Gary Lewis Posted March 27, 2018 Author Share Posted March 27, 2018 Gary, first off I have to agree that Facebook for truck info drives me nuts for exactly the reasons you mentioned. I participate because that is where the action is these days, but I don’t particularly like it. I wasn’t suggesting any move in that direction, just comparing the psychology of other media out there. Emphasizing a “search Garagemahal” function may help people find things since there are now so many pages. As far as a good example of a visual layout, unfortunately I don’t have any particular website(s) in mind as examples. I will have to look for some. My post may have come off as half-baked, but this morning I linked the ‘86 EVTM to someone who is a member here yet he wasn’t aware that it existed. I have not really thought through any good solutions, I was just trying to put my finger on the why. I may be off base there as well, I’m just brainstorming and hoping to get folks thinking. Not half-baked at all! I really want to make this work for everyone, and have even paid Facebook for advertising to get it off the ground. But, that cost me something like $40 and netted very little in the way of traffic, so I turned that off. And, I didn't take it that you were suggesting we move to Facebook. I was just explaining why I don't problem-solve over there. Chris said something to me recently that has me thinking. He said that he's been told that most of the traffic on FTE is one-timers that come on to get a problem solved and don't come back until the next problem comes along. And while I don't dislike one-timers, I really like getting to know people and helping them. But I have nothing against those who want to spend their time helping one-offers. That's just not where I want to spend my time. Anyway, I can move the search function to the top of the page and highlight it so people can find it. Let me think about that a bit. (And, if I come off with some bizarre responses blame it on Brandon's lacquer thinner fumes.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArdWrknTrk Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 Jonathan - Interesting suggestion. And, let's do brainstorm that here for a while. First though, I do see the explosion of Facebook pages and I even have two myself. But, I don't want to do any problem solving on Facebook. Instead, my pages are just for pointers back to here, meaning this forum and the whole website. That's because long ago I got frustrated with answering everyone's repetitive questions on the same things. That was the impetus for the ill-fated FTE albums which were intended to answer the most oft-asked questions so we didn't have to re-invent that wheel each and every time. And then when the albums didn't work I created this website. But, I do provide links on the various Facebook pages I'm on when questions are asked that this site can answer. On the other hand, there's no way to find previous answers to the same question on Facebook, which is why I don't plan to problem-solve there. And, as shown on the chart below, people are finding the site. The chart is for Google searches from 1/1/2018 to today, and basically it shows that the "impressions", which means that this site was offered in the results of a search, went from around 300/day at the first of the year to about 1000 today. At the same time the number of people that have clicked on the resulting link has gone from about 20/day to 60/day. Meanwhile, the position within the search results has gone from about 13th to 10th. All of this is synergistic - as people click on our link then the placement moves up in the results, meaning more people will click on the link. HOWEVER, I agree that while the menu works and is nice and simple, it is a pain to use. Even I, who created it, sometimes have to do an internal search for whatever I need. (Many people don't realize that there's an internal search at the bottom of every page.) So, it would help to have a better way to find things - w/o searching. So, I like the idea of having a "documentation" page. BUT, it needs to be easily maintained or I may "forget" to do it. I started the site by having a mini-menu on each page, as shown in the example below. But that quickly became hard to maintain as the site went from less than 40 pages to over 400. Given that, if there was an easy way to see what is available, but one that is maintainable I'd be all for it. Can you point me to an example somewhere of what you have in mind? Maybe if "search Garagemahal resources and documentation" was up in the stickies at the top of the page instead of at the bottom, people would use it more? I don't know and I'm not a psychologist. 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink' comes to mind. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford F834 Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink' comes to mind. Perhaps not, but if presented as a glistening, shimmering, crystal clear pool of glacial runoff you are more likely to get a horse to drink than by showing it a sign that says “water”. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArdWrknTrk Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 'You can lead a horse to water but you can't make it drink' comes to mind. Perhaps not, but if presented as a glistening, shimmering, crystal clear pool of glacial runoff you are more likely to get a horse to drink than by showing it a sign that says “water”. Ah! "Raw" water With bonus Giardia & Cryptosporidium!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArdWrknTrk Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 Ah! "Raw" water With bonus Giardia & Cryptosporidium!!!! Seriously though, I understand the *oh, shiny* aspect of it. So you're suggesting a header shot of whatever is included in the subsection? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford F834 Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 Seriously though, I understand the *oh, shiny* aspect of it. So you're suggesting a header shot of whatever is included in the subsection? Part of it is the “oh shiny...” aspect (for new users) to see what is behind door no. 1 etc., but also people process visual information much faster and easier than text. Repeat users will likely find it easier to navigate with a visual map of land marks rather than having to read the street signs each time, if that analogy makes any sense... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ArdWrknTrk Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 Part of it is the “oh shiny...” aspect (for new users) to see what is behind door no. 1 etc., but also people process visual information much faster and easier than text. Repeat users will likely find it easier to navigate with a visual map of land marks rather than having to read the street signs each time, if that analogy makes any sense... Makes perfect sense. The same way I can glance at an analog instrument panel and instantly tell if any needles are in or close to the red zone, while reading digital numbers and having to *consider* the context and implications of those numbers vs what should be 'normal' takes a second. Amazing -to me- that someone *literally* searching for information can't be bothered to RTFM when it is put in front of them, but I guess that's what's happened. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
