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Monday, 29 February 2016

New Poll: Should we change our colours?

By TAG Team


When the photographer was gone, Suzie quickly jumped from Java to adventure gaming

A regular reader has asked us whether we could change our background colour to white, because apparently the black background of The Adventure Gamer has resulted in some queer looks from employers of the reader. As we did not feel we should do any major changes for the blog design just for the sake of one delinquent procrastinating at work, we decided to ask the opinion of all our readers: do you like the current colours of the blog or would you like to see them changed?


Since white-on-white looks a bit bland, we probably couldn't change just background colour, but we would have to modify the colours of other elements quite a lot. If we do end up changing the blog colours, we probably need the help of someone with experience in graphical design. So, if you have some expertise and would like to help us redesign the blog in exchange for some CAPs, say hello to us in comments.
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36 comments:

  1. Joe Pranevich29 February 2016 at 17:54

    While we are discussing changes, should we talk about the new "Read More" links as well? Posts are now being broken up so that only the first couple of paragraphs are visible unless you click on a link. This makes the main page much more navigable, but also means that we might lose some readers if they think our first paragraphs are boring.

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    Replies
    1. Ilmari Jauhiainen1 March 2016 at 04:08

      Good idea, tell us your opinions about the way the posts are now shown on main page. Personally, I'd suspect that the new look might actually lure more people to reading the blog. If you won't like a post after a few paragraphs, you are probably going to not read it anyway. Now it is easier to see what topics the other posts have, and if you don't like my writing style, there's always Joe, Alex, Ape or someone else to choose from, just few paragraphs away.

      Also, I assume that in mobile version it has all along been like that - you have seen just a small snippet of the whole post.

      Delete
    2. Laukku1 March 2016 at 15:29

      That reminds me: The "The Posts That People Actually Read" section has remained completely unchanged since Trickster left. Is it some bug, or has this blog really been that unpopular after that?

      Delete
    3. Ilmari Jauhiainen1 March 2016 at 15:45

      No it's not really a bug. An average post gets around 200-500 views. Until now, the widget showed posts that had had got most views in the whole time of blog's existence. For one reason or another, these had been very popular posts, views numbered in thousands (one Secret of Monkey Island -post had gathered over 7000 views), so understandably, it's pretty hard for a post to break it into the top.

      I've now changed the widget to show posts that have had most views in 30 days. I think it reflects more accurately what people are reading right now.

      Delete
    4. Ilmari Jauhiainen1 March 2016 at 16:03

      As for unpopularity, we did hit a bit of a slump right after Trickster pulled out. Part of that slump was probably due to the games: Trickster had just ended with very popular Quest for Glory 2, and we had to continue with Operation: Stealth and Countdown. We've been slowly climbing our way back (and we've had more notable games later on). In Trickster era, the highest number of views in month was 30 403 (back in August 2014). Well, last January we broke that limit with 30 503 views.

      Delete
    5. The Trickster1 March 2016 at 16:11

      January was the month that your The Poetic Whodunit post appeared Ilmari. Any good detective would know that this correlation between quality and quantity simply cannot be a coincidence.

      Delete
    6. The Trickster1 March 2016 at 16:17

      As for the colours, I still like them the way they are. That said, the site is very easy to read on my oversized modern monitor, but I imagine it might not be on all devices.

      Letting the readers decide whether a change is needed seems logical.

      Delete
    7. Joe Pranevich1 March 2016 at 17:08

      BUT BUT BUT... if we don't change the text color, how will Kenny read our blog when he should be working?

      Speaking of which, if he loved us, why doesn't he read us from home... *sob*

      Delete
    8. Joe Pranevich1 March 2016 at 17:10

      Do we have stats for average comments and unique commenters? I'd be curious how close we are to getting past the Trickster-abandoned-us-you-bastard slump in terms of comments. Unique visitors, at least to some extent, go up as a function of the number of pages there are on the site (because of search engines). We've added-- 200? 250? pages to the site since QfG2?

      Delete
    9. The Trickster1 March 2016 at 17:24

      Abandonment! I merely released the blog into the world when I felt it had the maturity to survive and thrive on its own. I must admit that I was initially quite concerned that I'd made a mistake, particularly when Kenny barraged readers with 28 profanity-filled posts for some irrelevant non-adventure game, but the blog is all the better for having survived that.

      Delete
    10. The Trickster1 March 2016 at 17:26

      I'm joking of course. We love you Kenny.

      Delete
    11. Joe Pranevich1 March 2016 at 17:39

      Don't worry. He can't read this. The text is the wrong color.

      Delete
    12. Laukku1 March 2016 at 19:17

      Thanks Ilmari, but right now it practically shows what are the most recent posts anyway. What about extending the timeframe to 6 months or so, to have some compromise between "best of all time" and "popular right now"?

      Delete
    13. Ilmari Jauhiainen2 March 2016 at 04:37

      Laukku: As if Blogger Widget would have such possibilities! :P Only alternatives are week, month and whole time. Something like a year would make sense to me, but unfortunately Blogger analytics doesn't have that capacity.

      Trickster: If that's the case, perhaps the blog should refocus itself on detective fiction ;)

      Joe: No, we don't get stats for average amount of comments, although it would be easy (but tedious) to count it. But I suspect that would not tell the whole truth, since in Trickster era there were less posts during a month - an individual post would then gather more comments, whereas now comments are more dispersed between individual posts.

      I calculated some monthly comment sums randomly, beginning from August 2013. The results were surprising:

      Starting from Trickster era:

      August 2013: 449
      October 2013: 465
      January 2014: 403
      April 2014: 388
      July 2014: 218

      If you don't count the sudden rise from August to October, there's already a downward trend in the number of comments in Trickster era (August had even less comments, but in that month there were very few posts coming out, so I didn't include it in the list).

