Dear CDPR Web Developers/Designers...

[aegiskleais]

Dear CDPR Web Developers/Designers...

2 things.

1. I visited: http://thewitcher.com and was visited by an age gate. If I may make a suggestion: Preferably, you can reduce the complexity of the request and aid in usability by merely asking the user's age with a single input box than the 3 separate inputs for individual components of their birth date. The reason why the latter was more difficult is also because the Day and Month fields are not marked, and in the US, the standard format for dates is mm-dd-yyyy. However, since no Day/Month was clearly marked, the verification failed, and I presumed then that you wanted dd-mm-yyyy (which is not common in the US).

2. Your sites, are bad-f*cking-*ss. I hope there's no loss in that translation from English to Polish. But it takes a truly professional site, in terms of both form and function, to impress me, and your sites constantly do that. I know many times that web professionals don't get the respect they deserve because many do not see them as active participants in the development of the game itself. But a website is an ever-present business front for the product, and when it presents itself professionally, stylistically and functionally in the way your team has done with these sites, it's hard to deny the value your bring to the franchise. So my kudos to your crew for the great job!

As for the rest of CDPR. I'm eager to hear about the pre-order for the Collector's Edition. This will be the first game I've ever purchased a CE for, and one of the core reasons why I'm choosing to do so is because of how well-respected you are in the PC community. I believe in putting my money where my mouth is, and with what I've seen you do in the past, I know you're more than capable to make good. Keep holding the bar high, and keep doing what you do. To say that CDPR is a highly-talented group of professionals is such and understatement. Thanks for all you do! Can't wait for February 2015!

 

[Kinley]

(which is not common in the US).

Your point being?

 

[KingHochmeister]

2 things.

1. I visited: http://thewitcher.com and was visited by an age gate. If I may make a suggestion: Preferably, you can reduce the complexity of the request and aid in usability by merely asking the user's age with a single input box than the 3 separate inputs for individual components of their birth date. The reason why the latter was more difficult is also because the Day and Month fields are not marked, and in the US, the standard format for dates is mm-dd-yyyy. However, since no Day/Month was clearly marked, the verification failed, and I presumed then that you wanted dd-mm-yyyy (which is not common in the US).

I am so sorry to hear that there are countries that exist in the world that are not the US

 

[aegiskleais]

Wow. You guys are very hostile; was hoping this wasn't going to be one of those kind of forums. Sorry to hear that you have some kind of inferiority complex which makes you feel like you need to be defensive or exude such an anti-community sentiment. The suggestion is merely one for clarification. To reduce the amount of errors and prevent miscommunications. As for whatever personal issues stem from the suggestion, I'm not sure I can help you with those, but best of luck.

 

[KingHochmeister]

Wow. You guys are very hostile; was hoping this wasn't going to be one of those kind of forums. Sorry to hear that you have some kind of inferiority complex which makes you feel like you need to be defensive or exude such an anti-community sentiment. The suggestion is merely one for clarification. To reduce the amount of errors and prevent miscommunications. As for whatever personal issues stem from the suggestion, I'm not sure I can help you with those, but best of luck.

Apologies for the "hostile" introduction, but whenver I hear that the dd/mm/yy timeline is wrong, I always get these "inferiority complexes".

And I always have to deal with American Timelines, the mm/dd/yy timeline, do you see people asking to change them?

But yeah, I was a bit rude there, apologies.


And btw, when the timeline is used by the majority of the planet, it is not inferior.

 

[Kinley]

Mate, I don't have an "inferiority complex", I simply asked what was your point? I run into the same problem on US sites, I don't go around demanding they change their layout to cater to me.

 

[Vigilance.492]

Glad to hear you're a fan & respect what CDPR are doing in the industry.

Whilst it probably wouldn't hurt for CDPR to just throw a DD-MM-YYYY into the boxes (And it's a valuable suggestion I'm sure), the vast majority of their fanbase comes from places who use dd-mm-yyyy & you did figure it out like 2 seconds later, so it's not like it wasted a huge amount of time. It's probably just not something they've really seen as important or necessary.

 

[Kinley]

It's probably just not something they've really seen as important or necessary.

Because it really isn't.

 

[Lieste]

The best way of storing dates is the ISO 8601 format:

2014-05-29 22:37Z is the current date/time, it will store correctly in date aware applications, but more importantly, it is also storable and sortable in simple text formats. This isn't true of other formats for dates, where the most significant value is hidden inside the string.

For applications where week & day are required, you can replace it with:

2014-W22-4 (4th day (Thursday), 22nd week).

