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Today, a friend of mine who I consider to be an individual of exceptional intelligence (or perhaps he just possesses an exceptional amount of common sense) came to me to ask how one were to download a story in plaintext. I was not sure myself, however, I did know that there were download links on every story's information page. I'm sure that most of you are aware what the information page for a story looks like, but here's an example:
It's not a shameless plug, really.
Now, the download links are those hard drives with a down arrow on them. This seems intuitive to me; the down arrow implies downloading, and there's even an icon next to each chapter (though in this example, there is only a single chapter). However, there is a single button at the bottom, not attached to any chapter, that will allow you to download the entire story.
It's this one!
Not true, my friend claimed. He said that he was unable to locate this button, or indeed even guess at its function. He actually tended to download individual chapters whilst reading them, using the buttons provided at the top:
You know, these ones.
I argued with him a while that, in fact, this was his failing, not the site's. I refused to believe that it was possible that our design was faulty here. After all, if I could use it, why couldn't he? I decided to get the opinion of a few non-users; that is to say, people who do not regularly use the site. They were also unable to correctly locate this button. I eventually had to accept the reality: the design was flawed.
This is one of the older parts of our UI, and as such, I actually was not the one who designed it. I believe it actually works quite well as it is right now, but it definitely needs a small tweak. After some more discussion with my friend, I decided that two things could probably make this much more intuitive to understand for the average user.
The first is that we can move the small information bar with the rating and completeness level to the top. The second is to change the color of the story download icon, to make it stand out from the other icons. This method keeps the look and feel of the current UI, does not add any additional clutter, and should make the download button stand out much more.
Here is a mockup of this design.
Another idea might be to add a much more obvious download button to the page, perhaps where the Stats and Groups button currently sit. Unfortunately, I could not come up with a place where it would comfortably sit on the page without looking very silly, so I don't have a mockup for that. Another minor change would perhaps be to collapse the two download buttons inside of chapters to one, with the same download icon as on the story's information page.
This incident reminded me that, on a site like this, UI design is never easy. It's something that needs to constantly evolve to meet the needs of the users. Everything you see on the site was designed by a highly intelligent individual with quite a bit of design experience. That's usually knighty, though occasionally it's either me or py. Whenever we design something, we tend to believe that what we're designing is usable, compact, and otherwise intuitive. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work when put into practice, as demonstrated here.
The biggest problem is that oftentimes, we just aren't aware of these sort of problems. When we ARE made aware, it often isn't just a simple fix. It took me a good hour of arguing and discussion just to arrive at a simple mockup of a potential UI change, because I was unable to move beyond my own confirmation bias. The current Favorites system took a few hours of back and forth with another designer, and even then people didn't like certain aspects of the design.
I do believe that most of the site is extremely well designed. knighty has done an excellent job of making everything very easy to use, and the site runs smoothly for the most part. There are almost no "big problems" with the UI anymore. The most frequent changes are to small parts of the UI, like when we recently very slightly reduced the padding on certain bars on the site. Everything adds up to a streamlined, intuitive, and presentable UI that we hope you all love using. And it's almost entirely thanks to knighty.
Thanks, knighty.
Thnighty.
No, but you should definitely read Hundred Bits, though.
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Comments ( 125 )
I have to say that I understood the reason for the icon. Must be something only a computer person can recognize.
>>175298
But that's the problem: The people I asked I would consider to be "computer people." Of course, I also do not have any friends who AREN'T computer people, so unfortunately I am unable to test any designs on that sort of audience.
>>175301 Sounds like a difficult situation. Only, when you are ready to alter it, I hope you take this advice. People can be totally blind to anything, no matter how it is supposed to stick out. I work in a retail store with a GIANT department sign hanging over my head. Not a day goes by when someone doesn't ask where to find the department they currently stand in.
Clearly this site needs a pony version of Clippy.
>>175310
That's true as well. Like I said, design isn't easy at all. Sometimes you can make a giant sign that also screams at you and nobody will notice it; other times you can make a tiny sign and everybody will notice it.
Admittedly, I did not know what the button did when I first looked at it. So, I clicked it. I was surprised to see a chapter of Antipodes on my computer. Then, I looked at the symbol and it made perfect sense to me.
