Website roadmap 2024

[dreadnaut]

There are many improvements that could be made to the website, but so little time. I'll make a list of things on my mind here, in no particular order. Looking for suggestions on what to prioritise, but also things I've missed and fresh ideas!

Responsive layout
The website does not get along with narrow screens. That's OK for pages full of tabular data, but it should be possible to at least navigate the important pages without zooming in to tap on tiny buttons.

This goes well with...

New navigation menu
The left hand menu has not changed in 10+ years and it's not friendly to newcomers and experienced users alike. There is space to start from scratch with a better navigation structure. Do we want pages that summarise a whole season? Collections of tracks?

Merge historical data
Replays from 2001-2003 are still in separate structures, and are not included in a number of stats and pages. I've been thinking about migrating all replay data into one table, but it's tricky and needs a lot of time. Maybe something for the season break though?

Merge news posts and articles
Reading guest news posts in the past years has been one of my joys. I'd like to give them more space, and make them easier to add and browse. But articles are great too! Should we merge them into a blog-like structure?

Improve personal profiles
More stats! Tables with correct data! Looking for ideas and visualisations here.

Driving school refresh
See existing forum thread.

Newbie friendly home page
The website is optimised for pipsqueaks who know what's going on, but we could improve how we welcome new visitors, starting from the home page. First-visit panels could also add some context to data-intense pages. Any feedback from recent starts?

This is also related to...

User settings
Some customisation would be nice, and who knows, maybe timezone support?

Open source
There is much to be gained for ZakStunts and the community from opening up the source code, from interface components to tricky calculations. This might be a long process, as we need to clean up security bits first.


And you, what would you like to see?

[Cas]

I'd like to mention a non-urgent, but useful detail I've been thinking for quite a while. It has happened to me many times that, when the time comes to rate a track, I don't remember it as well in comparison with previous tracks because by day 15, I can no longer improve my lap time any more or just because I haven't been racing in the last few days. Instead of having a single chance to rate each track after the race has finished, I would like to propose for a pipsqueak to be first offered to rate a track after they post their first replay on it and being able to update their rating for as long as the race lasts. This way, we'll always have the option when we have it fresh. For the same reason, it'd be good to be able to see how we've rated the previous tracks of the current season in the track list.

Another thing. There's something I love about the ZakStunts site, which is its independence from external resources. I don't think you're planning to change that, but just in case, I wanted to state how much I appreciate it the way it is.

About pipsqueak profiles, one idea I've had for some time to implement in R4K and could be done here too is to be able to see in a pipsqueak's profile a list of the tracks they made for the tournament and link to those races. Maybe Duplode's ELO ratings could be shown here too

Merging articles and news posts sounds good. The main site "wall" could display something telling that there's a new article and you can expand or something.

[dreadnaut]

I would like to propose for a pipsqueak to be first offered to rate a track after they post their first replay on it and being able to update their rating for as long as the race lasts.

A bit concerned people might rate the track on first impression, and forget to update the rating once their opinion is more substantial. It's an interesting suggestion though, maybe we can make it work.

For the same reason, it'd be good to be able to see how we've rated the previous tracks of the current season in the track list.

Already there, on the track list

About pipsqueak profiles, [...] a list of the tracks they made for the tournament and link to those races.

Also exists, at the bottom of the profile page.

[Daniel3D]

About a responsive site. The forum has it. But I hate it.
You have to scroll for ages to get somewhere. I load in desktop mode so I have more information on screen.
 I prefer to zoom if I can't press a button. But mostly there is no issue.

[alanrotoi]

The message "Quiet days!!" Disappeared. I think it would be cool a text message saying when we are: "public days", "quiet days" etc.