Category: Zone BBS Suggestions and Feedback
This is mostly for the people with vision in some form. I'm looking for comments on how to improve the site from a visual perspective. I want to start trying to get more sighted people to come on here, but I know the site probably looks awkward now. I think we're sticking to all or mostly text because of the bandwidth, but if people have ideas for things we can do, post them here.
Personally I like it just the way it is.. my left side is affected for the main.. the style as is, is easy in that there is no sharp contrasts that can get tiring after awhile.
Connie ~ Grace
I've said it before, but insistence and stubbornness will get one places, won't it?
Sighteys. They want pictures. They are not contented with just a voice, or words on a page. they want to judge you by your cover, and not by the writing, and shallow as it is, this can be used. In short, we need pictures. User pictures as part of the profile. This, of course, would only be one step, but it's definetly a major one.
It would be work, but there is no reason that if you had pictures that you couldn't have decent tags on them which gave discriptions to the blind users. You'd need a sighted person to do the writing, and do it accurately not always in a complimentary manner, but that way, pictures could be a benefitial addition for everyone.
I’m sorry to have to say this but …
If you want to improve the appeal of the sight to sighted users, then I believe that you are going to have to do a lot more than just make it visually pleasing.
I can see the things that sighted people might be attracted to, anagram/hangman/trivia (when the answers are actually accepted), but to be honest most of those things are available on other sites. But the rest of the site has too much of a blind feel to it to attract sighted people who have no knowledge of, or interest in, being a part of the blind community. We have board topics devoted to jaws, and the accessibility of certain products, graffiti topics devoted to the differences between jaws/window eyes, and that is something which sighted people just have no interest in. And that’s before we get to the attitudes of a lot of the users on here – how many other sites have you visited where people have virtual food fights, where people have the right to say what the hell they like to who they like without consequence, in the wider world that just doesn’t happen, because most sites promote respect for fellow users, and the kind of behaviour that goes on on here just wouldn’t be tolerated on most other like-minded sites.
If you want to make the site more visual for partially sighted users, then by all means put up pictures. Have graphical labels next to the games icons, have a colourful home page, and give users the right to put pictures in their profiles, but remember that putting up pictures in profiles should also come with a prior warning that you shouldn’t put up a picture that will identify too much of you if you don’t want to be recognized by someone in rl.
But if you’re looking to attract sighted users, or that should be, users from the wider community to the site, then I’m afraid you’ll have to seriously think about revamping the site and its policies on user behaviour. After all, this site is currently visited by the "blind community", is that really the impression you want to give to the sighted world of how the blind community acts? I think not.
I disagree with you somewhat. Many sites that cater to the blind community uphold an unrealistic expectation of morality that isn't truly representative of the community. So just as we may present an image of chaos, other sites push forward the image that all blind people are devout moral citizens. We definitely won't attract everyone. But there is a class of people that would be interested in joining us, I'm sure. I'm not looking for millions. I'm not looking toc change the content of the site to make it more mass appeal. I'm just looking to improve on what we have already. Picture profiles is a must. Other than that, I'm sure there's cosmetic things that just look bad. Sure, there's topics for the blind, but there's no reason why we couldn't have topics for other groups if enough people from that group logged in here.
"...Picture Profiles is a must," you are given to say ~
...and I QUESTION: Why?
Who is it that will verify that the photos/picture profiles are accurate..??
Like someone could turn in a "comic" version or say liken as onto Clip Art.. Others a school photo from like say 5 years ago..maybe some like 20 years ago...
I QUESTION: For what Purpose are these "Picture Profiles?"
Connie ~ Grace
Clare, you forgot my space, it's just as bad and that is primarily sighted people, granted they don't ahve the games but the behavior is much the same if you pay enough attention to it.
J, I know I am blind but yes maybe a more decorative home page, and picture profiles is definitely a must, also, how about bringing someone sited who has in depth knowledge in accessible web design, that way you can keep what is done now, and ad to it to make it mroe appealing and better from a sighted and professional perspective.
i agree with jay, we don't need to make this site like others that say tht you must respect other users. i'm not saying that that isn't a good idea, but it doesn't work well in real life
Just stay away from layouts that make jaws sluggish. My space profiles have a lot of that.
Troy
What I mean is that some layouts will make jaws studder or have no speech at all because it cranks up the CPU as fs puts it.
Troy
First of all, JAWS sucks. More seriously, we're going to keep it simple, but effective. I still want fast-loading pages that are functional.
You need pictures, lots of pictures. Also sited people will not be attracted to this site do to the way a lot of people act on it and the lack of intellegence of many users.