      Here are some random numbers from post-Trickster era:

      December 2014: 287
      April 2015: 236
      July 2015: 222
      September 2015: 322
      November 2015: 279

      So, judged by this standard, we are still not yet in the same numbers as in the best days of Trickster era, but we have managed to stop the downward trend in the commenting, and there might be potential to do even better.

      Of course, this is not the whole truth, since back in the day, many comments were just announcements of Steam and GOG sales, but it gives a rough idea.

      Delete
    14. Laukku27 May 2018 at 23:11

      I randomly googled the "popular posts" widget issue and saw evidence that a "last year" option has been added since this discussion. A couple of Blogger tutorials (such as this and this) show it in a screenshot. IMO the current 30 days setting is nearly useless and "last year" would be much better.

      Delete
    15. TBD28 May 2018 at 00:01

      You're absolutely correct. It's a part of the blog I never actually look at because it's been mostly a list of the latest posts.

      I just changed the option to 'last year' and it IS more interesting.

      Thanks for the heads-up, Laukku!

      Delete
    16. Laukku28 May 2018 at 01:04

      YESSS! Now, finally, it lists what I expect to see: Kyrandia, Lure of the Temptress, Fate of Atlantis, and... Adventure Quest!?

      Delete
    17. Ilmari Jauhiainen28 May 2018 at 02:44

      Yes, that one Adventure Quest -post is one of our all-time most popular posts, along with the Mystery House post that's also on the list. Why? I have no idea. I am more interested that Oo-Topos is doing so well.

      Delete
    18. Laukku28 May 2018 at 03:05

      Mystery House I can understand for its historical significance, but Adventure Quest? Maybe the "Beeb beeb" in the title happens to be particularly click-baity?

      Other hypotheses: Either some other site linked to those posts (or to labels containing those posts), increasing traffic, or somebody F5'd them a lot. I remember those getting a popularity boost sometime when it was set to 30 days, but they dropped off the list after a while. Maybe they'll drop off again after a year has passed since the popularity spike.

      Delete
    19. Ilmari Jauhiainen28 May 2018 at 03:41

      The most likely explanation would be a link at some other site, but I haven't found such a site. The title of the post (and the game) is so general that the post doesn't rise to a high position in a Google search.

      Delete
  2. Rowan Lipkovits1 March 2016 at 01:12

    Most of my web projects have gone up against a black background for high-contrast reading and a visual throwback to my years toiling under MS-DOS. I have gotten comments on the matter also, which I have weighed and disregarded.

    ReplyDelete
  3. renke1 March 2016 at 02:46

    My employer does not matter*, but on high-resolutions screens the background black bleeds into the text and makes it hard to read.

    Personally I like dark text on light background more and would welcome a different colour scheme.

    *) I DO my job, after all : )

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ilmari Jauhiainen1 March 2016 at 04:11

    Personally I have no preference at all whether it's black on white or white on black, but I have noticed it is hard to read text with links, which is something like grey on black background.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Andy_Panthro1 March 2016 at 05:14

    I like the current colour scheme, but it's not like I'll leave if it gets changed!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Lupus Yonderboy1 March 2016 at 07:15

    I actually like it as it is now. It is true that reading text with links (grey on black) is a challenge. But I wouldn´t mind a change of the colour themes either.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Anonymous1 March 2016 at 12:05

    I like the black background with white text. Please don't change this as I find white background black text gives me eye strain.

    ReplyDelete
  8. TBD1 March 2016 at 13:29

    And it seems "Love it how it is" is winning at the moment with a 2-for-1 ratio against "I hate it - change it now".

    My personal vote goes for "Don't care either way"

    ReplyDelete
  9. Torch1 March 2016 at 19:28

    I suggest changing the text colour to green, so it looks like my Linux terminal, making it easier for me to read the blog when I'm at work. Yeah, that'd be greeeat...
    Then again, I could just fire up Lynx ( terminal web browser ) and read it there...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Aperama1 March 2016 at 20:03

      Grey on black would serve more core Unix users, clearly (with Lynx users unaffected. Maybe white on blue for the Midnight Commander look?)

      Jokes aside, I'm almost solely a mobile reader so black on white or vice versa are both quite reasonable alternatives - I'm easy either way. Maybe a new logo might suit? (Though I do so enjoy the minimalist approach.)

      Delete
  10. Evan Stephens1 March 2016 at 20:29

    I cast my vote for the current scheme, but won't be terribly upset if things change. Is there no option to allow a reader to select their own preference locally?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ilmari Jauhiainen2 March 2016 at 04:55

      There's even now a pretty easy way to read the blog in white-on-black -mode - just use http://advgamer.blogspot.fi/view/classic

      Problem is, I don't think it's possible to comment on that mode.

      Delete
  11. Lars-Erik1 March 2016 at 23:22

    Keep it black.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Torch2 March 2016 at 03:36

    In honor of some of the early Sierra games (and possibly others) you could keep the theme, but implement some sort of boss key feature, so that pressing CTRL-B would make the webpage look like a spreadsheet.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Alan Twelve4 March 2016 at 11:02

    I think the white on black is awful - to the extent that this is the first time in months that I've actually visited the site rather than just reading posts in Inoreader (with its nice light grey on dark grey scheme).

    ReplyDelete
  14. Fry5 March 2016 at 02:48

    I like the current white on black scheme.

    I would think that the pictures inserted into the text after every paragraph would be a much larger problem for people reading at work than the color scheme. :/

    ReplyDelete

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