Angled Whiteboards

Time for another “we’re curious” poll.

The here/away toggle in the Player’s mini-profile area. How useful is it to you? And if you do use it, why? When? We’d love it if you’d vote it up and then add your rationale to the comments section.

When we introduced 3.5’s enhanced download manager (back in December), we knew that people would appreciate the additional level of control. But we also knew that there might be a slight bit of controversy surrounding our decision to make the download manager work in a Last In, First Out (LIFO) manner — meaning, when you are downloading a game, any subsequent downloads replace the existing download and push it further down the queue.

We chose LIFO for a couple of reasons. Because a large chunk of our gameplay is initiated from the web, we wanted to make sure that when someone clicked the Play button, they weren’t launching the player and sticking the game in a queue. Play should mean play. We also wanted to keep in mind the user who starts up a DiRT download, realizes that it might take a minute or two (ha), and decides to get a quick game of Joust in.

When 3.5 hit beta we started getting some feedback about our decision. “Why can’t the download queue work the other way?” “Now I have to think too hard about my download order.” Others were less frustrated with the addition but mentioned that they wouldn’t mind at least having the option to switch to FIFO when they needed it. So we did some experimentation. We worked through a global setting that simply switched everything from LIFO to FIFO — the messaging was too weird, and we couldn’t control it as easily and dynamically on the web. So 3.5 went out with LIFO. And we waited to see whether non-beta users would notice.

Of course non-beta users noticed! In fact, we came very close to including the discussed two-button option in a January update, but were concerned that having a button that said “Download Now” and another that said “Add to Queue” was a) too difficult to fit into the allocated download button area:

And b) had the potential to confuse things for large majority of users (borne out in usability testing) who don’t even realize there IS a download manager.

But then I ended up having an IM conversation with longtime beta tester and moderator macnbc. And he did it. He cracked the code:

So as of the Player update that went out a week or so ago, we’ve got a FIFO v LIFO setting in the Download Options dialog. Advanced users (like the ones who made it to the end of this post) can switch it on to enable the option of FIFO downloading on each and every Infocard. Another bonus of this implementation is that we’ve got plenty of room to explain the setting in the Download Options dialog — putting less of a messaging burden on the buttons themselves (and letting us get away with the slightly less obvious “Queue It” button label:

This isn’t the first time we’ve received help from our community in terms of design, and I’m sure it won’t be the last. Thanks again, guys!

A month or so ago, one of our formidable beta testers (and community moderator) alerted us to the fact that a certain dialog box was confusing:

“Let me walk you through my train of thought. The Dialogue is telling me that all Downloaded games are going to be deleted, then it asks me if I’m sure I want to do that, but it gives me the option of Cancel and “Delete Games only” So why is it warning me that everything will be deleted instead of asking me which option I want?” — tsrblke2

Looking at it with fresh eyes, we conceded that it was indeed a mixed-up piece of messaging, asking “The dialog is trying to warn you of the hugeness of what you’re about to do AND offer you a couple of saves. Would modifying the final question (and the ‘are you sure?’ header) to something non-question-y like ‘Please select an option’ help?”

In jumped another one of our beta testers, a smart fellow named amiantos, with the following:

Aside from overexplaining the options, and making the current dialog more confusing, the only way to fix it would be to re-do the whole thing. I should draw this out. — amiantos

And draw it out he did:

“Well, shoot. There it is,” we thought. Why mess with someone’s spot-on design? So we didn’t touch it. Now, in version 3.1, when you attempt to delete any games that have local data attached to them, you’ll see a dialog that looks ever so suspiciously like the very dialog that our talented beta tester designed:

Ahh… that was easy. Thanks, guys!

There’s a little gizmo in the bottom of the GameTap Deluxe Player and we’re wondering if you use it. If you do use it, please tell us how in comments. Thanks!

Note: We just added a new option “Kinda sorta’, based on some of your comments. 

There was an interesting article in the New York Times the other day about how one long line and many check-outs results in less wait time than many shorter lines to individual check-outs. (Of course they do, for me - I always choose the line with the longest wait, no matter how many people are in it. Don’t you?)

Anyway, the queuing theory behind the model is far from new. No, what was interesting to me was that most people had to actually experience it to believe one LONG line could result in a shorter overall wait.

Earlier this year we implemented on-demand image fetching in the GameTap Deluxe Player - mainly to make the initial download smaller. For instance, you go to a game infocard, you might very well see an “Image Loading” where the picture is supposed to be. Okay, no problem. But we didn’t implement on-demand images everywhere. Why not? We had to experience it to know that even though our goal was met (reduced initial download time) the actual user experience felt all kinds of broken.

Just try spinning the Wheel of Destiny (Gotta Getta Game) in the search ring when there are no GamePlates loaded. Talk about meeting a goal and failing at the same time. And it took experiencing it to know it.

How does this relate to long lines? I dunno, just made me think of it.

And the moral of the story is: when it comes to lines - you can’t make a wrong choice if there’s no choice at all.

As promised, in advance of next Thursday’s launch of GameTap on the Mac, here’s a visual preview. GameTap Mac fans, your future looks like this (click to gorge):

Dedicated Mac nerds will immediately note that the previously-mentioned gorgeous dock icon is sitting on that fancy new 3D dock that Apple unveiled last week as a part of their upcoming OS X Leopard release.  Obviously, Leopard isn’t required to run the Lite Player, but we couldn’t resist using it for the screenshot.

And here’s a bonus shot (again, more for the Mac folks with dogcow tattoos) showing a couple of those superslick, supereasytomake Web Clip widgets. In this case we’ve clipped out the Flash-based promo from the top of gametap.com home (with sound and motion and everything!) and the free-to-play selection from Play home. A quick F12 and boom! You know what’s on tap for the week.