Patrick,
Why dont you change the website into something more similar to beatthegmat (the Myschools section format).
there are many opensource softwares to build such a website. I think it would be like a WSOasis meets Facebook. It would be easier to interact with other people, nicer profiles, better groups, etc.
True, clownsong and others have done this and I think it's really helped them out. However, at the end of the day I think the WSO name works well.
yeah, it doesnt have to change its name. The site just needs an update
hey lifeonpurpose, can you link me to the Myschools section format? Are there certain specific features that WSO is missing that you would like to see? or is your critique more aesthetic? Would be great if you can give us more specifics, we're always trying to improve the user experience.
Thanks! Patrick
http://www.beatthegmat.com/mbawatch/myschools?sid=2a438bc9e658105006522… i dont know if you have access to that, you might want to create an account.
Patrick, I think the natural next step for WSO is to convert it to such a site. To convert it into a "Banking community". The current format is outdated and "un-pro". It still remains a forum, no matter how many more services you try to integrate, the look and feel is a forum.
The aesthetic is getting worse by the day. I hadn't logged in WSO for months, (I started to use it again once i started the bschool apps). But when I came back to the website, I remembered my first reaction: The site was ugly. Now i am more used to it, but I think you would care more about first impressions.
From a competitive perspective, if you dont do it, someone else will. Frankly, I would do it if i had a little bit more time.
hey lifeonpurpose, was checking out beatthegmat and i think it looks good (a bit hard to read with text so small) but I don't see any major differences...so again, can you be more specific about the main criticism on WSO? or how we can make it more community oriented?
Is it that the "my account" section is not as clear along the top? I very much see WSO a community at it's core with profile pages, community rank and thousands of private messages between members every month. We also just installed the My friends feature to link profiles up. We also will be allowing users to track their friends.
I'd love to improve but just saying "there's a lot of open source software, WSO is ugly" without giving us specific feedback, then it's tough to respond.
We have removed the 728x90 ad along the top and are continually trying to improve the aesthetic. We may be behind the curve because we are a small business, but I promise you the site is much prettier than it was back in 2008 or 2009 :-)
We are always open to new feature or layout requests, so what specifically about WSO is missing / core that we need? the home page? the forums?
Thanks, Patrick
Patrick, I think the main change I would do would be to include a "news feed", just as BTG and FB. The cool thing about it, is that it updates without having to refresh the website.
For some threads you do need to maintain the Forum feel because you need a record of the conversation and because the posts are long. But there are some topics that would make more sense in a "news feed" format.
For example, a post such as
"OMG i am so bored of my IB job, it is 3 am and i am still in the office" would not be "thread quality", but would be great for a News Feed postt. People would reply instantly and it would be fun. It would give an opportunity for people to "hang out" in here instead of checking if there are any new interesting threads.
AS for the design and layout, maybe someone with more experience would chime in, but the design is not "clean", it is outdated. I am no expert in this, but for example the edges are not smooth, the header has too much information, the Greys give a Windows 95 look, the buttons arent uniform (for example, the Creat a Group button isnt pro and looks different from the rest, etc).
Dont get me wrong, I LOVE this website. But I love it because I've been hanging out in here for years, shared my life experiences in here, this website helped me land an internship IB offer, users gave me moral support when the offer was rescinded, it offered me advice when i applied to bschools, and now i am heading to MIT and most probably users will give me valuable advice once i start recruiting for associate roles,
EDIT: you could let the monekying around be in a news feed format and the other in thread format
thanks for the feedback....we seem to have some of this stuff in slightly different form. For example, if you're looking to hang out / chat, we have a WSO Chat room: //www.wallstreetoasis.com/the-wso-chat-room
Also, later this week (hopefully tomorrow), we will be releasing a new tab under the Recent menu item called "my friends" that will show all of the threads that were created or commented on by your WSO friends.
As far as the news feed capability, I'd have to look into that to see if there is a good existing Drupal module or if wee'd have to build one from scratch.
Right now, most of our development effort is going into mobile and some site cleanup, but I am open to the idea of a newsfeed. So basically, this would allow users to Follow or "Friend" their favorite users and then there would be a place that showed any comments or new content from those followed members? Woudl you envision the home page changing as well or would the newsfeed be under the Recent Menu. Maybe the tab called "My Friends" that we are adding could be changed to "My Feed" -- we already have a My Bookmarks tab, but this would be more for following certain users. My Feed woudl show content from any members that were your friends, or if you don't want to "friend" them, any that you are "following" (one way, no acceptance required).
thoughts on that?
As far as the aesthetics, 100% agree with you on the create a group button, but I actually like our Header / grey tile / modular theme now. It is much cleaner without the ad there and it really features the products and services we offer to the WSO visitors. Can you be specific on where you would soften edges? We are completely redesigning the Company Database and that will likely be over the next month, but we are also going to be looking into some font / design changes that can have a pretty dramatic ipact on how the site "feels".
