Welcome to Crossdresser Heaven, a safe and welcoming place for everyone in the crossdresser community.
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Hi folks,
We're almost at the end of the year, and in 2024 we're looking to make some improvements to the Crossdresser Heaven home page ( https://www.crossdresserheaven.com )
We'd like to make it an inviting place for new members to our community, and allow all members to quickly discover and get involved with everything that's happening on Crossdresser Heaven.
Please reply below to let us know what you like about the current home page, what you'd change, what's missing, and any other feedback you have that would make the home page more fun and useful for you.
Hugs,
Vanessa
@cdh I don't usually visit the home page. I have tabs opened in the forums I usually visit, and just keep going back to these tabs. Even after a browser restart, the tabs are still available.
The only time I "visit" the home page is when I click on an email link like a friend request, a group update, or PM notification, and I had been logged out. It redirects me to the "You are not authorized to view this" page with a join and login button. After logging in, it sends me to the home page. Once I log in, I close the home page down, go back to the email, and reclick the link to go directly to the appropriate page.
@alison-anderson thanks for the feedback hon. I myself tend to keep lots of browser tabs around 🙂
Is there anything you think we could add on the home page that would make it more interesting for you to visit? Or are forums the main place you spend time?
@cdh The forums are where I spend most of my time. I'll jump from the right column to articles on occasion, or open up chat in a new tab.
Let me give an analogy. If I'm flying somewhere and I have the choice of a direct flight or a flight with one or two stopovers, I'm going to choose the direct flight. It's the same way with the forums. If I can go directly to the forum, I'll go there directly. If I have to go through the home page, then the forum page, then possibly the more forums page, before getting to the forum, it's more work and more time consuming than jumping straight to the forum(s) of main interest.
@cdh Hi Vanessa!
I actually DO visit the home page every time I log on to CDH, and I DO think it's important to consider its design.
It’s the first thing that new members see. It needs to be welcoming, well laid out and above all easy to navigate.
I like many aspects of the home page’s current friendly feel. It’s so different from sites such as crossdressers.com which are crowded, soulless and an assault on the eyes. CDH’s combination of welcome, support, friendliness and community is a definite USP. I wouldn’t want to lose that. So, I’m relieved that flashing and popups aren’t being considered!
Experienced users may well gravitate to using tabs, but not everyone is an experienced user! I think it’s incredibly useful to have a home hub that you can return to. It makes the whole thing much friendlier and more accessible.
Much of what’s currently in place works well. I agree with Melodee though that the layout is a little patchy. She used the word ‘random’ and I can see what she means. She and I know our way around it now … but think what it looks like to someone who’s visiting the page for the first time. It’s not entirely clear where to go or what to do.
Melodee’s idea of increased visual structure is a great one. Some of that could be achieved by having a pale-coloured background for the right hand column; nothing too ‘in your face’, but enough to distinguish it visually from the rest of the home page. There’s no need for a ‘drawn’ dividing line between the two columns, but the actual colour is important. It might be a bit stereotypical, but how about a pale pink? As a teacher, I’m told to use that for the background to powerpoint slides to reduce visual stress and increase readability. It's also a 'warm' colour, which gives a sense of welcome and security (I find the cold blue of TGH has the opposite effect for me). The right hand ‘column’ (the bulk of the page) could then be left off-white.
Having any more than two columns would, I think, harm the overall design.
In terms of actual content rather than page design:
- Left hand column (main, off white): I’d retain your welcome message because it’s a lovely touch. Below that you could perhaps have hyperlinks (to ‘Latest Articles’, ’Latest in the Crossdresser Heaven Forums’, ‘Featured Photos’ and ‘Crossdresser Heaven Store’) so that people can click on these rather than having to scroll way down the page to find them.
- Right hand column (narrow, pale pink?): content could stay pretty much as it is, IMO. The ‘So much to do’, ‘Share your opinion’, ‘Featured members’ and ‘Activity in my groups’ are perhaps the sections that need most prominence in terms of the needs of the membership. I’d make the links to ‘Chat’ and 'Find Friends’ more obvious. I like ‘Brina’s Corner’ since it gives a sense of constancy and a sort of ‘magazine’ feel which other sites lack. The two ‘Path to transition’ sections could perhaps be merged, while still including the important link to TGH. Maybe a link to the 'Code of Conduct' so people are more aware of the site guidelines? Currently the latter is rather buried!
Bottom line though: I constantly read comments from new members who say they’re joining CDH because they’ve heard such wonderful things about us. You're clearly getting it right already; you don’t need to change TOO much, just make what’s there a little more user-friendly. It’s important to retain identity, and not try to emulate other (far less good!) sites.
Sorry that was a bit long 🙂
Hugs
Ellie x
@ellyd22 Thank you dear for your thoughtful and kind comments!
We'll definitely keep these in mind as we look to improve the home page.
@cdh You're very welcome. I genuinely think that this is already a wonderful place. It's lovely to think that it's going to get even better.
Ellie x
@cdh Hello Vanessa
First of all thank you for your post the first thing I would definitely change is the colour blue is a cold male colour, for me it would be a warm pink/cerise colour much more feminine.
Perhaps we could also consider a number head shot photo's at random of members, and perhaps a large emoji picture of a crossdresser the upshot is to make it more colourful for all.
What also would be different for internal content if anyone could do it would be a story telling page or a page done in comic strip style, and for those of us who are very girly perhaps something in the way of fashion show or modelling outfits.
Thank you for allowing this opportunity to us.
Sarah xx
I guess I would say that the big thing for me is that it's a bit...random. If you're unfamiliar with it, the eye tends to wander all over the page trying to find some guidance to what's where. There are sort of two 'columns' of items - a wider one on the left, and a narrower one on the right. Both appear to have articles and links to other sections, so it's difficult to discern how or why the page is laid out in this way. Also, given that the background is entirely white, even the two 'columns' are difficult to tell apart.
I suppose, more visual structure is my suggestion. Something that directs the eye to "Articles - this way! Forums - that way!" etc. I can see artistically not liking to literally draw lines between things, but...well, humans like their lines lol. For me, I like the feel of the BGG Dashboard page (fistbump to any fellow BGGers). There are sections for each type of thing - Forums, Videos, Lists, News, Listings, etc. They've made the dashboard modifiable per user, which is tres cool, but that may be pie in the sky at this point.
Anyway, just my 2¢ 🙂
I agree. Especially for people that use their phone because they don't want the history on their desktop PC. The pancake stack, as I call it, menu can often be overlooked and leave people wondering how to get around.
The homepage do not need any improvements, its working nicely.
Its quiet and works nice and smooth as it is. Please don't fill it with all kind of flashing and pop up stuff
What is the purpose of altering something that's working well.
@clarissa2 Thanks for the feedback and kind words hon.
Don't worry, no flashing or popup stuff is even being considered!
Hi Vanessa,its Michelle.I like the home page just the way it is.I am not great with computers but I find the homepage very easy to navigate,even for me .Merry Christmas Vanessa and Thank you for an awesome site.
I would like to see the very top line stay put. The line that has "Author v <name> v <tiny pic> <bell>"
I find it a bit odd that the next line stays at the top of the page and that one doesn't. It can be a long scroll to the top to log out.
@michaela2001 thanks for the feedback hon.
Also so you know you can logout from the bottom of the page as well
@cdh I'm like Ellie, I never knew the home page had that much below the articles. I also never scrolled to the bottom of a page in any of the forums, so I didn't know to find it there either. For me, the logout at the top is kinda normal in a lot of other, unrelated, forums that I visit.
I didn't even realise that the home page went down that far! I tend to stop at the 'Other recent articles' section 🙂
