Providing feedback

Early in December 2011 a complete rewrite of this website was launched. The ideas was that as little as possible would change on the surface, but we would have far better foundations to improve the site going forward.

Since then I've been putting a lot more time into the site and we've introduced the club email feature, fixed lots of little problems and have begun working on some new stuff for the future. We hope to continue that effort over 2012 to gradually make a really useful and polished platform for your club and the triathlon community in general.

But to do that best, we need your feedback.

What's missing? What's frustrating? What doesn't work or is hard? What ideas do you have? Big and small; we're interested.

I have already received some feedback over email. But for the majority who haven't heard of me until now and certainly don't know my email address alan.pritt@avatarspring.com is a good place to send feedback about the site.

Or better still, create a topic in this forum for each problem or idea. Doing so gives us a chance of making the discussions more transparent and gives anyone who is part of the club the chance to weight in.

Thank you for your help and have a great racing season!

Alan

Hi Alan
Site is a big improvement on what we had and thanks for all the work so far. Would definitely be good if when you click on a link to an external site then it opens in a new window rather than navigating away from PACTRAC!
Cheers Giles

Hi Giles,

Thanks.

Mike and I have discussed external links opening in a new window a few times (possibly because you brought it up with him).

This is actually a surprisingly controversial topic!

The concern about implementing this is that it stops people from being able to choose whether they want a new window/tab or not. At the moment I can click the middle scroll button on my mouse and it opens any link in a new browser tab. Or I can right click and choose that option from the menu that pops up. In Windows I believe you can press Ctrl and click to open in a new tab. On a Mac it is alt click. On an iPad hold down the link and press new window. So there are options.

But if we make opening up a tab the default behaviour for an external link, suddenly everyone is forced to have a new tab open whether they want one or not.

In some circumstances I think that makes sense. In others I know it can be annoying (more forgotten tabs to tidy up, or the back button seems to have broken. It also apparently causes confusion for people with visual impairments who use screen reader software).

This http://uxmovement.com/navigation/why-external-links-should-open-in-new-tabs/ is a recent article on the subject arguing that external links *should* be opened in a new window, but if you read the comments most people disagree with the article. But certainly not everyone.

So I'm not really sure what the best way to go with this is.

Hi
I have just been looking at the results page. Is it possible when you open your own individual page of results to have a column that is for the date of the race? I was finding it a bit annoying having to open each one of the mini series races to find out which year each result was from as once you've been doing a few they are all called mini series 1 etc. but I don't know which mini series 1 I'm looking at! Hope that makes sense!!!
Thanks for sorting out the site - as I think from the lack of entries on this section that we're all pretty pleased with it!
Roz

Hi Roz. Doesn't the second column give you the date? And the time actually, but I might get rid of that as it seems to be a bit irrelevant when looking back at old results. Oh, wait, do you mean on the main results page http://pactrac.co.uk/events/results/ rather than on http://pactrac.co.uk/members/1094/ ?

If you go onto the members ID to bring up the races then there is a column for the date but if you go onto the race page and then search for the competitor by name and see the list of races then there is no date column. http://pactrac.co.uk/events/results/?competitor=63&race=0.

I forgot all my races were on the Memeber ID bit as well so thanks for the refresher!! : )

Okay, I've added that column.

I've made a note to come back and look at the ordering of that table as well.

Cheers.

Hi Alan. I think that Mike and Giles have been trying to get some photo's of members in club kit on the website for some time now. This would assist us in taking orders for the next batch of kit. Also a Spreadsheet, in the form of an order-form, of what kit is available to order in what sizes and at what cost.

Hi Steve. This is what we have at the moment:

http://pactrac.co.uk/shop/

It needs a little visual tidying, but the main reason there is no link to it is that I wanted to make sure it has the right content in it. Mike has seen this, but not sure if anyone else has.

I don't really know how you handle the ordering process and whether there is a way we can make this easier for you, but this should show people what is available.

Feedback welcome.

Cheers

Hi

Ive just been looking at the results page, it would be handy to have a column where the race number from the night could go. I dont know all the competitors by name, but i could easily check their times from their race number!

Thanks Lynzi

We need to push to get everyone to upload a photo of their mug!

I've been giving the race number column some thought. I could add that column fairly easily, but it would give the person entering the results a bit of extra work. I'm wondering if there would be a way of getting that data on the site without causing that extra effort.

I don't know how race numbers are recorded and used currently though, so perhaps there is a way of incorporating them on the site that would actually make things easier overall. What I really need to do is learn how race data is currently recorded and used before it gets inputted onto the site. Hopefully there is a way of making the whole process easier.

I'm also trying to work out how you are able to check times against race numbers easier than you can against names. Is it by relating them to photos or do you just have an extraordinary memory for numbers?

Alan. Ever since joining PACTRAC I've never been able to take full advantage of the web site. This in turn is due to the main horizontal top bar "Home, Races, Training..Contact" never being visible (and thus me never knowing it was there). No wonder I could never find the forums;-) . It was only a chance conversation with Steve H that I became aware of the problem.
In case anyone else ever has the same issue , it's all down to Comparability View
(In Microsoft's words.. "Sometimes the website you’re visiting doesn't look right. ..... If Internet Explorer recognizes that the webpage isn't compatible, you'll see the Compatibility View button on the Address bar. Try clicking it. "
Sorted:-)

Hi Paul,

Looks like you must be using Internet Explorer version 8. I have versions 7 and 9 in my test suite so this went unnoticed. I'll add it and put in a proper fix.

