New Homepage test starting Tuesday 20th September
Discussion
Gandahar said:
Interesting viewpoints. A lot are contradictory
It's not professional enough.
It's too commercial.
They sort of go hand in hand. My view.
A site like Speedhunters is heavily 'commercialised' and it's reasonably in your face in doing so (loads of 'partner' logos all over) but they've managed to knock together a fantastic looking site that makes you want to keep scrolling. It's not professional enough.
It's too commercial.
They sort of go hand in hand. My view.
I appreciate that they don't have classifieds to muddy the waters, but it does show what a modern site should/could be. PH could easily have a similar number of ads that they have now incorporated into a design like that without it being overly intrusive.
KatieM said:
The point of this isn't to focus on a specific part of the site, it's to try and marry all parts. Sure, we want to push our classifieds but we also want to keep our loyal readers happy too. You guys help shape what PH is, you aren't randoms, you are our audience. Without specifics on what you'd like to see, it's difficult for us to implement positive changes. We heard you didn't like all the display advertising and this is a way of removing it from the homepage, allowing our users to focus on all the different features PH has to offer.
If there's something you hate, tell us why and what you'd like to see in place? As Amy has mentioned, this is a quick test - it's not permanent!
This trial home page disproportionally pushes the classifieds though. At a quick glance, it appears they're the only thing on the site. If there's something you hate, tell us why and what you'd like to see in place? As Amy has mentioned, this is a quick test - it's not permanent!
Wouldn't it be better to put test pages like this on a different url and ask people to view, rather than playing around with the landing page on your live site?
rscott said:
This trial home page disproportionally pushes the classifieds though. At a quick glance, it appears they're the only thing on the site.
Wouldn't it be better to put test pages like this on a different url and ask people to view, rather than playing around with the landing page on your live site?
Test pages would work great if we had a really small audience, but we need large numbers in order to get accurate stats on what's working and more importantly, what's not! If we find that editorial audience has suffered, and classified ad placement hasn't grown - we will go back to the drawing board. Either way, if this test passes or fails, we will be making changes. In order to make it a fair test, we need a mix of new users and ones like yourselves who have grown accustom to the site as it isWouldn't it be better to put test pages like this on a different url and ask people to view, rather than playing around with the landing page on your live site?
Thank you though, your feedback has been noted, we can certainly play with the size of the image at the top. We don't want to be Autotrader who are known only for their classifieds, that is not our intention. PH at it's core is community for car enthusiasts and we want to stay that way. As the person who has looked after private classifieds for the last Four years - I for one know you guys sure love to change your car a lot!
Edited by KatieM on Friday 23 September 17:47
I think we need to remember that this is a business now and money is made from paid classifieds, adverts and traffic to these items.
The forums appear to be a diminishing side show which have no where near the same volume of posting of 5 years ago (happy to be proven wrong if there are stats, PH?).
Why wouldn't Haymarket want to turn it into something like Autotrader / Parkers? The forums are only usful if they pull traffic into the revenue streams.
I've given detailed feedback on previous occasions (as have many others) around making the classifieds more logical and every comment has been utterly ignored - not even a "thanks but we're not going to do that".
The new homepage tells the story, it's about getting people buying / selling cars and clicks on articles with adverts.
I've no problem with that, but the requests for feedback that allude to an interest in what people here think, which then simply get ignored, is beyond pointless.
The forums appear to be a diminishing side show which have no where near the same volume of posting of 5 years ago (happy to be proven wrong if there are stats, PH?).
Why wouldn't Haymarket want to turn it into something like Autotrader / Parkers? The forums are only usful if they pull traffic into the revenue streams.
I've given detailed feedback on previous occasions (as have many others) around making the classifieds more logical and every comment has been utterly ignored - not even a "thanks but we're not going to do that".
The new homepage tells the story, it's about getting people buying / selling cars and clicks on articles with adverts.
I've no problem with that, but the requests for feedback that allude to an interest in what people here think, which then simply get ignored, is beyond pointless.
KatieM said:
rscott said:
This trial home page disproportionally pushes the classifieds though. At a quick glance, it appears they're the only thing on the site.
Wouldn't it be better to put test pages like this on a different url and ask people to view, rather than playing around with the landing page on your live site?