I know we're not cutting edge, but we're getting better. don't believe me? check out what we looked like less than 1 year ago: http://web.archive.org/web/20110717235718///www.wallstreetoasis.com/ not pretty...
we'll get there, Patrick
Sorry Patrick for not getting back to you earlier (busy with the MBA registration/paper work)
The chat room is not nice. There are just so many reason why it does not work (which explains why there doesnt exist any more chat rooms and people prefer leaving comments. Have you noticed that people in facebook still leave comments instead of chatting? There is a reason behind it. Just try it man, run a Beta monkeying around feeds site. For example, i cant have access to the chatroom from work, just from home? A lot of users in here have the same strict IT at the workplace.
Actually Patrick, last year WSO looked better. Right now it is just really crowded in the header. Check Vault.com (your benchmark, or at least you want to become something similar to them). I know they dont have a community, but check their website. They have a clean header with a BIG logo. As for the soft edges, I think that once you change the font it will look much nicer (at least like Vault's fonts)
My suggestions for the design 1. Rethink the header and right column. You dont really need to put so many things in that column. Why dont you use that space to promote your products? 2. The hot topics, forum topics, etc columns you can just show them in the Forum Home page. For example, once I post this, i should be redirected to a home forum site, in which I can check that info. 3. An alternative to a Forum Home page, is that the the forum pages (banking, PE, etc) gets divided in three columns instead of two right now. You dont need to use such wide columns to show the thread topics. So, the layout should be: Forum threads (threads related to banking, pe, or whatever I am reading), then hot topics, new topics, and other Forum related information, then the fixed column with your products.
No opinions on this guys? My Friends tab is ready and will be live later today.
I like chat.
I've got a bunch of stuff to do over the next week, but I'll get back to this then and try and provide some useful feedback
thanks lifeonpurpose:
well chat is pretty popular with a small subset of users but I agree a feed system would be awesome which is why this is in development now (allows you to follow users, companies, etc.) It would be under "My Feed" under the recent menu. next to "My Recent Posts" and "My Bookamrks" and would be a steady stream of comments from friends, follows and any new reviews for companies you are following (or compensation data points, etc). We may release a beta version as soon as next week to live site. We may even be able to start adding "status updates" into this feed just like FB, but that would be "stage 2"
Really? It looked better with a huge 728x90 ad along the top with the header taking up an extra inch of vertical space? I think the fact that the Vault isnt really a community site makes it a tough comparison. I agree our fonts could be better but all of the sites you have pointed me too are just showing really small fonts which I dont think is a good idea for a site that features blogs / forum topics on the home page. Look at techcrunch.com's font for their posts or any other site that features a lot of stories or blog posts on the home page. Readability is key here and the sites you are pointing me too in my opinion have miniscule fonts (myabe I'm old?) I agree our fonts could use some consistency / and more polish, but do you think they should be as small as beatthegmat and vault when so much content is being consumed here?
Design suggestions:
We just redesigned header to feature all of our products/services and headers (the tile modular theme) and it has helped us tremendously. Not only has it saved vertical space to bring up content higher on page, but it has doubled traffic to our products and services pages. I think if we lighten the tiles so they aren't so dark grey they may grow on you (I think it's 10x cleaner than it was before the change and everyone has said the same thing to me...."WOW, that is SO MUHC BETTER" has been the unanimous response)...it doesnt mean we can't improve or change it again, just means that the header is doing exactly what you said it should do.
You think after you post a comment you shoudl be taken to the main forum page? Strongly disagree here. I think it is standard to take the user to the same forum they just posted in to show their comment went through. Isnt that standard across all forums (which i think makes perfect sense)?
I think this suggestion is a great one but would take a good # of hours of design work. Maybe on each main forum page we a different standard layout and we feature the products/services that are the most relevant to that specific industry / forum. So in the get a job forum, that would be Resume Review and Wall Street Mentors. For Ibanking forum, maybe it woudl be financial modeling training and the IB Prep Package, etc.... I think this should be done so I will look into how we can design the home forum pages for each industry and forum container page better.
I dont think the font should be small (the size right now is good), but you should use nicer fonts (with soft edges). Maybe it wont be nice, cant you make like some screen shots fot he same page with different fonts so that you can se how it would look like before changing the font for real (it should be easy to do with a simple photoshop software)
As for the Design suggestions
update: http://www.wallstreetoasis.com/blog/now-follow-your-favorite-wso-member…
Ok, so members now also have the ability to Follow Companies from the WSO Company Database....so any new interview insights, comp data or company reviews automatically show up in your feed.
We are also looking into a module called node-JS (javascript) which would allow you to just keep a window open and without refreshing the page would update (like FB news feed).
...we're getting there....also, MAJOR redesign coming to the Company Overview pages in the company database this week. Will look much cleaner.
Also looking into fonts and other design improvements which shoudl be released in the coming weeks...team hard at work.
Thanks, Patrick
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