 

[aegiskleais]

OK, I'm not trying to sound "Holier than thou". My comment is based moreso on ensuring the easiest use of the site, no matter where you're from. Yes, I live in the US, NO, I don't believe we're the best place in the world (we have MANY issues). My suggestion was merely in hopes of making the age gate process much more simple. I love site usability and interface design. And a 3-part age gate is, well, 3x more complicated than a single "Enter your age" field which is more universal since we don't have to worry about locale/internationalization date formats. Everyone wins.

Believe me, I'm not demanding anything. Who'd be in any position to do that. @Vigilance. Yes, it's a 2 second delay, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist, and I love squeezing every last millisecond out of an experience. It's more than obvious that CDPR's Web team are a HIGHLY talented group. Their sites look amazing and are very easy to "consume".
@Lieste. I agree, as far as storing dates goes. The HTML5 spec indicates this format as being the one preferable to use when machine-marking dates and times presented to the user. You seem very knowledgeable of this, as per your example.

 

[Kinley]

One might argue that one field for age entry might be too easy to surpass, thus defeating it's purpose.

edit:
But then again this is about an age verification on some site, I really don't see the point. Whatever, I'm out.

 

[aegiskleais]

An age gate puts the user on the honor system nonetheless, no? I could say "I was born January 1, 1900", and the age gate would do a date difference and then let me by, still defeating its purpose, right? So why not simplify the process? It wants to determine the age but having the user enter a multi-part date of birth. So we just skip the need to process the difference and ask for your age directly.

I don't expect anyone who isn't a web developer/design or a UX background to be interested in this. Chances are, you only will be aware of a UI issue when it is exceedingly difficult to use. A good UI naturally leads the user through calls to action and directs their eyes without the person even realizing it. As I had stated earlier, CDPR's sites are great; significantly better than others, IMO. I had just noted that the failure to classify the date parts lead to an issue which can be easily resolved through labels, or further optimized by other approaches.

 

[KingHochmeister]

An age gate puts the user on the honor system nonetheless, no? I could say "I was born January 1, 1900", and the age gate would do a date difference and then let me by, still defeating its purpose, right? So why not simplify the process? It wants to determine the age but having the user enter a multi-part date of birth. So we just skip the need to process the difference and ask for your age directly.

I don't expect anyone who isn't a web developer/design or a UX background to be interested in this. Chances are, you only will be aware of a UI issue when it is exceedingly difficult to use. A good UI naturally leads the user through calls to action and directs their eyes without the person even realizing it. As I had stated earlier, CDPR's sites are great; significantly better than others, IMO. I had just noted that the failure to classify the date parts lead to an issue which can be easily resolved through labels, or further optimized by other approaches.

I don't want to sound rude, but here is the thing, there is no need for all this attention for the age gate, because even if you put the wrong age you would still get in the website.

But .... If they replace the [1/1/yy] with [dd/mm/yy] it will be much better and much clearer, I agree, but still you sounded like one of those "holier than thou" people

 

[frynse]

hurr

 

[Pedrolago]

 

[aegiskleais]

I don't want to sound rude, but here is the thing, there is no need for all this attention for the age gate, because even if you put the wrong age you would still get in the website.

But .... If they replace the [1/1/yy] with [dd/mm/yy] it will be much better and much clearer, I agree, but still you sounded like one of those "holier than thou" people

Thing is, that's just your opinion. Sure, YOU feel there's no need for this attention on the age gate. But I do. So who's right and who's wrong? Well, since it's an opinion, neither of us are right or wrong. I have been in MANY forums, and, sad to say, it is common behavior that when someone states an opinion (for example, if I say "Vanilla is my favorite ice cream flavor", then anyone who doesn't share that opinion usually defaults to a defensive stance, where they (illogically) presume that 'Well, I like chocolate most, and if this guy doesn't like what I like, then he's judging me, and I'll be damned if I'm gonna let them judge me" They then attack the first person, even though it's nothing more than an opinion. I would love for a psyche major to give me the fine details on why this type of behavior is so common, but it's more than a coincidence that I've seen it for what feels like a hundred+ times online.

Or maybe it just has to do with when someone states a lot of information about a topic, like I did on UI. Or maybe people thought that I was bashing on CDPR, and they has some kind of subconscious desire to defend CDPR by becoming combative. I don't know, the human psyche is a pretty f*cked up thing no matter how you look at it.

 

[aegiskleais]

I have an overwhelming urge to seed my lawn, do a barrel roll, and throw feces at you all of a sudden. I am finally at peace. Thank you.

 

[ONLY_ONCE]

Hey, did you say ice cream?

 

[nukeheal]

Its for Admin to decide what to do, no one else, if the like the idea they will change it. No reason why you have to prove your point to anyone. This thing is more for legal reasons nothing else, its kinda annoying for sure and if you can make entering website quicker I dont see how is that a bad thing.

 

[ONLY_ONCE]

Hey, did you know that ice cream is really bad for you?