The gaming hobby is highly addictive. Even in our non-gaming hours the most enthusiastic of us read various hobbyist magazines and regularly search the web for interesting content.
Online, I’ve come to favor the blog format above all others. Immediately upon bringing up a blog–without even a second’s hunting–I know whether or not new content is available. I merely begin reading articles, skipping the ones in which I’m not interested, and stop when I hit something familar. You just can’t beat it in terms of usability.
Invariably, when visiting a new blog I check out that enthusiast’s list of links. Many of these lists include boardgame sites that have been around for a while and gained popularity, but that, oddly enough, I almost never visit. When I asked myself why I didn’t visit them, the answer was easy. Whether or not the content organization was pertinent, the site provided no easy means of identifying and browsing through the latest content. The best sites make doing so nearly effortless.
Though this is by no means a comprehensive list, I’ll mention a few of the common formats I’ve seen used by boardgame sites:
* The Billboard
* The Resource
* The Blog
The Billboard
Billboard sites exist primarily to make the general public aware of an organization or company. The content is semi-static. Formerly this site existed as a billboard in order to enable people to find and join my local game club. Even some publisher sites are, for the most part, billboards that are only updated as new products are offered.
The Resource
The resource site, hopefully, offers a growing body of information. Resource sites are organized using various means such as categorically, alphabetically, or chronologically. If ever there was a dominant resource, BoardGameGeek takes the cake. It has tons of useful content and is a tremendous resource for, among other things, deciding what games we should be buying.
The Blog
Blogs organize their content using a descending chronology. Upon visiting a blog, this consistent model makes becoming oriented almost effortless, and locating the latest content a breeze. Because of this blogs are highly usable.
Every regularly updated site could become more usable by, at the very least, providing a single page for browing its content in descending chronology. Even BGG which is predominantly a resource site offers plenty of RSS feeds and pages (like Recent Additions) that utilize this highly useful format.
I urge all who regularly update their sites to provide a descending chronology so that visitors can, without special knowledge, easily locate the latest content. I strongly suspect this will draw in more visitors. Also, if it’s not almost daily, courteously tell your readers about how often content is added. Or better yet, like the late Games Journal publish on a regular schedule.
I’ve heard it said that our brains have no problem storing what we learn, that the problem is retreiving it. On the web, difficult retrieval need not be the case. Consider what the site Boardgame News does. It logs news so that the masses can browse it in, of all things, a descending chronology. Following boardgame news couldn’t be easier!