2015 matchcentre - live scores redesign

[m0nty]

It was about time I chucked it all in on FF and started again as far as design goes - I had been running much the same design for ten years, pretty much, just iterating as I went. The new design allows much more responsiveness on mobiles, as it's based on a 300 pixel wide box which is supposed to flow easily by itself.

That may not quite work with the new matchcentre though, as it requires a different approach. My strategy for the 4, 5 and 6 column options has been to specify the absolute position of each box and not let it flow by itself, which I now realise is also going to be necessary for the 3, 2 and 1 column views of that page to ensure you don't get big slabs of whitespace as was happening on mobiles in the Pies game. I was a bit stuffed up by two teams with 24 and 26 players tonight, as I hadn't planned for that! (There are some other display bugs for mobiles that I need to iron out as well.)

My initial thought for those pages was to try to show elements that aren't the stat tables higher up the page, but I concede now that that is the wrong idea, and the priority should be on user experience - which means featuring the stat tables side by side wherever possible. The 3-column view should be similar to the old matchscores and matchblog pages, while the 4-column view would be similar to the matchstats pages. Also, clearly the "small layout" version with the compressed stat tables side by side should be the default instead of the "large layout" with the expanded stat tables on top of each other.

Further feedback is welcome, of course. I will hopefully have something prettier by bouncedown tomorrow night.

[kilbluff1985]

i liked the team stats side by side as they are easier to see both at once

[GoLions]

Yeah I prefer them side by side as well. Also not a fan of all the random slabs of white space, particularly in the small layout. Just doesn't look too good. And did you scrap the time clock thingo that tells you how far into the quarter the game is? I liked having that, especially when I'm briefly looking at the scores tab if I'm busy with other stuff.

Happy for you to trial things out during the NAB though, and understand different squad sizes can make things difficult haha. If you have any other ideas already planned, and want to post some screenshots or something here, that'd be cool :)

[Special K]

Great that you thought it was time for a new design!!

I used it for the Hawks vs Pies game and on a 24” monitor I had a whole bunch of white blank spaces and I needed to scroll through a lot of the tiles also.

I would much rather the two teams stats boxes side by side as they are the most important info on the page. I’m not really fussed about the ‘legend’ and ‘icons’ tiles, so I don’t think they need to be as prominent on the page.

Do you even need to display the ‘legend’ and ‘icons’?? How about just having them at the top of the page as links, if you want to look at them you click the word and it takes you to another page or it pops up.

I like the font and colour I just think everything needs to be re-arranged so you can use up all the white spaces.

[m0nty]

I have updated the matchcentre. The 3 and 2 column views are now positioned so that there isn't any white space and you can see all 26 players on all views - albeit that is just for the large layout at this point. The 4 column view now approximates the old matchstats page, and all the 4+ views have the stat tables next to each other instead of on top.

I have also fixed the bug on mobiles - particularly iPhone - that caused the page to zoom out and display the wrong amount of columns. Hopefully the 1 column view will show up for mobiles in portrait mode, and flow correctly.

Next up is to work on the small layout view. I may not get it all done in time for tonight's game, but I have made a lot of (very slow) progress.

[kilbluff1985]

looks much better

[GoLions]

Yeah like this much better. One thing though, am I completely blind or is there no way to switch back to the small layout? I clicked large to see what it looked like (really good), but the button to switch back seems to have disappeared?

Also, a tiny bit of the live game blog section gets cut off on the right hand side.

[kilbluff1985]

Gametime: 7.10pm AET, Feb 27, Mandurah. Forecast: Windy, 28°C max.
Match Status: Q2 15:23. Links: Blog - Stats - AFL - H-Sun TV: Foxtel.

should be at the top i think

[Ziplock]

I like the TOG.

[LeFtBehinD]

Initial impressions... a bit overwhelming.

Visually it appears to be too much wasted screen space. Personally I hate little modular boxes where you have to scroll up and down inside just to see the content. Would be much better layout if everything flowed full height and you could scroll the whole browser window if needed.

The text in the chat area also doesn't wrap, continues out of the box and gets hidden.

[Scrads]

Hi Monty,

I'm loving the new layout! Looks great, love the TOG and DE stats, lost it at the Muppet symbol for clangers as well :P

Here are just a couple of suggestions which I think could add to the stats page as well:

- A 'highlight' option, so that you can highlight your players (make their stat-line a different colour) that way when you look at the page, you can quickly see where your players are.

- I don't know how viable it would be, and I did notice on mobile you had the options for small stats and big stats (can't seem to find that on desktop) but maybe if users could pick and choose exactly which stat lines they want to see in the table? So basically something like the one used in the AFL stats page here: http://www.afl.com.au/stats (to see what I mean, select the 'advanced stats' option and you will be able to manipulate the shown stats however you like)

I think that 2nd one would be particularly hard but hey, just some ideas :)

Keep up the great work, mate. We all appreciate it tons! :)

[meow meow]

Could you ditch the clearances stats? They're not a scoring stat in either DT or SC so they're pretty useless.

[Ziplock]

Could you ditch the clearances stats? They're not a scoring stat in either DT or SC so they're pretty useless.

really, SC doesn't use clearances? Surprising.

[meow meow]

Could you ditch the clearances stats? They're not a scoring stat in either DT or SC so they're pretty useless.

really, SC doesn't use clearances? Surprising.

Yeah I looked into it a lot more this preseason and there were some surprises. I thought inside/rebound 50's scored extra too but that's not the case either. The good clearance players score well because they're usually the ones getting the initial hardball get.

What's more surprising is that a loose ball get is called a contested possession. Watch the CP count in the match centre for proof. Contested possessions should be called disputed balls ie. when neither team is in possession. CD judge the race to the loose ball to be a contest. Loose ball gets score as much as hard ball gets (+3).

[valkorum]

Loving the new look m0nty.  Only issue is that your scroll boxes only have vertical scroll bars and the characters go over the horizontal width of the box.  So a word or 2 gets chopped off.

Example

Hill to Mayne, then Pavlich and finally Suban who attempts to finish off the move with a
snapped major, but his shot bounces to the left hand side. (Q2 22:49)

Bolded letters get chopped off
(tested at 1920 x 1080 resolution)