Test pages would work great if we had a really small audience, but we need large numbers in order to get accurate stats on what's working and more importantly, what's not! If we find that editorial audience has suffered, and classified ad placement hasn't grown - we will go back to the drawing board. Either way, if this test passes or fails, we will be making changes. In order to make it a fair test, we need a mix of new users and ones like yourselves who have grown accustom to the site as it isWouldn't it be better to put test pages like this on a different url and ask people to view, rather than playing around with the landing page on your live site?
Thank you though, your feedback has been noted, we can certainly play with the size of the image at the top. We don't want to be Autotrader who are known only for their classifieds, that is not our intention. PH at it's core is community for car enthusiasts and we want to stay that way. As the person who has looked after private classifieds for the last Four years - I for one know you guys sure love to change your car a lot!
Edited by KatieM on Friday 23 September 17:47
sawman said:
I am struggling to find a link to forums from the home page when using safari on my iphone - has it ben lost or is it just me?
Nope, I'm on Android / Chrome and actually have no idea how I got this far as none of the menus worked.I could browse for a car though if I wanted.
rscott said:
There's a post earlier which says the new homepage wasn't supposed to be delivered to mobiles. I guess they haven't fixed that yet..
Nope, still the same. This is on a 2013 Nexus 7....
And what's more I don't even get a picture of a whole car!
PH web people, please sort this out. Here's some feedback for you: It is actually putting me off visiting the website
I am a relatively new member compared to many on here and in the short time I've been on PH I return despite the site design, not because of it. I always use my tablet to view the site, so I can't comment on how PC users see it, but I find it to be incredibly frustrating. Pages jump all over the place. I go to click on a story, only to find the page suddenly jumps and I end up somewhere else. Usually on an advert
In the past couple of months I replaced my car. I looked on Autotrader and eBay to find what I wanted. I didn't even consider using the PH classifieds to look for a car. Why? Because they are simply awful to use. Options don't load properly, pages or drop down menus jump and stutter all over the place. For me, it is pretty much unusable. And now you are making the classifieds more prominent on the homepage? You really need to sort out the functionality of the classifieds before you start trying to draw visitors' attention to them. They are embarrassing.
Now I'm no web developer. What I know about the subject could be written on half a postage stamp, with a four inch paint brush. However I am that end user you are targeting, and I'm sorry to say you are way off target.
Amy, i think this site became popular because it, at heart, is a community site. on the test site, on mobile, i couldn't get to the forums via the hamburger menu (didn't show me the drop down menu) and couldn't find a link on the home page.
I think mobile first development is needed these days for such a website.
Classified section: most improvement could be made here especially when going back to the search page after views ads and loosing search parameters. maybe record the settings in the url for easy sharing or a cookie?
How about letting search engines easily find all the ads too (simple as linked pages listing every ad) ? It'll help drive traffic to the site at the expense of easier scraping but you'll still be the canonical resource.
Logged in users: configurable home page maybe for favourites/interests - worth thinking about for a couple of hours with your colleagues.
It's easy for me to make these armchair comments because i don't have to take responsibility of code the implementation. Usually i do, so this is a nice change
I think mobile first development is needed these days for such a website.
Classified section: most improvement could be made here especially when going back to the search page after views ads and loosing search parameters. maybe record the settings in the url for easy sharing or a cookie?
How about letting search engines easily find all the ads too (simple as linked pages listing every ad) ? It'll help drive traffic to the site at the expense of easier scraping but you'll still be the canonical resource.
Logged in users: configurable home page maybe for favourites/interests - worth thinking about for a couple of hours with your colleagues.
It's easy for me to make these armchair comments because i don't have to take responsibility of code the implementation. Usually i do, so this is a nice change
Awful mobile experience.
Whole screen is taken up by the classifieds search, followed by a huge advert then big blocks of pictures that link to your articles.
Your audience visit PH to see new editorials and then go off to view cars for sale / browse the forums. The new home page on mobile is defeating that purpose - everything is far too big. I don't want to scroll around looking for stuff, it should be neat and tidy but most of all right there in my face. If I like it, I click on it - simple.
All your hard work is being lost way way down at the bottom.
Also menu button on home page does not work
Make use of the screen real estate. Use tabs on the home page: news, classifieds, forums & menu. That's it, so it ties together and we can quickly jump to what we need. You may be thinking too much and trying to bring something new when really all your doing is losing its purpose and making the experience worse.
Whole screen is taken up by the classifieds search, followed by a huge advert then big blocks of pictures that link to your articles.
