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Star Wars News & Opinions

by: Master Devwi

date posted: Jul 02, 2008 1:04 AM | updated: Jul 10, 2008 12:18 AM

StarWars.com Redesign: Info and Impressions

Well, another Star Wars movie, another StarWars.com redesign! It looks like this is why Star Wars: The Official Site has been so quiet lately! Here's a breakdown of what you'll find on the new site, and a few of my thoughts:

The Good
General Info
* The new design looks very cool, in my opinion.
* New features like comments, sharing, rating, keywords, etc. make the site feel more like a community than a news outlet.
* While there are more ads, they seem less intrusive.
* It's easy to navigate from page to page.
* On every page, you'll find a box with the latest news, as well as a mini site map.
* The new picture viewer is very nice.

Home page
* The front page loads very quickly (unlike the long wait we had before).
* New information is easily accessible.
* There is news from other sites as well. For example, there is currently news from BoingBoing.net, IGN.com, and others on the front page. The links take you directly to the site's article.
* The front page has an assortment of games, kids activities, and databank entries for you to view.

Clone Wars
* This takes you to the existing Official Web site for Star Wars: The Clone Wars (currently the default StarWars.com).

Video
* This is the same video site as before, but the background has been changed to reflect the new design.

Games
* Here you'll find the latest gaming news. You have the option to sort it by Video Games or Other Games news, or you can view it all together.

Movies
* Selecting a movie gives you lots of info - release date, synopsis, opening crawl, awards, poster, cast, and crew.
* There are links to other LucasFilm projects like Indiana Jones and THX 1138.
* Interestingly, as far as I can tell, there is no longer movie-specific news in the Movies category.

Fans
* Lots of the Fan services we use are here, including the Official Star Wars Blog, Event News, Media News, Star Wars Rocks, Fan Profiles, and Hyperspace.
* Under Hyperspace, you'll find links to Bantha Tracks Online, the Web Strips, Fiction, Source Archives, and the Online Membership Kit.
* The Web Strips has a nice new interface that makes it easy to read the comic strips. Sadly, you can't jump to a specific strip number.

Kids
You can sort the Kids section by Stuff to Do and Stuff to Read
* Stuff to Do has the Learn to Draw tutorials and projects.
* Stuff to Read has information on kids books, and younger articles like "Exploring Real Life Dagobah"
* Interestingly, Stuff to Do is missing links to games, which can only be found on the main Kids page.

Vault
* The Vault: your destination for official news on collecting, books, comics, and more, as well as the new home of the Databank.
* The Databank now has a new way to browse through the archives and a few select entries on the main page.
* On the Databank entry pages, you'll find the usual information, with the biggest change being the combination of the "From the Movies," "From the Expanded Universe," and "Behind the Scenes" categories. Instead of being on separate pages, they are now located on the same page.

Shop
* Any option you choose takes you to the Star Wars Shop, except for Shop News, which shows you the latest news about the Star Wars Shop.

More
* Selecting More takes you directly to the archives. But other sub-categories are the Site Map, Search, My Subscriptions, My Settings, and Join Hyperspace.
* In the Archives (or, maybe the Jedi Archives? :P ), you'll be able to sort the latest news by Category or Keyword. Or, if you prefer, you can leave it on the default view, which is sorted by date. If you only want to see the latest news, this is the page for you. It is interesting to note that videos are now included in the Archive. This was not the case on the previous version of StarWars.com.

My Settings
* This is the same Account Settings page we've had for years.