In regards to the new change suggested, I think you should keep the bar on the bottom, but still change the color. That makes the most sense to me. The bar on the top makes me feel uneasy.
>>175313
That's probably because the text isn't aligned, now that I look at it again.
>>175312 I usually don't trust giant 'Download this' signs. It's always something I don't want.
>>175315
Yeah, if you put it at the top, you'll need something to put in the place of the little fireball. But I think more than that is the fact that the bar has always been on the bottom and the change to the top just looks... unnatural.
I'm a "computer person" and I didn't even notice that those were buttons until I accidentally clicked on one once
That's also how I learned that you can mark chapters as read/unread by clicking on the flame/check mark...
Well, first, after looking at a couple stories, I could locate the icon in question with ease.
Secondly, it always made sense to me that that icon was for downloading the entire story, and that the others were for individual chapters. I mean, what else could it be used for?
Anywho, from my understanding, you're attempting to make said icon more obvious and easier to find? Sounds good to me. And if it's worth anything, I like that mock-up you posted. Obviously there are going to be people who don't pay attention and will miss it, but overall, far more people should notice the icon. As a bonus, it'll make it easier to see rating, word count, and complete/incomplete. Seems like a win-win to me.
>>175304
This is actually Poultron. Knighty is Sweetie Belle with glasses.
>>175310
Picture this; a large flashing sign.
Holy crap! So that's what it does! Yay
Wait, I'm using iPad .......... Crap.......
Yeah, I only ever became aware of the function at the story overview when I clicked it on accident, though I believe the "txt" and "html" buttons at the top of the reader when viewing a chapter are pretty self-explanatory.
Maybe I'm more perceptive than most (which is a shocker. I'm not being sarcastic) but I never had problems figuring out what those icons meant.
I don't download any stories though, mostly cause I'm fine reading them on site and I also don't really have anything for portable reading.
It was really obvious to me...
and I don't even download stories...
The problem with knowing how to download a full story is that it isn't immediately obvious at first glance that the extra button next to the story status and rating is for that purpose. Having to hover over the button itself to get a tooltip and formatting options is enough of a hurdle to prevent a lot of people from investigating and finding that it actually is different than the normal download chapter buttons which are identical. The mockup with it above the chapters is much better and consolidates the UI for stories with a lot of chapters too; but I think it would be ideal to have a button similar to the "Stats" one but in the normal spot that just plain states "Download Full Story" with the format being selected as usual. As a minor feature request it would also be nice to have "Download all Unread Chapters" somewhere as well in case users don't catch up on tracked stories in a while so they can just download one document compiling only the "unchecked/hot" chapters.
Additionally I would say that the same UI problem exists for the "Track updates" checkbox which is built into the "Favorite" star. Using a symbol like a red pushpin would be an easier way to differentiate between favoriting and wanting update notifications. Especially since the first tooltip that appears above the favorite star is informative and the second one (after it has been favorited) is actually interactive. After all, tracking stories that are marked "Complete" is silly and the push pin could be grayed out when that is the case.
Using a star to denote a favorite is fine because there is a pretty solid communal understanding of what that symbol means. Much like the thumbs up and thumbs down and download icons. But then again using a book and clock to denote "Read this story later" and placing it away from the rest of the buttons makes it an unremarkable feature and may require the user to hover the cursor for a tooltip to actually understand what it means. I can appreciate the strict methods taken to reduce UI clutter but sometimes people just need things spelled out for them.
I know it sounds picky but I love the site and can't resist the chance to give some feedback!
>>175311 We'll call him Pony! ... Wait a minute...
>>175311 Cloppy... wait that doesn't work...
Hey Poultron, do you think it would be possible to implement a "Back to Top" button that scrolls along with the screen, like the notifications button? I find myself trying to jump back to the top to get back to the table of contents for a story, but I end up scrolling all the way back up manually.
Just a minor inconvenience, but it was an idea I wanted to point out. Maybe put a small button in the bottom left corner or something, if possible.
>pretending to care about site design so you can promote your own stories
wow what a gay
corrupt mods much?
