Most of us have been following the discussion regarding the pros and cons with the new design. While there have been a lot of positive feedback since the first few screenshots, the community has also raised some fairly good questions about the impact of the new design. There are “a good few” nei-sayers that aren’t too happy about the change, but as normal when Hattrick pushes something new, this is always an obstacle that they face.

The biggest and best change for Hattrick will of course be the removal of frames which enables a lot more flexibility when it comes to implementing new elements on the site. This was also addressed in the first editorial from HT-Tjecken back in August. Tjecken initially highlighted the problem as: “One can say that this technique [frames] was as common back in 2000 as it is rare today. The big problem with frames is that it makes it hard to bookmark or link to a particular page. If you open the page in a new tab (or a new browser window), all the navigation in the menus as well as the ticker disappears. Moreover, frames also make it harder for search engines to find info.” 

A few people felt the last line was disturbing. However I’m not one of them; of course it’s not only about user friendliness, it’s also about SEO-optimizing the site and (if possible) increasing visibility and making it easier for users to locate pages through normal search engines (e.g. help pages). Having said this, I’m sure that Hattrick has focused extremely much on user friendliness and moving into a ‘new’ web era. Another comment that was written in the first screenshot of the new economy page was that the new design enables a raise in font size, which will have a huge impact on users browsing through mobile devices, especially since the removal of frames will adjust the design to fit not only bigger screens but also mobile devices. As I’m personally a big fan of browsing Hattrick on my mobile, I’ll have to say that I’m all in favour of the new design just for this reason. And from a business perspective it is certainly a good move as more users get on web-friendly devices. 

Let’s deep dive into the new design and take a closer look at the screenshots and comments that was originally released. I know that there are people using Stage, but not the critical mass just yet.

The Economy / Your Club’s Finances (Finances becomes Economy tab)

At first glance there doesn’t seem to be a lot of change here. One thing that people have commented on is the right side image that shows your sponsors mood, rather then showing their mood in text beneath the club’s funds. Tjecken also commented on all of this (icons and images) being more integrated as well as everything being part of one streamlined collection, rather than bits and pieces from different sources and people. The big thing is however the left side and top navigation. Hattrick will become much more easily navigated with a top navigation which will expand down the left side depending on your choice of tab. What we’re seeing here is “My Club” and one can only assume that the forum would expand over the full page if this is chosen. Big and great change indeed. What I really miss though is a function that is a part of FoxTrick, to be able to see results over a two weeks period. This is really good as one doesn’t have to calculate and compare the results over “this week” and “last week” - since these two are crucial measures because of home or away fixture. 

Staff (Becomes its own tab under My Club)

Kudos to Hattrick for more than looking at FoxTrick on this one. They saw something they thought would be beneficial to the users - and implemented it. For those of you who haven’t used FoxTrick, this script would on this page show you the cost of each of your different specialists, as well as the total cost. Something which will quite obvious be implemented in the new release. Overall this page is very clean and I like the fact that “Latest event” will be moved from this page. Hopefully this will be given more visibility, maybe on the same page as the Press Announcements, Overview perhaps?

Player Overview (Non-Supporter)

Player Overview (Supporter)

Let’s look at the player overview both from a non-supporter and supporter perspective. This is obviously very interesting as it compares the two and shows what will be ’special features’ only available to supporters. First of all I have to say that I love the fact that Statistics has been given greater importance in the new design. One can only imagine what will happen when Alltid is fully integrated with Hattrick, but hopefully we’ll see way more statistics even on an individual player level - and both for non-supporters and supporters. In general there aren’t that much news a part from the new option to show the skills in bars (numbers) rather than the old descriptional text. As we’ve been shown this in the supporter version, I really hope this isn’t just enabled for supporters as it is more likely to be a good function and opportunity for newbies rather than people who have played the game for seasons. I also have to agree with DogNatural (Hattrick 24/7), that the caption of “Only available for supporters” in the non-supporters version for “Match History” and “Training Details” is more likely to cause upset non-supporters than more paying customers. It would be better explaining what benefits Supporters have in general in the Shop and Help rather than showing, but blocking certain function on the site. It’s like today on the site when you as a non-supporter are prompted with “This feature is only available to supporters” rather than just removing this from the non-supporter version. Having said this, I can still understand why they’d like to have this present from a business perspective.

The most important improvement for me here is the neat overview on individual pages. Most of what’s available under each section can be clearly seen as a user and you wouldn’t have to click around like a maniac just to see e.g. previous ratings. Functionality-wise on the player page I also really enjoy the possibility to jump easily between players, not having to press ‘back’ 11 times (or open up 11 different tabs) just to compare players and see your starting eleven. This of course depends on the way you pick your team and how you interact on the site - but for most of us - this certainly improves ease of use and overview. 

Overall I’m very enthusiastic about the simplicity and clean layout. As mentioned quite a few times in them text I also really enjoy the ease of use and functionality. I’m also thrilled about the future development as Tjecken commented that with the new design - improvements and new functions could be pushed and made available much faster - at least from a layout perspective. What this generally means for me is that a lot of the ‘boxes’ we see as users are widgets which can be coded to hold whatever information Hattrick or the community would like. Positive. 

Other external sources about the new design:

• The first Editorial about the new design
• Hattrick 24/7 about the new design