I'm the LetsRun.com Summer Intern and Want to Improve the Homepage AMA

Also, to throw in a couple positive notes

I like the quote of the day.

I like the archive feature that lets you walk back through previous home pages.

I think it would also be cool to have some Homepage days highlighted in the archive. Days where big moments happened, like Solinsky's 26:59, Rupp's Olympic Medals, Webb's 3:46, etc. As someone who has only been following running for the past year or so, it is super interesting to look back at all of these huge moments and see how people reacted at the time, but it can be difficult to find them.

colorunner123 wrote:

Hello LRC intern. I think the home page is good as is. I think the Forum is a bit primitive compared to most others I've seen. For example, at other sites I can quickly find out if anyone has replied to one of my posts. Here, the only way I can find out is by manually going through each of my posts and scanning to see what others have written. Also, it would be nice if I could PM another user. And edit a post after I've posted it. And it is sometimes difficult to read the Forum on my phone due to the display of highly-intrusive advertisements.

Editing a post is my bugbear.

LRC intern wrote:

Hello LetsRun message boards! My name is Ben and I am a Computer Science undergrad student and runner for Carleton College. I've been using LetsRun for a while, and I am super excited to join the team for the summer to work on improving the site, starting with the homepage. I have been drafting designs and working with the staff to come up with ideas for how to revamp the homepage. Our biggest goal is to improve user experience, and that is where all of you come in. I would greatly appreciate any feedback you have about the homepage, for example:

What do you like about the current homepage?

What do you dislike about the current homepage?

Feel free to write any thoughts, comments, or suggestions here in this thread or send them to

intern@letsrun.com

, and I'll do my best to reply.

How is the summer progressing, Ben? Is it just me, or has the homepage changed very little in the past month?

I'm pretty sure it's been pointed out to you guys roughly 14,000 times that the site would be

GIGANTICALLY improved in about ten seconds if you'd

1. Make people register, and 2. Add an *ignore this user* button.

The value you'd provide to your users by allowing them to browse the board without having to wade through planet-sized piles of garbage from people like Jamin or BadWigins --who literally *live* to waste the time of decent folks-- is so immense, and so simple to accomplish, it really makes most talk of any other changes kind of ridiculous.

(That, and also doing something to improve the incredibly incompetent 'moderation' practices that go on here --which will probably be demonstrated, once again, by the summary deletion of this post in the next few hours.)

The homepage needs more coverage of female runners and the runners standing up for women athletics.

sp2 wrote:

I'm pretty sure it's been pointed out to you guys roughly 14,000 times that the site would be

GIGANTICALLY improved in about ten seconds if you'd

1. Make people register, and 2. Add an *ignore this user* button.

The value you'd provide to your users by allowing them to browse the board without having to wade through planet-sized piles of garbage from people like Jamin or BadWigins --who literally *live* to waste the time of decent folks-- is so immense, and so simple to accomplish, it really makes most talk of any other changes kind of ridiculous.

(That, and also doing something to improve the incredibly incompetent 'moderation' practices that go on here --which will probably be demonstrated, once again, by the summary deletion of this post in the next few hours.)

It’s spelled asunotomatic

I hate to come across like the grumpy old man here, but is a college kid really who you want making UX decisions? You need someone who's been around and really understands the user requirements, not some smart kid who's really good at CS (and hopefully development).

The last thing we need is a React based SPA (or whatever the hotness is these days). Good luck with the move to k8s!

sp2 wrote:

I'm pretty sure it's been pointed out to you guys roughly 14,000 times that the site would be

GIGANTICALLY improved in about ten seconds if you'd

1. Make people register, and 2. Add an *ignore this user* button.

The value you'd provide to your users by allowing them to browse the board without having to wade through planet-sized piles of garbage from people like Jamin or BadWigins --who literally *live* to waste the time of decent folks-- is so immense, and so simple to accomplish, it really makes most talk of any other changes kind of ridiculous.

...

These very simple steps would make a big difference.

Please??

2012?! This website and forum still feels like 1998-2002. It’s definitely a microcosm of what is wrong with the sport of running/TF. It looks like a baboon on a bender wrote the code and the color scheme/logo was created by the hunchback of Notre Dame. Citius Mag has a much more user friendly layout and doesn’t eye r@pe you during every visit. But hey the website is emblematic of the majority of its user.

sp2 wrote:

I'm pretty sure it's been pointed out to you guys roughly 14,000 times that the site would be

GIGANTICALLY improved in about ten seconds if you'd

1. Make people register, and 2. Add an *ignore this user* button.

The value you'd provide to your users by allowing them to browse the board without having to wade through planet-sized piles of garbage from people like Jamin or BadWigins --who literally *live* to waste the time of decent folks-- is so immense, and so simple to accomplish, it really makes most talk of any other changes kind of ridiculous.

(That, and also doing something to improve the incredibly incompetent 'moderation' practices that go on here --which will probably be demonstrated, once again, by the summary deletion of this post in the next few hours.)

Anything to report?

Any progress?

+1

TheseKidsUnderstand4001 wrote:

[quote]erik wrote:

On our staff call this morning we discussed a lot of potential forum improvements which are standard on most forum software. This includes, potentially, thing like a short edit window, user post histories, subscriptions and web-based notifications, and so on.

TheseKidsUnderstand4001 wrote:

Where is the front page redesign? Things take time, sure, but ... ?

The design is done and we're finishing building out the tools for the staff to create the homepage. Staff is beta-testing now. Soon.

For the skeptical poster above, Ben's description on his LinkedIn is 100% accurate in both timeframe and his scope of work. He crafted a design basically entirely on his own and we worked together throughout the summer to turn it into a workable layout for a CMS using the tools he noted. His contributions were invaluable. Sorry to burst your spite-bubble.

yay! I personally only care about the editing of thread titles, block a user function could prove useful, and editing window I am going to like a lot. keep it up!

ElGuerroujFan wrote:

yay! I personally only care about the editing of thread titles, block a user function could prove useful, and editing window I am going to like a lot. keep it up!

they did not implement any of these features ;)