USER WAS BANNED FOR THIS POST
>>175324 Haha, I know. It's a continuation of Poultron's sentiment thanking Knighty at the end of the post.
Since there is always some whitespace under the cover image, why not add a "download this story" button to that whitespace? It's a wide enough space that it could be a text button rather than an icon.
>>175345
Good idea, actually. I'll ask knighty to add it.
I'm Sorry I Thought This Was Obvious
Does the icon at least have a tooltip? (Can't check, on 3DS)
I had no problem figuring out how to do that. To be fair, though, it took me a while to figure out where the Read Later button was.
>>175360
Yup. I think the problem is that the distinction between mere icon and clickable icon is sometimes not immediately clear.
I was aware of the download button despite never having used it but I can't say how much site usage it took for that to happen. I think most likely I discovered it due to the hover-expansion getting in the way of my clicking the read/unread icon next to it.
What bugs me about moving the summary bar to the top, is the word-count total, which I just feel odd about if it's not at the bottom as per first-grade math. If it felt more like a header, it'd probably be fine (and, you know, the ability to have multiple such sections/books with their own character tags would be cool too, just saying)
I only know that the "Download Everything" button is a "Download Everything" button because I moused over it one day (though it seems completely opvious in hindsight), and then I discovered that that was where Knighty had hidden the .epub download link. Everybody was telling me that you could download epubs but I couldn't figure out how. Heh. Yep, that's Smayds alright!
>>175345 I was going to say something like "press the home button on your keyboard?" but then I realised that I read a lot of stories here on my iPad, and it doesn't have a home button... But then I realised that you can tap the top of the screen and it'll scroll back to the top... But then I realised that a "Back to top" button would be a cool idea regardless... Ahem. Just so long as it'd be disable-able for people who don't want it?
>>175386
I wasn't aware the Home button did that. It's not really something that's easily found, I think. Probably easier for the user to see the "Back to Top" button and click that, instead.
>>175386
Why would you need something like that disabled..?
>>175389 Well, the bottom-right notifications box pops up and then fades away. A button that was perma-stuck on the bottom left corner of the screen would leave my jimmies relatively rustled. I think it's a great idea but personally I would have it off (because of KB's home button and usually navigating with a keyboard by habit).
>>175393
...I'm not sure where you've got the impression that we'd be sticking this button in the bottom left. I haven't even thought about where to put it yet. It might just be a bar at the bottom of the story that only appears when you hover, or something. I don't know. Don't knock a design you haven't even seen yet...
>>175395 Hey, I'm not knocking anything. I never do, I'm as mellow as hell. I said it was a good idea. I was referring to >>175345 's suggestion of "maybe put a small button in the bottom left corner or something, if possible" which I'm not so sure of.
Come to think, there's a lot of space on the grey bar that tracks down the story as you scroll...
I thought you didn't like shipping, Poultron?
I love the suggestion of a button or link at the bottom of the page that would scroll you back up to the top. I do a lot of fic reading on my tablet, and having a feature that would get me back up to the top of the page from the bottom of the comments would be nice.
Alternate idea, would it be possible to get the list of chapter links added to the bottom of the comments? Access to the Next Chapter link is usually the only reason I need to scroll back up.
>>175403
What?
>>175406
I'm joking, considering your story has a ship. :P
>>175404 "Alternate idea, would it be possible to get the list of chapter links added to the bottom of the comments?" What an epic idea, I'd love that. ANybody who's ever read a story here on a tablet knows that feeling - ten seconds of furious flicking to get back to the "Next Chapter" link...
The problem with that, of course, is that the current chapter is bracketed above and below with prev/next/chapter number links, and so are the comments. Very nice and consistent. An extra set of chapter links would mangle the design consistency. Ho hum.
(Based on the mock up) You could keep download buttons where they are but put them inside a box and at the top have a small text above the green one that simple says "Download." Then they'd have their own column without even moving and the ease of reading one word to know what those buttons do. Also, isn't there flavor text that says Download when you hover over that button? I knew what it did too but I've never used it.
Really? People aren't aware that's a download button? Despite the fact that if you hover over it, it pops up and says 'Download Chapter/Story'?
I'm not 100% on what use there is in downloading a story - once you've read it, you've read it, in my opinion - but even I know how to download something if I wanted to.