Enough with pictures. What should be done is this:
<body bgcolor="#000000" text="#FFFFFF" link="#FF0000" vlink="#00FF00">
Also, copy and paste this code into the <head> tag:
<style type="text/css">
<!--
p,body{
font-size:18 PT;
}
h3,h5,h6{
font-size:16 PT;
}
-->
</style>
Why mess with perfection...ZoneBBS is really an o.K. type of place to visit, rest awhile, take your shoes off, enJOY a beverage and chat/talk awhile..
Connie ~ Grace
...not to mention virtual sNoW-A-fLyInG..lQQkie Out~ Catch!
s sited but agfter the asholes ran him off he refuses to come back. thanks guys try to get sited people out here and people treat them like shit. which pisses me off. there was allan and cody and now pei what the fuck. if people didnt tell people to commit suicide and call people names and just act like assholes well you would have sited people but no you let people act like spoiled brats on here. He dcould have helped with the coding and shit too. now he is scared to come back. he is sensitive and takes a lot but the shit that happened that night was unexceptable. in fact some on here should apologize to him.
Jenni, this really isn't the place to be ranting about what happened, if you had a serious greivance then you should have taken it to the staff. However being here that night, I told you that you knowing from experience what this sight could be like shouldn't have brought somebody in that state to the zone.
When one of the first things a new member says is that he's feeling suicidal, it just doesn't go down well. You know that and so if you really felt the zone could be a good place for him, you should have weighted until he was more stable.
i tried yall but yall scared him off i thought he was out of the woods that night so to speak
awww. wish he'd come back, he was quite cool when i got to know him
I know man i wish he would come back too to see what i wrote about his irc server for the most part but also to get to know the cool people.
Why pictures in profiles? Simply put, every other site like this has them. Doesn't mean i'll use them, but hey, what can you do.
Frankly, I like the semantic design of the site, though i think the navigation bars should use "ul" tags. Reason for this is because if we do get this far, someone can use CSS to...
Oh, and I forgot to...
Which leads me to something else! We *need* to be able to edit our damn posts!
thats what the preview post thing is for so you can look at it and go back and correct.
Another thing we can have is a zonebbs logo. I know some people like me can't see it but it would be interesting to have one and it could be a text description of the logo. For example audiogames.net they have got one. The link says. Audiogames.net logo. A joy stick with headphones attached to it or something like that.
Maybe we can have a zone logo competition. Not designing it but maybe the person who is going to come up with the best logo idea. And somebody else with site can make it real.
I kind've like nick's lkast idea. Go back and edit previous posts...because the preview function works about as well as a war in iraq...
last idea here, about the logo. I personally don't like it. It seems like you're going too much to the sighted side.
why in fact would you want a whole group of sighted people to just join up anyway? They've got mySpace, Facebook, Livejournal. This was the first site that's like this, and is made for the blind.
I don't know if anyone's said this yet, but if a sighted person were to log in here, well, it happens all the time. Do people not realize this? Perhaps a majority of the users are blind, but you'll easily find some with sight...
I do not like the idea of iditing board posts. It makes it to easy to change what you said and there for get out of stupid shit you got your self into. Besides the other site I frequent doesn't allow you to do this either.
In answer to the question why would we want a load of sighted people on here? I'd like to ask a question in return ... why wouldn't we?
Surely no one wants to be stuck in an almost exclusively blind community?
Anything to promote a more diverse user base has got to be a good thing.
I went to irc because frankly i am annoyed at the baby like behavior and wining of the blind community at large.
Remember, this was never designed as a blind community site. It just has ended up that way, perhaps because of some of the site design, current interface, etc. Whatever changes we do make will not largely effect usability by the blind. Hey, I still wanna be able to use the site just as much as everyone else.
Agreed, with post 28 and 30.
I want sited people here too. Its not cool that we as blind people isolate this site to ourselves by driving sited users away. It isn't cool that we think we are special because we are blind. We need to get rid of this stuck up attitude. Thanks I am done cause I got a psych paper to write when Pei wakes up whenever that is.
Hi, all! I saw this topic hadn't been updated in awhile, and was wondering. JJ, have you done anymore about this? Do you have any concrete plans to make the site more appealing to sighted folks, or is that kind of on the back burner for now?
nothing concrete at this point. I think it's more longterm. Actually, not a lot of suggestions in this topic, other than picture profiles. If anyone has ideas for smaller things to do, like headings or text that looks out of place or clashes into each other, that'd be cool.
JJ, use the HTML code in Post 14. That will make it easier to differentiate between visited and unvisited links, as well as make the contrast better and the text larger.