1985 Bronco Posted March 27, 2018 Share Posted March 27, 2018 Makes perfect sense. The same way I can glance at an analog instrument panel and instantly tell if any needles are in or close to the red zone, while reading digital numbers and having to *consider* the context and implications of those numbers vs what should be 'normal' takes a second. Amazing -to me- that someone *literally* searching for information can't be bothered to RTFM when it is put in front of them, but I guess that's what's happened. I think the Radiator Support page could use some pictures to better explain the difference between the 80/84 supports, and the 85/86 supports. You could also post some pictures of the diesel support, since they are not reproduced, and someone may want to try to modify a gas support to work. I have some pictures of how to modify a 80/84 support to work with a 85/86 radiator if you want those too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted March 27, 2018 Author Share Posted March 27, 2018 I think the Radiator Support page could use some pictures to better explain the difference between the 80/84 supports, and the 85/86 supports. You could also post some pictures of the diesel support, since they are not reproduced, and someone may want to try to modify a gas support to work. I have some pictures of how to modify a 80/84 support to work with a 85/86 radiator if you want those too. 1985 Bronco - If you have pics to use on the radiator support send them on. I'll schedule that when I can. Jim/Jonathan - We need to achieve a balance. On one extreme I could spend a whole lot of time making it easy for those who won't read the menu to find what they need. On the other, I could spend my time adding new pages and the site would serve those who will read the menu. But, if we can find a middle-of-the-road approach that doesn't take much more time that the current approach then we might have a good solution. But I'm having a hard time imagining what the "header shot of whatever is included in the subsection" looks like. Would it be something like a page with small pictures that are used as icons to get to the info, like: Cooling Systems a radiator? Driveline a picture of an engine, tranny, rear axle Electrical a picture of a battery or an alternator or maybe a lightning bolt Is that what you mean? If so, look at 1981 Literature. I can pack them much tighter than that, but we still have 20 things at the top level, so maybe 4 wide by 5 deep. But, then do we have to do that at the next level? Or, to put it another way, if you click on Electrical where should it take you? Currently it takes you to the page shown below, which is waaaay out of date since it shows 7 entries at the next level and there are actually 27 of them. In other words, I've not keep that up for a long time. So, my fear is that we come up with a plan that brings others in but is onerous to maintain and, therefore, won't be. But, if I had a helper, ...... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford F834 Posted March 28, 2018 Share Posted March 28, 2018 1985 Bronco - If you have pics to use on the radiator support send them on. I'll schedule that when I can. Jim/Jonathan - We need to achieve a balance. On one extreme I could spend a whole lot of time making it easy for those who won't read the menu to find what they need. On the other, I could spend my time adding new pages and the site would serve those who will read the menu. But, if we can find a middle-of-the-road approach that doesn't take much more time that the current approach then we might have a good solution. But I'm having a hard time imagining what the "header shot of whatever is included in the subsection" looks like. Would it be something like a page with small pictures that are used as icons to get to the info, like: Cooling Systems a radiator? Driveline a picture of an engine, tranny, rear axle Electrical a picture of a battery or an alternator or maybe a lightning bolt Is that what you mean? If so, look at 1981 Literature. I can pack them much tighter than that, but we still have 20 things at the top level, so maybe 4 wide by 5 deep. But, then do we have to do that at the next level? Or, to put it another way, if you click on Electrical where should it take you? Currently it takes you to the page shown below, which is waaaay out of date since it shows 7 entries at the next level and there are actually 27 of them. In other words, I've not keep that up for a long time. So, my fear is that we come up with a plan that brings others in but is onerous to maintain and, therefore, won't be. But, if I had a helper, ...... Gary, I don’t know what I was suggesting. Clickable tiles like the literature section would be ludacris for the amount of information you have to organize. Overall bad idea…. I don’t know how hard it would be to maintain, but I did come up with an example website that I think has a good balance of visual display and organized munues. Sorry, it is not truck related… it is for cameras. But it was built by Pentax fans to organize product information from the 80’s onward and I think they did a great job. Take a look and see if there are any useable ideas here. I have always loved this site and I think it does a good job of displaying the information. http://kmp.pentaxians.eu And Gary you have a very good point. There is no reason to dumb-down the website interface to a bunch of clip art icons. If people can’t be bothered to read a bulleted menu then they probably won’t find much use for the pages themselves. But I do think color, graphic design, and some images will improve the user experience and bring more traffic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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