Thanks for letting me know.

Hi Alan

When looking at forum topics is it possible to have the most recent comments at the top of the page so you don't have to scroll down through all the old posts?

Cheers

Rob

Rob. If you sign in each time then the Forum will take you straight to the new comments. It's only when re-visiting or if not signed in that you have to scroll down.

Yes, some of the topics do get a bit long don't they? I wonder if putting new comments at the top would confuse the flow of the conversation.

I could perhaps provide a link at the top of the topic for 'new posts' if logged in and one for 'last post' if logged out. Or perhaps I could collapse old posts like GMail does (this kind of thing http://cdn.appstorm.net/web.appstorm.net/files/2011/11/Offline-Gmail-Conversation-View.png).

What do you think?

I like the idea of 'new posts' - I've seen that on other forums and it works well. The collapsing looks good too. Maybe it's whatever is easier?

The 'new posts' link is certainly easier than the collapsing look, though I don't think either method would be too difficult so don't worry about that.

To make a link go straight to new posts all I have to do is add #new-posts (e.g. http://pactrac.co.uk/forums/topic/371/#new-posts) to the end of the URL, so I could make that the default every where I can. Currently, I think you only get to new posts if you click on the links that say something like '3 new posts'.

I implemented two of those ideas.

Now you skip to new post automatically when clicking on either the 'new posts' links or just the topic title.

There is also now a link at the top of each forum topic that either takes you to new posts or the last post.

Does that make things easier?

Hi Alan.

Sometimes, I can't put new news on the front page, because other important news then drops down. How can I bring older news back to the top of the front page, or change the order?

I suppose the best answer would be to give you the ability to make news posts sticky so that those you select stay at the top.

Hi Alan, I was just looking through the website at race results, which is great by the way. I realised I have a couple of race results under my maiden name, Laura Pinington. Is there anyway of grouping these together with my most recent results under my now married name so all my results are on 1 page? Hope this makes sense?! Cheers Laura Johnson

This is your other profile yes? http://pactrac.co.uk/profiles/72/

I can do that for you; I just need to think of the best way of doing so. I'm guessing you left the club and then rejoined so were given a completely new membership.

Yes that is my other profile. Left to have babies shortly after getting married!! Only returned 4 months ago. Cheers

Steve, now if you edit a news post there is a little checkbox to make that post sticky. Sticky posts will stay at the top of the list on the front page.

Laura, your race results are now all listed together.

Hi Alan, would it be possible to create a place for course records of our club races? Or at least dating back to where we have results on the website, i.e. 2006. Would also be good to include the records per discipline in each race.

Oh, that's a great idea. Yes, I will do that.

Would it be possible to order the race results by date on the individual profile page? I like to see my progression over time, but at the moment they are all jumbled up!

Also, race position after each leg of the race could be interesting.

oh, yep, they should have been in date order already. The ordering was broken. Fixed.

I'll have to think how best to present race position after each leg. Perhaps by giving a bit more data when a result is clicked on.

I've added the course record for overall time to the event pages. Individual race stages are still to do.

Hi Alan.

How do we link races together. The current course record for the Long Course comes up as 2013 and yet their was a faster time done in 2012 that isn't linked.

Also how about adding the Womens' course record's too. And the paratriathletes records?

There were two long courses created, so I've merged them together.

If you want records for different categories I can add that feature. Would require adding a bit more data when inputting results but age and gender is already on the system for members so would just mean adding for non-members.

I don't know how that works for paratriathlon. Just a yes/no categorisation?

Anyway let me know what categories you like to track and I'll add the feature.

Hi Alan, many thanks on the improvements. Is it possible to add a page of the top 5 or 10 overall times ever?

On a more selfish note is it possible to link my profile results with my drop down competitor results on the Results tab. Currently i have no results showing here but in my profile have a number of finishes.

Many thanks

Hi Richards,

I've fixed the issue with the results. They should show up under your name now.

So you are after a page showing the top 10 results of all time for each course? That sounds like a good idea.

Alan, thanks it flows through now.

Think it would be really interesting to see the top times, especially looking at those who have gone sub 49!

Hi Alan

Can we add age group info to race results?

Will add some interest to races and results if members know who their age group rivals are!

Thanks

Rob

Yes, I will add this. Sorry, being a bit slow with getting the other request done. It's on my todo list.

I've added a filter for viewing race results by the course, so you now have a course leaderboard.

It's a bit messed up for some of the courses, but seems to work quite well for the mini series. The last long course doesn't have any bike times for example so the course record there doesn't make much sense.

Anyway here is the leaderboard for the miniseries so you can see those sub-49ers http://pactrac.co.uk/events/results/?course=3

Hi Alan,

Please could you also link this result (24th) with my profile when you get a chance?

http://pactrac.co.uk/events/results/?race=330&course=0&competitor=0

Many thanks

Hi Richard. That's done.

Hi Alan,, just testing as requested. Cheers, Paul

Hi Alan,, testing again as discussed