The Bad
* Some parts of the site remain unchanged:
- Account Settings (now two redesigns old - 2.5 if you count the half-redesign of only the home page a year ago)
- Blogs //LucasOnline has stated that this will be updated soon!
- MashUps
- Message Board //LucasOnline has stated that this will be updated soon!
- Official Star Wars Blog
- Star Wars Shop
* The site doesn't scale properly. When your browser window is smaller than the width of the page, the sides of the page are cut off. The problem is, while you can scroll right to read content that has been cut off, you can't scroll left! So, if your browser window is smaller than the width of the site, any content on the left edge of the page is unreadable! //This has been fixed!
* News isn't filed under a specific category anymore, but multiple categories. Sadly, there doesn't seem to be an "all news" section except the archive.
* The RSS feed is hard to locate (hint: go to the Site Map to find it)
* What happened to the polls? The photo captions? They have all disappeared! The same goes for lots of the old Hyperspace material. Many of the old articles seem to be missing too... hopefully they are in the process of redesigning and putting them back up. It would be horrible if we lost them forever! Of course, it's possible they're hidden somewhere on the site and I just haven't found them yet. //LucasOnline has stated that most, if not all, of this will be making a return as soon as they're able to put it up!
* Links to the Star Wars Blogs, Message Boards, and MashUps are at the bottom of the page in the mini site map, but can't be found in the navigation bar at the top of the page. Shouldn't these links be put as a sub-category in the Fan section?
* On the Web Strips, there is a small glitch in the numbering system that says the first strip is the second.
* I found a bug in the RSS feed. Sometimes, article titles are cut off at the end. For example: "The Falcon is Back and Better Than Eve" or "Star Wars: The Clone Wars To Premiere at Egyptian Theatr" or "The Clone Wars Soundtrac" It's not a problem with all the entries, just a lot of them.

Thoughts and Conclusion:
The new StarWars.com looks great, but sometimes it's hard to find older news in specific categories. For this, stay away from the main pages and use the Archives and the Search feature. The Archive's category and keyword sort option should work just fine. There are still a few bugs and glitches to be worked out, but overall, it's a very good site. I just hope the old features make a return.

For getting the latest news, the front page works great. But if you've been away for a few days, it might be better to visit the Archives or use the RSS feed (my personal preference) instead. All in all, the new StarWars.com is pretty good. But with a few improvements (and returning features), the site could be even better!

MTFBWY,
Master Devwi

NOTE: The new site seems to have just gone up today (the day of this posting), and it looks like they are still in the process of making the switch. All the above information is purely observations from playing around with the new site.

Update: At the suggestion of bonniegrrl, I have compiled my site suggestions from the Message Board into a new blog post. To find out how you can leave your own feedback, click here.

Update 2: LucasOnline has been making a bunch of fixes to the site. I have made another post listing the changes I've found. Click here to view them and post your own findings!

Update 3: I found another bug on the site. I've added it to "The Bad" list.

Thanks to LucasOnline for the making this the Blog of the Day!

http://blogs.starwars.com/masterdewvi/19

Click here to hide comments for this entry

	usetheforce19 MasterMonkey13
date Posted: Jul 02, 2008 5:48 AM All in all I much prefer this design to the last one.

	comanderbly That's Impossible. Even for a Computer.
date Posted: Jul 02, 2008 6:00 AM As you pointed out its unfinished with so many other sections in the old design(s). I love how the link to the blogs area is just a tiny link in the footer - I feel so small and insignificant! The fact that they are not rolling out the design to older sections of website has me curious about what they plan to do with those areas.

PrequelsROCK

date Posted: Jul 02, 2008 9:51 PM

So far I can't stand it! Alot of the things I pay a membership is no longer on the site, i.e. the archival material like the Exclusive Video and AudioCast. I can't find Photoreceptor or, as the Blog's author pointed out, some of the older articles that I liked to go back and revisit once in awhile. The general Video section is impressive but it's missing video you could only access with a Hyperspace membership. The layout basically just apes the Yahoo Star Wars Beta thats been around for awhile this year and lacks any real domain of it's own. At first glance the content seems to center around child doodling and crafts to Disney genre splicing.

	PrequelsROCK
date Posted: Jul 02, 2008 9:52 PM As a patron of all things Lucas and Star Wars, I feel like I just walked into one of my favorite eatery establishments and the menu has not only been rearranged, but downsized as well.

	Master Devwi Star Wars News & Opinions
date Posted: Jul 02, 2008 10:57 PM Yeah, a lot of old content is missing. Like I said before, I hope the put them back up soon, as well as all the old features like Polls, etc.

bonniegrrl
Droids Just Wanna Have Fun

date Posted: Jul 07, 2008 1:17 PM

Thanks for posting this! I'm making this the blog of the day.