Your audience visit PH to see new editorials and then go off to view cars for sale / browse the forums. The new home page on mobile is defeating that purpose - everything is far too big. I don't want to scroll around looking for stuff, it should be neat and tidy but most of all right there in my face. If I like it, I click on it - simple.
All your hard work is being lost way way down at the bottom.
Also menu button on home page does not work
Make use of the screen real estate. Use tabs on the home page: news, classifieds, forums & menu. That's it, so it ties together and we can quickly jump to what we need. You may be thinking too much and trying to bring something new when really all your doing is losing its purpose and making the experience worse.
Edited by Anubis on Sunday 25th September 07:47
Not sure if the change is now permanent as the last few times I've visited the site the new terrible to find anything homepage has been displayed.
Think I'll just forgo the homepage and bookmark the forums directly as thats where I spend a lot of time, oh and reading the shed of the week which has been relegated to the bottom in preference of money making.
Did anyone stop to think that maybe its because the classified section is so clunky to use compared to the old one maybe why its usage is in decline. Seems a case of form over functionality.
Think I'll just forgo the homepage and bookmark the forums directly as thats where I spend a lot of time, oh and reading the shed of the week which has been relegated to the bottom in preference of money making.
Did anyone stop to think that maybe its because the classified section is so clunky to use compared to the old one maybe why its usage is in decline. Seems a case of form over functionality.
Having lived with it for a few days, I'll probably go through the route of book marking the gassing pages and not bother hitting the page as some others have mentioned
As a regular I know the quality of the content so would stick with it - but it will probably scare off any new comers to the site, not realising the wealth of information etc behind what looks like a badly produced advertising site
As a regular I know the quality of the content so would stick with it - but it will probably scare off any new comers to the site, not realising the wealth of information etc behind what looks like a badly produced advertising site
I fed back last year about banner ads, and now the homepage seems to be occupied by one. I have increasingly been getting my motoring news elsewhere as it's got progressively harder to access. Now I have to make even more clicks and scrolls to get to news. The content of interest is pretty much out of screen anyway, so it's not even clear it's there. Like others, I thought I'd come through to the classified.
Fortunately, my browser predicts my address/search, so I allow it to auto-fill pistonheads.com to pistonheads.com/gassing and go to the forums, skipping the whole affair, old or new homepage.
As a broader view, I don't think people dislike the new homepage in isolation. I think they dislike lots about PH now. It really isn't working for the average longstanding user, but then the average user doesn't generate much/any revenue. The people who visit day in day out are stuck with aged forums, outdated login systems, their own threads recycled as content and advertising that still very in your face, and in the case of general gassing, so many promos and stickies that the actual threads visible on page one is marginal! It may be worth considering what has actual value to your regular visitors and what about PH is uniquely valuable on a day to day basis to those visitors. Because it isn't classifieds, even if that's where you see your revenue growth. Perhaps even consider splitting the site. Dedicated classifieds and a dedicated news/forum section. Cross link for sure, but don't just mash it together, or force one to dominate the other when both have value.
Fortunately, my browser predicts my address/search, so I allow it to auto-fill pistonheads.com to pistonheads.com/gassing and go to the forums, skipping the whole affair, old or new homepage.
As a broader view, I don't think people dislike the new homepage in isolation. I think they dislike lots about PH now. It really isn't working for the average longstanding user, but then the average user doesn't generate much/any revenue. The people who visit day in day out are stuck with aged forums, outdated login systems, their own threads recycled as content and advertising that still very in your face, and in the case of general gassing, so many promos and stickies that the actual threads visible on page one is marginal! It may be worth considering what has actual value to your regular visitors and what about PH is uniquely valuable on a day to day basis to those visitors. Because it isn't classifieds, even if that's where you see your revenue growth. Perhaps even consider splitting the site. Dedicated classifieds and a dedicated news/forum section. Cross link for sure, but don't just mash it together, or force one to dominate the other when both have value.
Whilst the new page looks better in some ways I definitely don't think it is an improvement. I visit PH to see news stories and visit the forums. With the new page all I see is a promotion for the classified ads and links to the forums, I've not looked at a news item since having the revised layout. I don't buy cars very often, but I read about them a lot. If PH is about motoring news and enthusiasts that should be dominant, if it has become an alternative to Autotrader fair enough, but there are quite a lot of us who I suspect see that as a secondary use for PH.
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