Just a few quick comments, thoughts and opinions.
1. Logo's are a good thing. Lots of groups for the blind have logos, Freedom's Ballon, Kurzweil's Staircase, Audiogames.net Joystick with headphones. It is not "caving to the sighted community" It just adds a little more personality to the site.
2. Picture profiles are the same thing. They don't have to be "mug shots" There is nothing against them being of your cat, or favorite cartoon. That gets done on boards for sighted folks all the time. Everybody has an avatar on those things, and most are unrealistic.
3. Thank you that blingo has a colored letter representation of the sounds in the game. It helps me as a partial. It's just quicker.
4. All sorts of sites, for the blind and sighted alike have people acting the same way they do on the zone. They swear, have food fights, are rude, or polite... it just depends on the ground rules of the site.
5. Can quicknote placement be a user option. It would be nice, especially for non-jaws users to have the option of moving them to the bottom if they are playing games. The jaws hotkeys fix it for Jaws users, but sighted folks lose their place on the page after each refresh.
6. Lastly, for those who are afraid the zone will be "overrun" with sighted folks, I believe we are marginal enough that we will have some new faces without overwhelming the majority. Thanks for listening to my rambling, I hope this helps.
Me thinks we need a logo contest of some sort. Glad you like the Blingo thing. At least I wasn't wasting my time when I did the colors for that. That and the Hangman picture about the only graphics I think we have? Anyone know where I can get a graphical deck of cards? Would that help?
I will ask my bf sure he will know.
Being a webmaster and having to build a company website and a website for a non-profit organization this is what I learned.
Logos
It'll make it appealing. Trust me, if your website has a logo it'll make the site a tiny bit more attractive. You can also put alt tags in to make it blind friendly. Both projects asked for logos. Just make sure the logo has colors that'll match your color scheme.
Colors
Now on the company website I assisted on, very little color was allowed so to make the website look professional. But on the non profit website I was allowed to use any color of blue just as long as it wasn't too light - and the text had to be contrast. What I see on here without windows contrast: White background with white text or light color links. One of the suggestions I had in the past for this site was allowing sighties/partials to choose their own colors in a form. America Foundation for the Blind has this kind of tool. You are able to choose your own background color, text and links color. So if The Zone's start page is black on white w/a dark blue border person can log in and change this to whatever color scheme they want.
Pictures
Profile pictures and the ability to size it and not limited to one area. Like for instance some sites have a profile on the side, but if you allow images in html as background (using the body background tag) it'll flood the entire profile. Even more, make it as apart of the filter package where you can also change the color of the text to make text stand out.
Opening Sound Cue
I put this feature on the non profit website as a opening cue to visitors. Both sighted, partial and blind enjoyed the idea. Because it made them feel more welcome and gave them the urge to continue looking. So my suggestion is a Zone BBS welcome notice.
Bookmark & Refer
Another favored feature amongst all involved was the ability to either: save the site as their default home page, bookmark to their favorites list (both useing a link to activate.) along with text and clickable banner links. You create a preview of your link or banner and below a text area with the code. This gives the visitor two options: Placing a text link on their blogs and websites or a small imaged banner link.
Games
Having text games is wonderful. But - sighties are going to want graphical interfaces. My only advise is to have a sightie or partial help you find and locate flash games that you can locate on the web - it saves alot of time and space. But keep it to the same ammount of games that you have so that the blind community doesn't feel excluded. That means the same games for the blind are the same games for the sighties.
Nicer chat rooms
It'll mean putting out a little bit more of money. But maybe have chat rooms or a chat system with text, video and voice chat program. Ventrilo, Quicknotes they're great but sighties now do the voice and video thing.
Color in tables
Almost all websites I've visited (excpet for this one) has colorful tables for their message boards and other things. Heading, and borders had color, the rest had no color. It's hard to explain a bit. Also, some sites have background color in areas of headings and links. Example you'll see the color red background where it says Games and then below that white background with black text or whatever your scheme is.
H1 Titles
H1 in html is the largest possible font size. And of course aligned center the words "Welcome to the Zone BBS" and below that the subtitle "Chat, Games, Boards ...And More! (or whatever you want as the sub title.) And place the rotating text ad above the header.
Finally: I agree with Troy - as long as the website isn't bogged down with features that slow jaws down. Personally I can't stand flash movies or what not that you can add to your profile that'll either slow your screen reader/magnifyer or the page itself.
It's alot I know, and hopefully I didn't confuse you either.
Thanks for those. I can see some of these that are easily feasible and others that we probably won't do, but this is a great help.