Just so you know, both Blogs and Forums will be going through a redesign as well. So if you have ideas of what you'd like to see done on both of those, that would make an excellent blog post as well.

And much of the content that is missing now (except for bios) will be replaced as fast as our little hands can type. So hang tight!

And thanks again for the feedback!

	Master Devwi Star Wars News & Opinions
date Posted: Jul 07, 2008 5:13 PM Oh, cool! Thanks for all the great work you guys do!

Kaleesh

date Posted: Jul 07, 2008 5:24 PM

In my honest opinion, I don't like it at all. It looks way too cartoony and flashy. Clone Wars has completely taken over the site. It looks like a site designed for little kids. The old portal was great, with Leia's hologram leading the way into a space atmosphere with blue hologram projectors against the blackness, but now it's a corny light looking thing that doesn't even look that much like a hologram that only shows a Clone Wars character. What about the real movies? Where have they gone?
(cont)

Kaleesh

date Posted: Jul 07, 2008 5:24 PM

I know Clone Wars is new and great and all, but come on! What's going to happen when the hype fades a while from now? What then? I mean, wouldn't, say, a website dominated only by Episode I be weird? What makes this any different? The Clone Wars, in my book, isn't even truely part of the original six. The original six are what make up star wars, not this. It's good for promotion but not in the long run. You're neglecting the others.
(cont)

Kaleesh

date Posted: Jul 07, 2008 5:25 PM

The good thing about Star Wars was that it always had a 'lived in' look that made it believable, but this site is just all shiny and flashy, which by the way makes it take way too much time to load.

I find it sad that this once nostalgic site has turned into something that looks like one of those toy sites designed purely for marketing with cheezy games and those bogus scavenger hunts to win an aim avatar. And each page is nearly taken over by adds.
The layout of each page is confusing, and unorganized, where the old pages were neatly contained.
(cont)

Kaleesh

date Posted: Jul 07, 2008 5:26 PM

I miss the awesome menu bar the most, with all of the paintings and such that changed according to the page you're on along with the color scheme- a feat few sites manage to pul off as well as that, I might add. With the new menu, it's even harder to navigate. Why don't you just use the old categories for your menu? Those worked great. What happened to the Beyond The Movies stuff?

My biggest problem, besides the first paragraph, is that all you get when you click on the movie is an article. Yeah. Great. Now where the heck is everything else?

Overall I do not like this at all. I'm deeply dissapointed in the new change.

Kaleesh

date Posted: Jul 07, 2008 5:26 PM

	Master Devwi Star Wars News & Opinions
date Posted: Jul 07, 2008 6:37 PM BTW, if you guys need assistance updating the site, I'd be willing to help... For free, of course!

Tamsyn3

date Posted: Aug 06, 2008 2:16 PM

Because I have a direct link to the message boards bookmarked, I was unaware of the massive changes that were made to the home page until today. A friend of mine - a regular on the board - was forced back to the homepage after updating her Hyperspace membership and couldn't figure how to get back to the message boards. I thought at first it was just some kind of glitch on her computer until I went myself to the home page and was redirected to the Welcome page featuring the new Clone Wars move.

Tamsyn3

date Posted: Aug 06, 2008 2:21 PM

Personally, I never liked the artwork of the Clone Wars series, so I'm not really interested in the upcoming movie either; but I certainly understand there are alot of fans who are, so that's not really the issue here. (Although the sound effects get really old, really fast.) What is an issue is that Welcome page which is still too big for my screen (even tho there is a note in the blog that this problem has been fixed) ; I can scroll all the way down, but not to the left and right, and this makes it very difficult to get access to StarWars.com.

	Tamsyn3
date Posted: Aug 06, 2008 2:22 PM The problems don't end there, however, because even once you figure out how to turn off the sound and find your way to SW.com, the only way to find access in the boards is to scroll all the way down to the site map at the bottom of the page. I echo the suggestion that a link be included in the other fan links at the TOP of the page.

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