I am both surprised and disappointed. Though I also feel like this sort of thing shouldn't surprise me anymore.
If it was me, I would probably do this. Simple and easy to see right at the top of the page.
Anyways, just a thought.
I think it's just the icon is in a place that is difficult to notice.
Once noticed, a curious person can parse out the purpose. That's what happened to me.
>>175422
I frequently download stories so I can put them on my Kindle to read them later. You might also want to download the story so that you can read it when you are offline for some reason. I think these are the biggest use cases.
>>175301
Maybe you can also detect people who aren't aware of the download buttons and cause a pop-up to inform them? I was thinking behaviour that would indicate unfamiliarity with the icon download buttons, would be opening a chapter and then clicking one of the two buttons within a few seconds after the page loaded. If they do this for multiple chapters in a short time they would likely be unaware of the download story icon.
Eh. I can see the button juuuuuuuust fine. And it works.
Dont know what to say about anyone else, but I can see it.
>>175422
The first use is that you don't have to read it in a computer. Many days I have to get a two hours bus ride and I download stories to my Kindle to read on the way.
Also, some times there is a Story you really like, I download it and keep it on my reader, to read when I feel like. I forget most of a story after a few months so they always seem flesh. A good story is like some films, you can read them many times and still like them.
I have nothing constructive to add to this debate beyond continuing to be impressed with the quality of the site as a whole.
Mainly I just wanna thank Poultron for reminding me that 'Look Around You' is amazing and I need to rewatch it.
I always got it the way it is, but I think changing the colour of the full story download icon is a pretty good idea. I like it better on the bottom though, it just feels more "right" there.
I was always afraid to hit those download buttons, like it'd ruin the other guy's story somehow...
>>175428 I like that. A bit large since, I think, the idea is subtlety but something like that in that spot makes perfect sense. Good idea, sir!
Huh, I've honestly never used it, but I've always known that button was there and what it was for since I got here.
If something needs to be done though, then I guess something need to be done. *shrugs*
To give my feedback though, I must say I dislike the idea of moving the status/rating bar to the top of the chapters list. It just looks plain wrong and out of place there, in the same sort of way putting the sites' banner at the bottom of the page would look wrong.
I've only ever downloaded stories from the info page, kinda forgot there were download buttons on the chapter page. Changing the color of the download story icon could help. It would've helped me find the epub download faster.
Thanks, knighty.
Thnighty.
Did you just make a "Look Around You" reference, Poultron?
Nice.
EDIT: >>175444 Okay so I'm not the only one that recognized that. "Thanks ants. Thants."
>>175301
It only seems like a minor aesthetic change. Looks good too. Nothing against that change.
It'll be a little strange seeing it move, but it does seem a little more clear now... I didn't know you could download them all....
Hm... odd, I thought the little hard drive that displays txt and html was pretty easy to figure out... ah well...
>>175331 Dude, use the download e-pub link, which is admittedly only available for the whole story, not chapter by chapter, but that works perfectly on an IPad and goes right into iBooks. I do it all the time and it's become my preferred way of reading my fics these days.
Do people use the 'download this chapter' buttons much? If not, it might be more clear if you removed the download icons for individual chapters. They can still be downloaded from each individual page.
My UI suggestion is that choosing a story as a favorite should automatically give it a thumbs-up. Most readers do just one or the other. Plenty of stories have more "favorites" than thumbs-ups.
I really don't think the current design can be faulted. You guys used a more-or-less standard download icon (any download icon worth its salt will feature an arrow pointing down, and usually either a line or hard drive under it), and placed one next to each chapter - indicating visually and conceptually that clicking the icon will download that chapter - and one next to a summary line for the story as a whole - indicating visually and conceptually that clicking the icon will download the whole story.
Whether or not you put the summary line at the top or bottom of the chapter list is pretty immaterial, IMHO, though I would argue against moving it because doing so doesn't really bring anything new to the table (it's change for change's sake, which should always be viewed mistrustfully), and breaks the standard "math" paradigm of having each chapter's word count add up at the bottom. I do really like the idea of changing the arrow color as in your mockup, however. It's subtle, but will draw the eye to the button, and if someone's unfamiliar with it, that'll be enough for them to hover over/test it out and discover what it does.
