Home Page Suggestion

To make the home page (when you're not logged in) more inviting to new users may I suggest the following: Removing Recently promoted items and the global feed, and replacing them with a combination of the data from the various explore pages. To fit a reasonable amount of data onto the page it might be best to just show the images (in the style of the Trailers section on the "Explore movies" page.

I think the interestingness of a lot of the material which gets to the homepage is highly subjective - and might put people off investigating the site - whereas a list of recently popular movies/music/games/books is less subjective - and more about what the site is about - creating lists of what you own, have seen or want. I see custom lists as a secondary purpose of the site - and so it shouldn't be the first thing someone sees when they find the sites homepage.

It'd also be nice to be able to customise the home page once you were logged in - but I don't think that's such a priority.

I had considered adding things like popular or recent movies in the last redesign but I choose not to because...

a) There are just far to many areas and types of content to choose from, there is just not enough room to fit recently popular from all areas. I tried to do designs that included more stuff but it just became a mess. I decided just to make it simple with 2 columns.

b) The promoted items, highlights content created by Listal members which is generally unique to this site.

c) The promoted items change on a regular basis giving people a reason to come back often. Recent and popular movies do not change that often.

Just wanted to add

whereas a list of recently popular movies/music/games/books is less subjective - and more about what the site is about - creating lists of what you own, have seen or want

I think having list of recent or popular movies/music/games would give people the impression that the site was more of movie/music/games or entertainment information site (e.g. like moviefone.com or yahoo movies) not a place where you list your movies.


Having said this I will still welcome suggestions on ways of improving the homepage taking into account my comments above.

Hmm... I agree with all you points. Maybe such a drastic change isn't the answer. I do think the current home page has some weaknesses when it comes to attracting new uses though:

a) gives the impression that it's about creating trivial lists, rather than listing your movies (+ games, books, cds - that's the advantage of Listal over the competition)

- suggestion - perhaps modifying the promotion of lists etc so that lists like "Oscar Nominations 2009" and "101 Horror Films You Must See Before You Die" are more likely to get promoted and things like "Movies I Love", "Watched Movies At Cinema" and "Sexy Men & Women with Cats", are less likely to get promoted. The first two I really don't care unless I know the person who created the list (In my opinion lists like that should be semi-private).

b) doesn't immediately say what the site is for (says you can list stuff - but not what you can list - people aren't very patient when they find a new website)

- suggestion - make the "What is Listal" go the width of the page giving you slightly more space so that you can emphasise why Listal is better thanthe competition.

c) I know it's been suggested before but it's be nice to be able to chose to not have my updates appearing in the global update feed on the homepage. I'm not sure the global update feed adds much in it's current form, but I'm not sure what you could replace it with.

c) The promoted items change on a regular basis giving people a reason to come back often. Recent and popular movies do not change that often.

True - I liked the fact you added "recently wanted" to the explore pages - gives me something else to look at on the music page other than "American Idiot", "OK Computer" and "Nevermind" ;)

I do think Listal is a great site and should be more popular than it is - I'm on the first page if you list UK users by points, and I'm not exactly that active a user.

It's difficult to know why people go somewhere else - are they finding the site to start with? Then how many look around, sign up, give it a go? Good home page design (and I don't claim to be an expert on that) can increase the number of people who get from finding the site through to the other stages. I think once people get to giving it a go then they'll like it. I have to say I've not tried any of the competition, but I'm mainly interested in Listal for cataloguing my CD collection which it does, I like the fact that I can list books too, and movies + games are nice to have.

Tom - Another suggestion: remove the advert from the about page. (I have to say I didn't realise that Listal had advertising until I'd been signed up for about a year - I use Firefox and adblock takes it all out)

P.S. Do you get commission from the "Buy at Amazon" links? If so then I'll start using them!

The promoted items, highlights content created by Listal members which is generally unique to this site.

I really agree with you Tom that the lists (and the reviews) created by Listal members are the attraction of this site and that's why I stuck to it. Of course, I catalogue my stuff too.

What I find a bit problematic about the home page is that sometimes it can be misleading for the new visitors when, by luck, the promoted items come only from one category. I don't know if it would be possible -and not messy- presenting on the home page, let's say, the first 5 promoted items from each category: movies, games, books etc.

About that last point, i also cant figure it out; i have tried them all ad this is by far the most "complete" one. Something "sends" people elsewhere but its rather difficult to know what.
For me its simple; I am design driven, my main concert is the look and feel of the place...

Thanks but what happened? You deleted your account.

I do think Listal is a great site and should be more popular than it is - I'm on the first page if you list UK users by points, and I'm not exactly that active a user.

I often wonder why this site isn't more popular. The main reason I think is that sites that do better tend to focus on one area, the wikipedia page doesn't even list sites with multiple areas. Some sites have also acquired a lot of users through their facebook applications.

This site does get quite a bit of anonymous traffic though and some lists have received huge numbers of views. It's just hard to get people to join, I will keep experimenting with ways of getting people to join.

- suggestion - perhaps modifying the promotion of lists etc so that lists like "Oscar Nominations 2009" and "101 Horror Films You Must See Before You Die" are more likely to get promoted and things like "Movies I Love", "Watched Movies At Cinema" and "Sexy Men & Women with Cats", are less likely to get promoted. The first two I really don't care unless I know the person who created the list (In my opinion lists like that should be semi-private).

I agree lists like "Movies I love" should not be on the front page but this requires manually de promoting them (which I do occasionally)

- suggestion - make the "What is Listal" go the width of the page giving you slightly more space so that you can emphasise why Listal is better thanthe competition.

This section actually used to be larger (Example) but I changed it to focus on the content more

Tom - Another suggestion: remove the advert from the about page. (I have to say I didn't realise that Listal had advertising until I'd been signed up for about a year - I use Firefox and adblock takes it all out)

P.S. Do you get commission from the "Buy at Amazon" links? If so then I'll start using them!

More advertising was added about 6 months ago but members don't see most ads. I will remove the advert from the about page. I do get commission from amazon.

What I find a bit problematic about the home page is that sometimes it can be misleading for the new visitors when, by luck, the promoted items come only from one category. I don't know if it would be possible -and not messy- presenting on the home page, let's say, the first 5 promoted items from each category: movies, games, books etc.

Personally I think it it is better to just have one list otherwise you would have to click 5 different times to see the next promoted items in each area.

I agree lists like "Movies I love" should not be on the front page but this requires manually de promoting them (which I do occasionally)

Maybe you could give that task to the Mods? Also with the option of making them automatically semi-private like the standard Favourite lists. I've noticed a few of members change the spelling of those particular lists (on purpose or not) for it not to count as a favourite list.

Tom, how many public lists are there currently on Listal?

Doing it automatically would mean including every variation of a favorite style list name. There are just over 10,000 public lists.

Sorry, I meant that the Moderator could decide whether the list should be automatically assigned semi-private status as some members may just change it back to Public if there wasn't a fail safe.

This section actually used to be larger (Example) but I changed it to focus on the content more

I think it looked like that when I signed up. That the sort of thing I was think of but not quite so large.

I often wonder why this site isn't more popular. The main reason I think is that sites that do better tend to focus on one area, the wikipedia page doesn't even list sites with multiple areas.

It seems odd that sites which focus on one area would do better, I'd have thought most people would be interested in more than one area of listal.