Site Navigation: An unintuitive mess

atom.Man · 03-14-2010, 12:08 AM

the new layout looks fantastic - clean, bandwidth friendly, attractive.

however, i think navigating it has become far less intuitive than it could be, especially from the point of view of a first time visitor. for instance...

what is the purpose of this site? it's not obvious from the portal. shouldn't there be a short intro maybe?
the contents are now split up between projectcamelotportal.com, projectavalon.net, projectcamelot.org and, now, projectcamelotproductions.com and projectlightwarrior.com. why? how does a first time visitor figure out what's where? most of these are parts of the same whole, so why not have them all on the same domain and keep the user experience consistent? this creates the problem of having to have links back to each of these sites, though the user has no idea what the links mean; what's the difference between the portal and PC and PCP and PA? where did i come from? where am i going to?
why are interviews now split between 'KERRK | project camelot productions' and 'BILL | project avalon'? is knowing who did the interview more important than the content? do people now have to visit 2 different websites to listen to the interviews?
there's no consistent navigation structure. from the portal you can navigate to the forum, but there's no link back. someone landing on projectlightwarrior.com has no way of knowing about any of the other sites. it's also not obvious what projectlightwarrior.com is for.
lastly, having related content spread out all over the place not only creates a headache for visitors, but also results in more work for the webmaster(s). it would also be interesting to know how forwarding projectcamelot.org to projectcamelotportal.com will affect SEO.

i mean no disrespect to anyone and i don't wish to hurt any feelings, but navigating this has become a mess IMO.

03-14-2010, 12:08 AM	#1
atom.Man Avalon Senior Member Join Date: Sep 2008 Posts: 31	Site Navigation: An unintuitive mess the new layout looks fantastic - clean, bandwidth friendly, attractive. however, i think navigating it has become far less intuitive than it could be, especially from the point of view of a first time visitor. for instance... what is the purpose of this site? it's not obvious from the portal. shouldn't there be a short intro maybe? the contents are now split up between projectcamelotportal.com, projectavalon.net, projectcamelot.org and, now, projectcamelotproductions.com and projectlightwarrior.com. why? how does a first time visitor figure out what's where? most of these are parts of the same whole, so why not have them all on the same domain and keep the user experience consistent? this creates the problem of having to have links back to each of these sites, though the user has no idea what the links mean; what's the difference between the portal and PC and PCP and PA? where did i come from? where am i going to? why are interviews now split between 'KERRK \| project camelot productions' and 'BILL \| project avalon'? is knowing who did the interview more important than the content? do people now have to visit 2 different websites to listen to the interviews? there's no consistent navigation structure. from the portal you can navigate to the forum, but there's no link back. someone landing on projectlightwarrior.com has no way of knowing about any of the other sites. it's also not obvious what projectlightwarrior.com is for. lastly, having related content spread out all over the place not only creates a headache for visitors, but also results in more work for the webmaster(s). it would also be interesting to know how forwarding projectcamelot.org to projectcamelotportal.com will affect SEO. i mean no disrespect to anyone and i don't wish to hurt any feelings, but navigating this has become a mess IMO.