The only possible improvement I can see to the overall design (and this may have already been suggested, I only skimmed the preceding comments) would be to make the existing buttons in the chapter viewer bar drop-down menus - when you hover over them (or tap on them for mobile devices), you're given the option of downloading either the current chapter or the whole story. Might also want to add an epub button there, to make it more obvious that such a thing is even possible.
The biggest problem with design is that the users with a thousand followers always get the featured box.
Must collect radishes. Informative post, thank you.
>>175428
I second the motion to put the download button in the title bar. It seems a natural place to look for it. The download icon next to the rating doesn't automatically say "download the complete story" to me, though it isn't bad.
I like the idea of moving that bar to the top (if the DL All button were to remain in that bar; see Liam Neighson's comment below). I can see why people would think it would look weird there as opposed to the bottom, but that's mostly because that's what they're used to seeing; it's not because it's better there (it isn't necessarily). This is like that confirmation bias that Poultron was talking about. That said, someone mentioned making it into more of a header if it were moved to the top, rather than continuing to be part of the list, which was also a good point; it would make it stand out a bit more as serving a different purpose, and might make the Total Word Count being at the top as opposed to the bottom as a sum a bit less awkward.
>>175339 I support these ideas.
>>175320 >>175378 Exactly. Now, if the Download buttons, read/unread markers, and Read Later buttons were each to be put inside a box with a soft gradient, with the read/unread markers and the Read Later buttons also visibly reacting to being hovered over (think of the obvious buttons for text formatting in the Add Comment box, or the Reply button in the upper right of this comment), that would be a step in the right direction; then they would actually look like they were meant to be clicked, which would invite more people to actually hover over the button long enough for the tooltip to pop up to see what the now-obviously-a-button does. It's seemingly small things like this, where things can be made just that much more obvious without being intrusively so, that can make a huge difference in UI usability.
Also: Is anyone else seeing a glitchy looking Save button when editing a comment right after they just posted/edited it?
>>175298 I know your feel...
>>175344 Yes it does...
i have aspergers, that means i have difficulty reading what others would consider plainly obvious (you might remember me as the person who couldn't find the advanced search bar). i still feel there is surly room for things on this site to be improved upon and made more plain to me. overall the site is usable and doesn't provide any real problems, but out of all the sites that i visit this one is defiantly the one that i fell needs the most improvement.
i don't want to be creating more work for you or tell you how to do your job when i wouldn't be able to do half the stuff you do but thats kind of how i feel.
personally I'd like a track button that didn't involve Favoriting the story because i mostly like my favourites to actually be full of my favourites as opposed to the stuff I'm vaguely interesting and want to follow until they earn a place in my golden book of immortality. also if such a function is already in place or has always been there then thats just further proves my previous statement that I'm no Sherlock. annoying ain't it
but if you don't want to dumb down the interface or even appeal to the lowest common denominator then you won't earn my distaste, i'll continue to comeback for the high quality content and the friendly faces. at the end of the day i love this site and visit everyday. just so you know
I never had a problem with the UI's functionality. But I really wish someone would fix that annoying epub issue.
>>175589 That might have worked before favorites were merged with the tracking feature. I tend to track things that I have even a passing interest in. Many times, when I finish a story I won't keep it in my favorite/track list unless I felt it was really good and worth reading again. I can't be the only one here who has tracked a story only for it to take an undesirable turn that results in a loss of interest in the fic. In such cases, forcing an upvote with every track is giving false feedback.
I only upvote stories that I feel did something very well. Mild amusement or a mere passing interest in a story are not grounds for me to upvote. Essentially, unless I would highly recommend a story I will not upvote it.
An upvote should be seen as a sign of approval that the story is good, not just that it manages to catch casual interest.
I happened to quickly find the download button once I started looking for it. But I'm kinda a computer nerd and also a software developer myself, so maybe I just know where to look.
Anyway, since I found it I have almost never read stories here on site. I just don't have time for that in front of a PC. But the feature I'm most grateful for (a huge thanks, Knighty!
