Can someone please explain to me the rational behind the changes at FA?

[fpb]

In general, changes should not be made to a service without urgent need. What visitors/customers/whatever want is regularity; to know how to handle a service - even if the design may not be ideal - and have what they want at the push of a button, rather than have to rediscover every feature over again every few months. Personally, I find them annoying and I cannot see the point, so, if anyone can explain them, I will be grateful.

Comments

[chthonya]

I never tended to use the front page anyway - it took too long to load and I always found it easier just to use my history and favourites list to go straight to the forum or author page I was interested in, or just to type in www.thedarkarts.org or whatever.

So far, then, I haven't really noticed the changes. In fact, I wouldn't even have been aware of them had I not started that thread in the S&Q forum, and seen the thread there about the changes!

It does seem easier now to get from one part of the site to another (e.g. from the list of Riddikulus authors to the list of TDA authors), and I appreciate that.

And I do think that the artwork is better, though that isn't really saying much as I've never liked the style of FA's artwork. While having the pictures more split up may be visually messier, perhaps making them less of a coherent whole makes it more obvious that they are links to the rest of the site? It took me a long, long time before I figured out that the old front page pictures had that function. But personally I'd rather scrap graphics-heavy navigation anyway, in favour of clear links to the information I've come to read.