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Yes, we want your complaints!
Published on February 12, 2008 By Zoomba In WinCustomize News

This March, WinCustomize turns 7.  For seven years the site has grown in terms of visitors, bandwidth, quantity of skins etc.  And the site itself has gone through several revisions in that period.  Today, we're on the 5th iteration of WinCustomize, and on the whole it still bears a striking resemblance to that first site launched back in 2001.  For good or ill, a lot of the decisions that went into that first site determine direction to this day.

While there have been a lot of improvements, there are probably a lot of places where we've failed to meet expectations.  WinCustomize 2007 was focused on a solid foundation, code that was stable and expandable.  Now we're in a position to focus on the UI and the presentation more, to improve the user experience dramatically.  This is where you come in.

About a year ago, we sought your opinions on how Stardock had failed the community.  Your comments on what you felt we could be doing better has helped us make a lot of changes and improvements to our products.  Well, we want to try that again, only this time specifically with WinCustomize.  We want to know what doesn't work, what sucks, what you hate, what you want fixed about WinCustomize.  We are looking for very specific critiques of the site, it's functionality, layout, user interface etc.

This thread is about critiques, it's not about defending the site, it's not about telling us how much you like the site.  If we are going to improve the site in the future, we need a very clear picture of what is broken and needs to be fixed.

A week from today, I will be going through the comments on this thread and compiling a master list of complaints and critiques.  We will use this list when we start the requirements and design work for the next WC update later this year.


Comments (Page 1)
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on Feb 12, 2008
Once upon a time, you could choose from several site themes. I would really like to get that option back. I miss my Universe Metal WC. (I got used to the new layout, but I still don't like the 'look')
on Feb 12, 2008
Move the drop down star rating button position away from the download button.
on Feb 12, 2008
Here's my critique , and this is specific to the fourms. and this may also address Snoop Froggy Froggs issue with the quality of the bug reports on this site.

I think the support forum should be heavily moderated as to how issues should be posted. And it should be made clear before posting on a sticky thread at the top. For example ,

Type of issue:

What version of the software

etc etc

Any other threads are deleted with a note to see the sticky for format

That way you should be able to get better quality bug reports and the forums are not clogged with whiny threads like 'I get black borders on my Windows , WB sucks , wah wah wah !!!! '

on Feb 12, 2008
I think the site needs consistant navigation across forums, galleries,  and personal sites.
The top navigation is "almost" the same but not quite.  Side bar navigation would be nice too.

The same functionality for author names in teh forums in the galleries (PM, view profile, etc.)

Allow some skin-ablility.  Post the CSS for the UI so that skinners can upload to a WC theme gallery or jsut create one for their own use.


on Feb 12, 2008
Don't include unsolicited WindowBlind themes with the periodic WB updates.
on Feb 12, 2008
Don't include unsolicited WindowBlind themes with the periodic WB updates.


huh?

The title is "What's Wrong With WinCustomize?" not "what's wrong with WindowBlinds"
on Feb 12, 2008
This also isn't a "Please add this completely new feature" thread.  Look at what's there. already.  A wishlist thread is a separate effort.
on Feb 12, 2008
I like the NetFlix/Yahoo style star rating. You just click on the star. There are gotchas like after you rate it you won't know what is the overall rating. That means another one that shows overall rating.
on Feb 12, 2008
Move the drop down star rating button position away from the download button.


Seconded. Maybe a simple 10 pixel drop could do it?

Have to agree with Koasati but, think that option should be for an add-on for subscribers only.
on Feb 12, 2008
I would love to see "sort by most popular this week, this month, and this year added to the search choices."
on Feb 12, 2008
I agree with Ken. This has been discussed and rediscussed in many different posts, yet nothing is ever done about it.

For such design heavy experts, I'm amazed and dismayed that such a simple thing is not acted on.
on Feb 12, 2008
There should be separate DX Objects, Widgets,Gadgets and Stand Alone galleries.
on Feb 12, 2008
A Vista icon for IconPackager just like Windowblinds.
on Feb 12, 2008
Hopefully some of the bugs on the site will be fixed on the next update:

1. guestbook dates on personal pages are wacky.

2. Unable to delete entries from guestbook

3. When I do a skin update I get a message saying "because of your access level, the skin is auto-approved. Your skin will be up in aprox. 1 min."
I know this isn't true!
on Feb 12, 2008
I am on 8 meg Broadband and pages still load like on dialup , even with regular cache cleaning, Trusted Sites etc ...
~ ~ may be it could be a bit faster to load pages ...
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