) is the ability to download the story as epub format. And straight to my ebook reader to read ponies while I travel to and from work. 
"Thanks Knighty"
"Thnighty"
Sounds like a Tim and Eric reference to me
I always thought the the function of the button was obvious
Knew about it even before i created an account, but then again, i am definetly what one would call a "computer person"
so i suppose it might not be as obvious to someone who isn't?
nevertheless i think the design in the mockup would be an upgrade anyway, just feels better with it at the top rather than bottom...
Another senseless argument that could have been avoided if Poultron would occasionally listen to what people think instead of trying to tell them what to think. Color me surprised! On a more helpful note, I suggest a download button that would sit right next to the statistics button. That should prove sufficiently obvious without being annoying.
Hmm. I hadn't realised that yet. Still, doesn't matter to me anyway. I hate txt files. And why would I want to download as html? Word files for me please, which means I have to manually select all the text in every chapter, copy it and paste it in an empty word document. That is what I have been doing anyway.
While having the buttons like that isn't a huge issue, I honestly see absolutely no reason not to have a button that actually says "Download story." Impossible to misinterpret, harder to miss, and more visible without getting in the way.
>>175301
I found it pretty easily. And I'm not a "computer person." But I am curious and all that, so I guess I'm not representative of everyone either.
What I took away from this is that I should read Hundred Bits.
Personally I never had an issue with knowing what those little hard drives with blue arrows meant, felt pretty obvious.
Oh well.
Simply adding a "Download this Story" button wouldn't be hard, >>175428 <-- That guy has the right idea.
>>176087
Oh. I didn't realize 'favorite' also meant 'track story'. I wondered why there was no track story option...
>>176502 Yup, the favorite and track stories features were merged together a few months back into the current favorite system which automatically notifies you when your "faved" stories update with a new chapter. If we still had the two features split, I'd agree with your idea.
>>176509
Well, dammit, no wonder so many people have over 1000 "favorites". This is screwing up my favorite-based recommendation system.
>>176514 Yeah the merge has a few minor pitfalls, but overall streamlined things. As an author here, under the previous system, every fave always came with a track, but not every track came with a fave. Essentially, tracking was almost entirely redundant with faving. Combine that with the knowledge that most users were not making use of the systems properly, according to the mods, and the feature merge ended up being a mostly positive change for the site.
As for recommending stories, I'd suggest using your head and reading them rather than recommending based on some arbitrary statistic. Faves and likes all have some discrepencies, nevermind accounting for personal taste/bias.
Thnighty.
The former of the two mockups seems like the better one, and easier to implement as well. Honestly, that's all I can really say here, since I don't tend to download stories. I guess I'll be leav-
>The current Favorites system took a few hours of back and forth with another designer, and even then people didn't like certain aspects of the design.
poultron
why must you tease me like this
whyyyyyyy
Okay, I'm sorry. I know you're not teasing me, but . . .
God, you have no idea how much I want to shove the direction of the discussion towards the Favourites system right now. It . . . I . . .
Eugh, whatever. I'm not going to risk getting banned for bringing it up and being "rude" about it.
>>176535
Excuse me, I'm going to have to request that you not be excessively reasonable on my blogs.
I think, regardless of what you do about the download button, you should move the 'Incomplete- Everyone' bar to the top of the chapters, instead of below them. I think it looks better, and it could tell people who are unsure of the rating the actual rating quicker, and whether it's complete or not.
>>175428 This would probably be the best solution, through probably not as big.
If I could, my biggest complaint with the download button is that it unfolds over the mark-read symbol - if I accidentally slide my mouse over it while trying to hit that marker, I very often end up accidentally downloading a chapter instead of marking it un/read.
I thought it was completely obvious. One, what other purpose would an arrow pointing down to a drive serve, and two, where else would the download links be placed?
I thought it was fairly obvious...
>>177120>>177126 When you look at it, put yourself in the perspective of someone who doesn't exactly know computers that well, and that is where you get this flaw with the download button. Some people may see it as an icon, and not necessarily a button, so that could make it to where people pass right over it.
Me, I thought it was obvious as well, but I do have computer knowledge, where as some people may sit there and look at it like its a random status icon for no apparent reason.
