Lizardsquid, maker of noises @lizardsquid@computerfairi.es

Also: I'm glad that they seperated out the classic series dramas and the new series dramas, that will actually help people a lot.

ok, so they've launched the new site. There are still teething problems (stuff taking a while to load, links that don't quite work, etc), so I'll save most of my judgements for a week.

But I want to say a few things:

• Actually using the site feels mostly fine. Many things are much more usable than before.
• It looks like they've made an unnannounced change: renaming the "Main Range" to "The Monthly Adventures". I like the new name, but I wish they had said beforehand.

They show this image for how it looks on a mobile site, which is fine. I *like* that the mobile site is simple.

But why not make the white centre (which you can see already has a pre-defined maximum width) be surrounded with the old grey? Add extra visual contrast where you can. Make the actual release area stand out.

here's a mockup that I just made. Why don't they do this?

It's still exactly the same, but it looks much less bland and soul-less.

Here's a comparison of the pages for individual releases.

The layout of the new page? Wonderful and amazing and good.
The aesthetic? Completely garbage. It's a generic store page.

Notice also: with the old site, there was a different banner at the top of the screen, depending on which series the release came from. In the new version?

It's just nothing. A completely white void.

(An aside: that big red bar isn't usually there in the old site, it's temporary)

My problem with the new design: it just looks so generic.

Sure, make things big and flexible and stuff, that's good.

But it's just a white background. That lovely shade of grey is gone, and it's just a bog-standard white.

The banner at the top is gone, replaced with.... bog-standard white.

Instead of a variety of colours, there's 3 and a bit.

It just looks like a completely generic store page.

Big finish is updating its website soon, and in some ways it's really good (it's going to be much more useable on mobile devices), but I have a problem with the design.

Pics for comparison (current design on left, new design on right)

or honestly, just a discord for functional programming in general

me: *is making tea*
my brain: you should start a discord for LGBTQ+ functional programmers
me: what? no.
me: ... actually, that sounds like it could be good

sleepy time, I think...

it's done, and it is much nicer than the old system.

I did have to spend literally my entire last evening and all of today on it, though.

(it's also not finished yet, and because it's completely breaking all the segment numbers I can't upload a WIP)

It has been much more time consuming than I thought, but definitely worth it.

It's a subtle difference, you probably can't even see it unless you're looking for it, but it makes the ordering *feel* more sensible, and the more clear year boundaries mean that it should be easier for people to keep track of where they're up to.
It also means I've only got one situation where the "next in range" link goes to a segment focused around a different range.

the idea is to divide the audio dramas out into every 6 months of releases.

Then, the segments will look like this:

a. Doctor Who Monthly Range releases for the (first/second) half of <year>.
b. segments for each series that had its final episode in those 6 months
c. BBV releases
d. Miscellaneous releases (like bonus releases or one-off stories)

Rather than having the Miscellaneous releases mixed in with everything else.

This also means it has a more predictable format.

while I was out on a walk, I came up with a way to improve my audio guide...

that will also result in me completely redoing the order of things.

and I am definitely the kind of person who is going to spend the rest of the evening working on that...