Originally planned to be part of the 1.10 update, this home page revamp has been in the making for over a year now. Being such a crucial page I wanted to take my time in getting it right, incorporating many pieces of the feedback given in the recent home page survey. Additionally it’s another update where I couldn’t help myself and add a bunch of other improvements. So let’s dive right into what 1.11 is bringing to Backloggd.
Redesigned Home Page
The survey made it clear that people wanted more ways to stay connected with their friends and have better access to their collection. Both of these made large impacts into the new layout, with friends having a more prominent front page role and customization bringing a whole new feature.
First let’s go over each section on the new home page.
We’ll get back to the very top section but for now let’s focus on “Popular with friends”. This new area will now show you the top games within your social circle on Backloggd. Highlighting the latest your friends are playing. Below that is “Latest from friends” which is the familiar “Friends’ Activities” section expanded to show more activities and include more types of logging. For instance writing a new review will now show up here, they’re no longer tied to only when you finish a game.
The goal of having these sections first is to keep you the most up-to-date with what the people you follow are up to.
Next we can see the “Recently trending” section (formerly “Popular this month”) back in action, tweaks have been made to only show released games and to keep the rotation more current.
Afterwards we get to the “Latest news” section, the one and only news section to keep you posted with the freshest from Backloggd. One of the easiest improvements was to remove the “Past News” section to free up valuable screen space.
Then there’s another debut section being “Friend reviews”, taking the latest reviews from friends so you aren’t missing out. These have very little filters on them so that you’re seeing everything from users you’re following.
The oh-so-popular “Recent Reviews” has been replaced with “Popular reviews” to better showcase reviews that has interested the community. I believe this will be an improvement as it reduces the random element you could get with picking out just any recent review.
Then another highly requested feature makes its debut on the home page, lists! Similar to reviews you’ll be able to browse both from friends and recently popular lists alike. List discovery is overdue but hopefully this makes a good first introduction.
Lastly we have three columns of various games, one familar and two new. First is “Coming soon” with an improved filter to leave out game versions. This should leave room for more variety.
Next we now have “Recently anticipated” which is a new set of games displaying the community’s most recent wishlist additions.
The third, semi-experimental, category is “Sleeper hits”. This is supposed to highlight games in which don’t have as many plays as the most popular games but still have high average ratings. We’ll see what kind of games come out of this section and tweak it from there.
Additionally all of the UI has been reworked to better work on mobile and adapt when sections are empty to create a more cohesive experience.
That’s the new home page! It’s a pretty drastic shift from what Backloggd has had in the past, so I’m sure there’ll be some kinks and adjustments to get used to. Please fully utilize the in-site feedback form, Discord, and contact form to let me know what you think. While the home page is a huge focus, it’s not the only change 1.11 brings.
Home Page Widgets
Coming back to that first section I said we’d skip, this is where I took the feedback on users wanting more ways to personalize their collections and see them first on the home page. With that I introduce widgets!
These are interchangeable displays of information that you can personalize to make your home page how you want it. Want to focus on your yearly stats? Want to have an easy way to log your daily journal? Want to keep up-to-date on your wishlist? Widgets allow this freedom of choice with 14 different widget types at launch.
To start, simply select the gear icon underneath the section and choose which slot you’d like to edit. From there you’ll get this widget selector screen where you can scroll the different types. Some widgets have different functionalities so be sure to sample a bunch of them!
Widget Customization
To really make it yours, take it further with widget customization.
You can see from the selection screen that some widgets have a “Customizable” tag, these will have extra options for you to tweak once you choose a type. There will only be 3 widgets with customization at launch, but I expect this to expand in the future.
Widget customization is a Backer exclusive feature, so any widgets that rely on customization to function will be locked as premium.
All-in-all widgets will introduce a whole new way to make your first landing on the site how you like it. Please send suggestions for new widget types, I’m excited to see what’s possible over time.
Coming Soon — The Page
Coming soon is now expanded into its own page where you can browse games releasing in the next 7 days, 14 days, and everything beyond! Use filters to narrow down to the ones you’re looking forward to the most.
Profile Favorites Improvements
Refresh your favorites with updated UI such as dragging covers to reorder them, reordering where your crown goes, and being able to toggle it off entirely. The choice is yours.
More Played On Options
Ever since the new “Played on” field launched with the 1.10 update it was clear there were some options missing for devices that don’t have games releasing to them directly. The biggest one being the Steam Deck. You can now select Steam Deck and Mobile Console to help cover some missing cases.
Hiding Comment Clutter
Deleted / removed comments will no longer pollute a review’s comment section by default. They’ll be hidden unless you explicitly reveal them with a button at the top of the section. The comment counter has also been improved to not count removed comments.
Refreshed Landing Page
This updated first impression gives a taste of the updated home page with some feature callouts cards to help give new users an idea of what Backloggd is all about. You can also checkout some site wide stats to see how far we’ve really come.
Company Page Updates
Going to a company’s page has been updated to reflect the same experience you’d get when visting the general games page. Including the same filter and sort options you’d expect to see.
Game Page Friend Activity
Get a better idea of who’s played a game recently with this new section appearing at the bottom of a game page. This will highlight logs marked played and playing within the last 30 days.
More All-Time Stats
The Backer exclusive stats page gets two new additions for all the stat lovers out there.
You can now see your total time logged across every game in your collection.
Those who use the daily journal feature will now see which game has the longest streak when it comes to journaling consecutive play sessions.
And that’s not even everything, stay tuned for the complete changelog when 1.11 releases February 2nd. The new home page will start as a rollout to select users to minimize friction in case something is shipping in a less than ideal state. But expect full access within the next two weeks if all goes well. Everything else will be instantly available.
It’s been a long 19 months since the initial 1.10 update, every time I tell myself I won’t bulk up features I end up doing the opposite. So while I can’t promise 1.12 will be around the corner anytime soon, I will say there was supposed to be more here that I had to leave in the oven a little bit longer. I’m hoping to follow-up with those in smaller increments soon.
I still find so much enjoyment in creating content for the site, so I appreciate you all bearing with me at my sluggish pace. After the dust settles on this update, I plan to reimplement the logs page that was recently disabled for performance reasons. I’ll also spend some time improving performance in general as I know the site has been hitching almost daily now.
As always lots to do, but I look forward to it. Thank you to the patrons who keep Backloggd funded and my dream of doing this full-time motivated. Be sure to check it out if you’re ever interested in gaining some neat perks (like widget customization 😉):
With that, I return to my final slumber before I get ready to launch this bloated update. I can’t wait for you all to experience it very soon!
Twitter (X?): https://twitter.com/BackloggdApp
Threads: https://www.threads.net/@backloggd.official
Discord: discord.gg/Ac6XNNN
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/backloggd
See you on the site,
MrProg
