviewed, I understand why you stick to the one platform as it takes less time, but it would be nice if you can do a short comparison between the versions on the other platforms. Like for instance, at the end of a review before the conclusion (or in it) you could have a short comparison section, for example "The game ran better on X platform and also had better graphics, but the motion controls on the Wii/PS3 worked really well". That kind of thing. I don't think that would mean that you have to play the other platforms for too long before you get an idea of how it compares, so shouldn't add much to the review time.
That's exactly the kind of feedback we were looking for.
What's in their month in numbers feature?
Woo do I win a cookie?
One I personally would like would be a guide on getting a kick-ass HD HTPC set up running linux.
I liked the eeePC modding guide.
Maybe a section for forum members to submit their own articles to Bit and have the staff approve and post them in their own subsection of the site?
Thats it. :)
I rely on the RSS feeds of the website, and if there is a link to the forum or comments below to further my interaction with the article, then 7 times outa 10 I'll join in!
I like Bit-Tech for what it is this now, don't get sucked into the messyness of other tech web sites.
I often check Bit-Tech on my PDA (HTC kaizer) and the front page makes the browser cry
Not only that, but 9 times out of 10, you could guarantee that the Xbox & PS3 versions will be virtually identical, the Wii version (if it exists) will have poorer graphics and a different control method, and the PC version (if and when it turns up) will look similar to the Xbox/PS3 versions but play like a dumbed-down PC game.
Having said that, watch this space, there should be a comparison review coming soon :D
However - between general thoughts and tips I've learned working for a CMS comapny...
Search is kind of iffy. I'm able to turn up the build your own server article, but a lot of mods and such can be tricky to find. Maybe filtering and sorting search results? I don't use it that often, but like so many sites, I'll often end up just doing my classic "go search term site:bit-tech.net" (I've got 'go' bound as a google quicksearch :D)
The subscriptions in the forums where you sign up when you post still doesn't work, last I checked. Only if you go back and manually subscribe - and it selects no subscription by default in the dropdown list. Huh? I've pointed this out a couple times, but it seems to slip by.
What Veles was saying about finding articles... (one of our big selling points we've been pushing) taxonomy. Build out your taxonomy structure behind the scenes, then tag articles into it with a one-to-many relationship. So your root level of it would be the same few categories you have now, and then within each of those you can drill down into something more specific (Hardware > Motherboards > Brand > ASUS, HW>MB>For>Intel CPU, HW>MB>Chipset>865P etc). I doubt my boss would really appreciate me posting screenshots straight into the forum (not because it's a trade secret or anything, but given that I'm in sales, I think they'd rather you buy our software...) but PM me if you want more ideas on how its used, implementation, or whatever.
The good news is that it's actually a relatively simple change as far as site structure goes (two tables in the DB: taxonomy [id, name, parent] and articles_to_taxonomy[article_id, taxonomy_id]). The worst part is cataloging all of your existing articles.
Perhaps integrating in the monthly contests a bit better. Mod of the Month always felt rather awkwardly done, and POTM is of course done offsite courtesy of Nath.
I'll post more as I think of it :)
ninjaedit - iPhone-friendlier version, especially in the forums. You'll get mixed reactions on that of course, but while navigation of the main site is okay, it can get a bit slow over EDGE. vBulletin has too many tiny navigation-related things which is fine on a big screen but even fully zoomed in sucks on the iPhone. Like the page selector, etc. TONS of useless javascript is in there to address features that probably nobody uses. I only found out by accident yesterday that there's a "jump to page" hidden under that arrow on the page navigion thing, and I've been on vB forums for the best part of a decade at this point. And the calendar link... has anyone ever used that? It could use a bit of trimming :/
Mobile versions is something I want to do but it needs some thought in to how best to implement it.
I'm not going to enable subscribe by default on posting, the option to subscribe when posting should work now.
;););)
That's the main thing that annoys me about the other site, even though I turned it off I still get an inbox full of emails every now and again.
I agree wholeheartedly.
if you have the opportunity, maybe you could make a lynx-freindly version for those of us who love our CLI. :D
1. More interviews with people inside the industry - especially development leads of key games. Hell I would love to read an interview with Gabe or Mark Rein or Chris Taylor with questions submitted by readers. Dont know if you could make that happen, but it would be a visitor magnet.
2. How about analysis about online gaming popularity (eg. stats discussions, new trends, historical compare etc)
3. Comparative analysis. Reviewing one product is good, but getting 2 similar products for a shoot out is better. We all like competition afer all.
4. Every now and again, review a great MOD for a game. Think outside the box and maybe review a PS3 mod for UT3 for example.
5. Review a console game (hey ARSTechnica do all the time), but compare the 360 vs PS3 vs Wii versions directly with screen shots as well. We all love a good fisticuff fight.
6. Have a readers vote - best game in each genre. Run it twice a year or something, with some well written analysis.
7. Love the columns... more of them, with more 'out of the box' thinking.
Otherwise... keep up the good work. :-)
Nothing too fancy, just an article title keyword search would be perfect.
I 100% agree about browsing older articles, I have a number of articles bookmarked in case I want to reference them in the future just because I know how much of a pain it is to find previous articles.
Also more modding and hardware. While I am much more of a gamer than modder, it seems to me that ever since the games section has been given more attention, it has taken over much of the other sections. I really enjoy the tutorials when they show up Its always nice to see a watercooling 101 or a how to Linux article.
This is the only short coming of the site that I too have experienced. Many times I want to send someone to an article here as I remember reading it a year ago... but finding it usually is quite frustrating. Really, just any easy method to access older content would be much appreciated.
Iie, I just posted a question about laptop gfx cards.
Should it be tagged, "laptop", "graphics", "Question" or all of the above? :)
Otherwise, I'd like to see some more reviews on the front page about software. I mean applications and utilities because I feel it is something that isn't touched on all too much. What's good for music? pictures/art? organization?
I know there is a spot in the forums for a case gallery, but what about a straight up, no comment, case gallery. Either users can submit to you or you pickj them out yourself. There is some great work on this site and I feel that they don't get the recognition they deserve by finding them in the forums alone.
I rely on you guys mostly for my reviews and opinions of thing because, quite frankly, you guys know what you are talking about and you make a real effort to please and help the members out, and it shows 110%.
Although not really about the main site I do think this is a really good idea
There are also problems of testing methodology - there are fairly standard ways to test hardware, there's even a fairly standard way to test a game (even if it is just "is this fun to play?"), but you'd have to come up with a standard test for each type of software. And that's just a pain to do.
Someone from bit might correct me on this, but that's my initial thoughts. Not to say that it couldn't happen, just that it's difficult to keep the results standardised in some way.
Also, can I be cheeky and suggest that we maybe get a few more apple related reviews too (I know there are loads of places that already cover this kinda stuff but I prefer to just go to bit tbh, its been my home page since 2002 :P)? I know it moves away from the spirit of bit but its something to put out there at any rate.