Please, JJ, whatever you do, no flash games on here! They are lousy! In fact, most flash is lousy. Please don't incorporate it on the Zone!
The flash games would be for those who can see but in a different area. For instance on my old website, I had a game room with java games on it. It became too much and I couldn't keep up with having to edit the things as after a while I saw some games fall apart. Anyhow, the Webtv generation wanted their own room and so I posted a link. For the zone they'd only need to post a link to a seperate page for those with vision. It's a bit more work when you cater to two different types of people. But when I started using flash games I decided that only those with vision and partial vision would use them. It's shranked my need for two websites down to just one website.
But thats me, everyone is different. I think the chat system and game system I recommended might not get implimented because either it can't be done, or it taks up too much time to code, or it's too costly to do. Which is understandable. But being on two different web design projects I was able to see alot more then what I usually do with my own website.
I agree that pictures are a must but that they have to be tagged with a little description of the person. We on here are visually impaired and just a tag saying someone on a beach next to a picture is not going to work. Also what if there is only blind people on here. What would it hurt? When you get in chhatrooms all they want are porno shit and pics. I personally feel that there needs to be a site like this out for us so we can chill without all that bulshit.
I'm curious, how many sighties have left the zone? Either because of imature behavior or because they didn't like the layout. I mean, how many have you heard from that didn't like the zone? Also, what is irc?
Thanks
Jen
I'm really sad to see blind people feeling that blind people should change the way blind people act, respond, and that sort of thing. I really don't think the blind people who have this view visit enough"sighted" sites on the net. You see blind people are no different then sighted other then they don't see.
Now to the topic at hand. Pictures are nice, but useless to the blind even with descriptions of the person. The person writing the description will see the picture as they see it. Enought detail can be given in a profile such as weight, height, sex, hair color and body type in text for a blind person to get a general idea of the person they are viewing. Also I'm new to the zone after using many "sighted" sites, and simply like it the way it is. The sighted have plenty places, an wouldn't understand many of the post on here the cater to the blind person, so leave it alone and make it better in the vain it runs in. If sighted people wish to visit the zone then they should come in to the blind world as the blind must live in the sighted world. Also there are some sighted and low vision people on the zone, who I've notice are great assets, in that they are willing to help blind people use and adapt to their new tech, use other internet sites and other things, so leave the zone in it's pocket.
Oh don't worry. We aren't going to totally glitz up the site just for the sake of doing it. I was mostly looking for the little things that would make the site just flow a bit better, i.e. the suggestion about colors for headers in tables. THings like that don't hurt the site at all but make it more usable, just like we add tags for headers for the blind visitors.
To those who think that we should have our own site just because the sighted will request porno and pictures, That is the biggest piece of shortsighted shit statement I’ve ever heard on this sight. If sighted people showed up, yes, the dynamic would change on this sight, but how so? This sight, I don't think, will get large enough to the point where it'll be a place where the "sighted," notice the quotes, people simply come to ask around for pictures and porn. This site is neither for the "sighted," notice the quotes, or the "blind," notice the quotes. So, as this is a site for everyone, one of its top priorities is to look good doing what it does so it gets noticed.
I think that little changes won't hurt things. A little color, or seperation between board posts would make it a little less confusing visually witout hurting the layout. Just a simple bar of color behind the beginning of each post would make it easier to read. That's my personal opinion.
There are lots of good sites that have specialties, and this, by nature of the way it has been created and popularized, will always be one of them. I don't see any reason to worry that we will lose our "majority" on the site. Even if sighted folks don't understand, it gives them a chance to learn, and if they don't feel like doing so, they can skip the posts that don't interest them. We do. We certainly don't read every post on here, and neither would they.
Personally, I feel that part of the charm of the zone is the fact that sighted and blind folks can compete and interact equally in all the games, and activities. Putting in Flash games would take that away. I hope to never see a game that can't be enjoyed by everyone who visits the site.
Ditto on that one. It's those "equal opportunity" principles at work.
Okay I don't know anything about visual apeal, but one that stuck out in my mind that was mentioned on here was the idea of being able to move the quicknotes around. As per me, I always would prefer the quicknotes as the top of the page, so, if I happen to be reading the boards, the quicknotes will be first, then all the links such as Zone BBS Home, text add link, then the number of users, etc. Maybe its just me, but this layout would make it easier to find the quicknotes. I know, I know there are hotkeys and all, but this would make it more convenyent. Make this an option under My Account or something.
John
I really like that qn idea.
The QN area should stay where it is because it's right next to the "New Mail" number (in Expert mode) or the "You have x new private messages." link (in default mode.)