Related anime/manga - V1 of a new design

sothis

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Anime-Planet Founder
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The old"related anime" and "related manga" sections on info pages were not ideal.

JzSKPK0.jpg


  • There's no visual way to tell them apart - not a big deal for something like Death Note, but sometimes it's nice to be able to see images

  • There's no episode or chapter information (often useful to easily tell two apart)

  • You can't mark status from here

There's bigger issues going on here as well, specifically that for huge franchises like Gundam, it's not possible to easily tell which series are directly related and which are 'same universe'. Another common ask is that we separate things like DVD specials and recaps into somewhere less prominent.

Today we've launched the very first set of changes we're proposing to fix all of this, starting with a basic visual update to the section.

ma60cT6.jpg


  • There's now a small cover image in each row, as well as extra information (full year range, chapter/vols/episodes count)

  • The list widget is now in each row. It doesn't look great but it's a start.

Next steps

  • Tweak the design. We aren't happy, specifically, with where the "relation type" is. But we also don't know a better way to design it in so that it's easy to scan. If you have sketches or ideas for this please post them here. We also want to make the list widget look better.


If you have any additional feedback or ideas, let us know!
 
It's an alright change. I don't really mind it, the images bug me a bit since I'm so used to the regular list view, but other than that I'm fine with it. Neither the original or this bothered me, or really gained my interest (reason why it took so long to notice the change.) I just never cared for this particular feature.


  • Tweak the design. We aren't happy, specifically, with where the "relation type" is. But we also don't know a better way to design it in so that it's easy to scan. If you have sketches or ideas for this please post them here. We also want to make the list widget look better.
If you have any additional feedback or ideas, let us know!

Hm... I have some ideas that may help out.

First Potential Idea: Perhaps something like the way the Custom Lists are displayed on the main anime/manga pages. Shrink the selection so that the widget isn't taking up too much room, and have the title clickable so that it takes them to a page that lists the "Related Series", or so forth similar to that of the Custom Lists too. The relation type would be easier to place there.

Second Potential Idea: Maybe doing something like what MAL has done to their Recommendations on their Anime/Manga pages. https://myanimelist.net/anime/21/One_Piece

When you hover your mouse over the Recs, clickable arrows appear so that you can scroll through them, plus the view all at the end so that you can go to it's own personal page that lists both the series and the comments. It would certainly reduce the space, and make it more efficient to use. And on it's own personal page/tab (whatever) you have more room to design there (Speaking of which, why doesn't it have it's own tab on the anime/manga series. Recommendations, Reviews, Characters, Custom Lists, User Stats, Feed and Main/Home have their own, why not something titled "Related Series or Franchise"?).

Maybe even update the hover block that pops up when you place the mouse over the title to feature the relation to the series under the tags or beside the rating...

Or you could do something like what Hummingbird has for their related Franchise section: https://hummingbird.me/anime/hetalia-the-beautiful-world Though, they don't have the manga listed with the anime series.

Anidb doesn't have manga yet on their site, but their related anime thread is neat too: https://anidb.net/perl-bin/animedb.pl?show=anime&aid=9306 . Their site is more customizable with their widgets now, you can move it wherever, have it automatically collapsed or opened when you visit the page, or even remove it. Having something collapsible might be interesting for this site.

I especially love where their "relation type" tag is. It's above the series info but under the title. Perhaps you could do the same to the current relation tag. Shrink it, place it under the title but above the litte "tv, OVA, other" type and calendar, between or beside them. That could work.

Third Potential Idea: You could remove it from the Home/Main Anime/Manga pages and put it under it's own tab called "Franchise, Related Series, Related Franchise, etc", like what MAL has done with their Clubs, Pictures, and More Info: https://myanimelist.net/anime/21/One_Piece/moreinfo (You don't see any of these on the main page, but they have their own tab so you can view them whenever.). At one point in time, you could actually see listed clubs on the main pages but they removed it in recent years and put it under it's own tab. It actually made the page look better believe it or not.

Anyways, by moving them to their own page you have more freedom to design that particular page the way you desire it like with the Tags, Magazines, and Studios. Make it a grid view with pictures similar to the way you browse anime/manga and our lists now, or keep it the way it is just under it's own tab, return it to list view, etc.

Personally, I'm fine where the relation is but I wouldn't mind seeing it moved in a similar way AniDB has it.

Also, I'm very happy with just the two related series (Manga and Anime) that we have at the current. Less clutter for the page and easy browsing if I am ever interested. If you put it under it's own tab, and remove it from the main/home page, you could do the splitting easier and it wouldn't cause clutter for the main/home page of the anime/manga. But for the home page for the anime/manga just two is perfect in my opinion.

I don't think I helped any, but I do hope that these ideas help in some sort of way.
 
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And this also makes the page really long for long franchises. Try going through the rail gun series on a phone...the page becomes really long.
 
Make sure to check out the linked thread for how the new 'related' sections should look, as we discuss that there. Specifically I'm 99% sure that the "other universe" ones will only show around 4-5 and then have a "see more" that will expand to show the rest. Won't necessarily help on pages like Pokemon, but for things like Gundam and Macross it will be immensely shorter than it was in the old design, even.
 
I'm really happy with the addition of the status box here, sooo helpful!!!!

(Note: I often use the "list" or table view instead of the "pretty" or grid view so I can copy/paste the series title as a link to other people. The one big problem with the pretty pages!!! so I'm often getting rid of the updates to go back to old view. Pretty pages, you can't copy/paste a link to share it to someone else in conversation.)

It saddens me that I always have to get rid of pretty or updated looks to go back to the old way for functionality. So I'm super happy that for this "pretty-fying" visual update, I can still utilize copy/paste linking!!!!!
 
@Sianeka I don't understand - the titles always display below the images in the 'pretty' view, so you can always right click and copy the link to the series? Or am I missing something?
 
Right clicking allows me to "copy link address" but not copy the title itself, so, I'd have to type out the name of the series and then link it, as opposed to just copy/pasting the title link... Also, some of the Google docs I use for some reason won't allow me to use that kind of "copied" link, it has to be CtrlC/CtrlV and not just "copied" and I can't do CtrlC/V with the pretty view links.
 
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