That's how I see this whole thing.
>>176535
"As for recommending stories, I'd suggest using your head and reading them rather than recommending based on some arbitrary statistic."
I think you misunderstand me. The point is to make personalized recommendations. I am not going to read every story on the site, and then make guesses tailored to each individual as to what they in particular would like.
The download button is extremely obvious as to it's intended use ...
Not only is the icon essentially a Internet-universal picture, but the site even has them labeled; If you hover your pointer for a partial second over the icon it will promptly list "Download Story" or "Download Chapter" accordingly.
The only effective method to make it more obvious would be adding a huge "DOWNLOAD" button smack in the middle of the webpage like all those annoying file sharing sites.
I think it's already fairly obvious. I mean, when you mouse over the icons, it tells you exactly what they do.
Of course, I didn't immediately recognize that the button not attached to a chapter downloads a whole story, but as soon I took the time to mouse over it and read the message I said, "Oh. That's neat." 
If you really want to make it stand out more without being too bold, give the "story download" icon a circular, colored background. Perhaps one of the darker browns that is already used in the site's colors. Or green. Green tends to be associated with downloading in my experience. Both the shape and color would make that icon stand out from the rest without getting crazy. I'd make a few examples, but I'm not at a PC I can do that from atm. Maybe later.
>>177238 I'm thinking that you are misunderstanding me as well. I never suggested reading everything here, only reading what you plan to recommend. Simply telling someone "X people liked this story" tells the person nothing about it. As a case, I've run into plenty of stories here that are quite popular that I did not feel were very good (varying reasons in most cases). Offering a potential reader even a brief synopsis or critique of a story and why/why not to read it is more helpful than recommending something you've not even read. It is rather silly to recommend something you've not experienced.
As for my mention of personal bias, I was referring to such in the manner that it is a further discrepancy among the site's statistics (like/faves). I was not suggesting you make guesses about peoples' preferences.
*Insert obligatory unreasonableness to appease Poultron*
>>177460
A recommendation system makes personalized recommendations for anyone who uses the system. It is not at all the same as me making a list of things I recommend. You can get that from looking at my list of favorites.
This particular recommendation system looks at all the stories that anyone has favorited, and does latent factor analysis to produce the best simple model of underlying features of stories and preferences of users that that explains who likes what. Then it can use those factors to predict what any user who has listed favorites will like.
It doesn't work as well as having someone who knows you read all the stories on the site tell you what they think you'll like - but it works a hell of a lot better than the featured box. The main problems are not with using statistics; the main problems are that users do unexpected things, like listing 2000 stories as favorites; and also that there is no information about what stories people disliked, or merely read without liking or disliking.
I personally never had any problem discerning how to download a story, the icon was obvious to me, and even had it not been obvious, hovering over it immediately brings up the download options with helpful titles that explain it in txt. However, since apparently that's not how it's working for others (I'm just smart like Twilight
) I would go along with the suggestion of >>175428 in placing the icon in the title bar with text and the icon explaining its use. This would probably not need to be quite this large, but the general idea and placement is good. It will also train users what the individual ones next to each chapter do in case it's not intuitive to that specific user.
Was fine for me :3 Found the button on my second day at fimfiction.
I have a bit of a niggle while accessing the site from my phone. My preferred browser does not support whatever schmexy code you use to "pop out" the different download options. Where on a PC I would mouse over the icon, my phone can't open this area. Would you consider making the download icon a plain link or series of icons for different formats?
OR you could make a mobile version of the site.
>>177715>>175673>>175492 Yeah, the icon I made is a bit large, in theory the 'DOWNLOAD STORY' text should probably be the same point size and font as the rest of the text, which would automatically make it about 30% smaller or so, but still large enough to easily see.
Anyway, I just threw that together in about thirty seconds in photofiltre as an example, seemed easier than trying to explain it in text.
I am glad to see people responding positively to my suggestion, maybe Poultron, Knightly and the others will see that and implement something similar to my suggestion.
Edit - By the way, I like the way the completion/rating bar looks at the top of the chapter box rather than the bottom. Perhaps if the text was aligned it would look even better.
Instead of an Icon You guys should just add button that says 'Download this story'