04.22 | Development Update + Progress Tracker
Added 2022-04-16 16:27:39 +0000 UTCAnother month down, another month of progress to share. This update we'll be taking a closer look at the redesigned home page, similar to how we explored the new journal last time. I'll also start sharing 1.10's development progress in this post:
1.10 Progress: 99.9%
In case you're not familiar, this progress percentage will be updated roughly every-other-day as I continue work on the update and complete tasks, so be sure to check back often! Don't be surprised if it fluctuates as I find new tasks I need to do / complete them in batches. With that said, onto the update!
1 - Top of the home page (quick access bar, friend games, reviews, activities)
Starting from the top, first thing you'll see is the new quick access section. This part is probably the most work-in-progress but the idea here is to provide quick stats about your profile. The one I'm most excited about is the new quick log section which will list your 4 most recently journaled games. Selecting one of the games will open your journal on your most recent log allowing you to quickly journal new play sessions right from the home page. While I'm still working out some of the specifics of this section it'll launch as a Backer Beta feature, which can also be toggled from your Profile settings.
The next section is a bit more straight-forward, popular with friends displays the top games those you follow have been playing the most! This is based on both played, playing statuses and refreshes live for the most up-to-date selection!
Reviews from friends is simply the 4 most recent reviews from the users you follow. There's room for improvement here such as only showing 1 review per user or weighting the sort by likes but that would come later.
Recent activity is similar to the content you'd see on the pre-existing friends' activity page but just narrowed down to game statuses (play, playing, backlog, wishlist) to prevent too much crowding.
2 - Middle of the page (Lists from friends, news, popular reviews / lists)
Another new addition is the lists from friends section, similar to reviews these will be 3 of the most recently published lists from friends.
Latest news shows the most recent article from Medium just as before. The past news section has been removed from the home page but now lives in the About section.
Popular reviews is the very same as it is now, showing reviews from across the entire site in a recent but slightly random fashion. The new lists section will be similar bringing in newer published lists from anyone to showcase.
3 - End of the page (Coming soon, recently trending, most anticipated)
One of the bigger issues with the current home page is that the popular this month and coming soon are pretty large sections that are not always relevant, especially when they're the first thing you see. So the change will be moving the general game sections to the bottom of the page to make room for the more dynamic sections such as friends at the top.
In addition I've also improved how the coming soon and recently trending are pulled for a better experience to be less filler and less stale.
--
All in all the goal of the home page revamp is to provide both a highlight of what your friends are up to and more ways to discover what's going on across the entire site. Let me know what you think, as always anything can change between now and release!
That's all I got for today, be sure to keep check on the progress tracker for an idea on when you can get your hands on 1.10!
Comments
And thank you for your support!
Robert Jewell
2022-04-24 22:59:37 +0000 UTCThe original idea was to take the current "Friend's activities" section and expand it across all the friend sections as seen on the new home page here. To at least provide multiple ways to see what your friends are up to without being limited to logs, although it did make having "Friend's activities" redundant which is why it's been removed. But like you both mention it is a bit more streamlined and a lot less text heavy doing it that way. I'll play around with this section a bit more to see what I can do to maybe improve it in this way. I really value your feedback for cases like this, so thank you!
Robert Jewell
2022-04-24 22:59:05 +0000 UTCI would also miss the current "Friend's activities" section, it looks clean and well designed as is, and it's great for taking a quick look into the recent logs and ratings from friends. Maybe it could fit below the "Popular with friends" new section. I think two rows of game covers at the top of the home page would be more visually appealing at first look than having so much text with the reviews so high, imho
Mateu March
2022-04-24 09:11:25 +0000 UTCLooks great, especially the Quick Log feature - can't wait to give it a try! Thanks for all your effort here, Backloggd is easily one of my favorite social media sites these days!
Mike
2022-04-18 16:05:25 +0000 UTCTo be honest, the current "Friends' Activities" section is the most important thing for me in the home page, feels weird to have it so sidelined and streamlined (and so similar to how it's already displayed in the activity page). I'd assume the data you collected showed I'm not in the majority for this. Thanks for the update tho, really appreciate all the hard work.
PedroPBO
2022-04-18 03:21:57 +0000 UTCExactly, but also time based so that the most recently wishlisted games cycle through.
Robert Jewell
2022-04-16 23:05:48 +0000 UTCAnother way is by going to a game's page and you'll see all your friends' reviews there! But I agree, I'm glad the home page is expanding to include more ways to discover your friends' content 😄
Robert Jewell
2022-04-16 23:02:21 +0000 UTCAlso I'm wondering how the new "Most Anticipated" section will work, will depend in the amount of times an unreleased game has been wishlisted? 🤔
elDexter
2022-04-16 18:52:53 +0000 UTCReally excited about all this features specially the friends activity log! That one was definitely one of the features i was looking forward the most! Would be perfect if we can like and comment activities too but it's okay :b Also agreed with HylianBryan I have been trying to find a gaming tracking site as good and close to AniList or at least MAL, but i felt most of them a really far away from that and I have tried a lot, backloggd is definitely my favorite one and the closest one, thank you so much for doing this!
elDexter
2022-04-16 18:48:07 +0000 UTCAs far as I'm aware, the only way to see if an account you were following had reviewed a game was to check their profile or check the Friends' Activity page under Activity, the latter of which wouldn't even show up if the review in question wasn't alongside a game log. That felt odd to me and I think it discouraged longer-form reviews so it is great that the upgraded Home Page is making that a non-issue. Another thing, I just want to say that this site has been very user-friendly so far and that I can easily recommend it. I discovered Backloggd by just looking up "video game equivalent to letterboxd" and to be honest I really think it is everything you could ask for in that regard. I had tried other sites like it before (Backloggery comes to mind, though there might have been others) but I didn't stick with them in the same way that I have with Backloggd.
HylianBran
2022-04-16 17:42:26 +0000 UTCYup! ICYMI, there was a blog post about it here: https://backloggd.medium.com/an-update-on-moderation-3e3091c49501 But in a nutshell, we have moderators on the site who have been keeping reports to 0 for a couple of months now!
Robert Jewell
2022-04-16 16:38:03 +0000 UTCDid the moderation tools ship?
tw
2022-04-16 16:33:57 +0000 UTC
