h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I have just arrived at this site and though I love the idea and originality i find myself totally lost. There are reasons that you may have for this or it could be that it is only me, but i think that if you took the idea of the HHGTTG the design should reflect that.

Imagine Arthur Dent trying to browse thru this site, or needing the info on the ravenous bugblatter beast of traal in a hurry, without knowing its name, it is not easy to find.

Your idea on this site is to compile pages from users on whatever they fancy to write, so it can be argued that this is a subinternet internet. Thus as a basic design it should have an user interface on top of all this pages that would help organize them and that normal humans can browse thru. The analogy that i can use is that you have here a book that keeps growing in pages, that it has an index which is part of the regular pages but that it doesnot have a bookcover or table of contents.

just my two cents hope you are already working on this

Hi
I think its fair to say that 'they' are aware of the information overload factor & are currently (well, during working hours) beavering away at the problem.

;^)#

hi bruce:

basically just some quick ideas... In the case of the forums instead of indenting the conversations within the thread you can just change the icon and indent them once only. This can cure the disappearring list phenomena that happens as a result of replies to a particular thread.

For other stuff try changing the color; if you are in the forums the background is a different color, approved entries have other etc... this can help people know where the are with a single glance

Hi!

Like you, I'm only a visitor here - but I'm sure someone 'official' will be along at some stage & take note of your suggestions.

;^)#

Thanks for this. A categorisation system is exactly what we are working on at the moment. It should make it much simpler to get around.

The site is still only six months old, so we are bringing in lots of new things all the time.

Thanks for feedback!

I agree categories would be good. This is the way Yahoo went but I think the current way needs to remain as well. As it stands contributors are steered towards the few recommended subjects, this does make for quick responses where we are all playing in the same ball park. A danger is that if people are searching for their pet category they will be very spread out with few responses to their comments - this happens at the moment if you reply to older conversations.

Keep up the good work.
ps don't forget my article - submitted 2 weeks ago, so I still have a while to wait!