I’m afraid of coming across as a tad presumptuous here, but it seems like you’re looking for suggestions, and I have one.
Right now the favourites page is just a list of names sorted alphabetically. Could the gender perhaps be marked next to each name? One way to do this would be to replace the bullet point for each item with a gender icon, but any type of visual clarification would be great. As my favourites list gets longer, I’m afraid it’ll become harder to skim.
Great site, BTW. I like in particular how easy it is to see a name’s popularity and its variations all on the one page.
[name]Hi[/name]! I absolutely love this website already. I’m really enjoying the hot lists, and the blog!!
This section is also very fun. I was wondering if there’s a way to highlights topics or posts that we haven’t already read? [name]Just[/name] so we know if there’s been anything new since we last visited.
Congratulations on a fantastic website!!
Thank you! We’re still working on the bulletin boards to make them more clear, and this is a great idea. I’m sending it to our designer and I really appreciate your kind comments on the site.
Some minor formatting tools for when we’re posting, was a thought I just had. Bold/italiacs, maybe? I appreciate the edit button. I try to spellcheck before I post but invariably there’s a few typos I didn’t catch until it posted. Not necessary, but would be nice.
Would it be possible to have the post we are responding to be above your below the page we write messages in? (Similar to Name That [name]Baby[/name]!'s web design) That way person answering them can quickly look back over a list of names, double check spellings etc. of the origional posters message? This is especially helpful when commenting on huge lists of names. Thanks.
One more: When we open a forum, we can see anything unread, would it be possible to put something on the outside/main talk pages? My memory’s gone goofy and I can never recall what the post count was before so I end up opening every forum up to see what’s new. Tedious and somewhat time consuming. [name]Just[/name] a thought!
Thanks for all these suggestions everyone – they’re great! I’m not sure whether everything is doable but they’re all really smart good ideas and I’m going to pass them along to the designer and engineer. I really appreciate the feedback!
I’ve got another suggestion related to the Favorites feature - would it be possible to build this feature out a bit more to include a way to filter them by tag or category? Gender would be a nice start - being able to sort by female and male names - but it would also be nice to be able to sort by origin. Sorting them alphabetically or in the order they were added to the list would be neat as well.
Oops, didn’t see that there was already a thread on favorites! It looks like other people would like a tagging feature as well - some way to categorize the names on your list, so you could sort by “names I want to consider” or “names that are cool but I’m not sure if I have the guts” or “names my mother will love”… or even just simple tags like “girly” or “offbeat.”
It would also be neat if users could comment on the name listings to add their own opinions about or experiences with a particular name. I don’t know if that’s a feature you can support with your current admin staff, but it would be an interesting feature to have.
When searching for names, would it be possible to select multiple items from the “Origins” category, instead of only one at a time? (using ctrl or something) For example, then I could look up Scandinavian, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic and Nordic names all at once.
Hmmmm, I don’t think so, but let me run it by our engineer. There is some crossover on those lists and I can understand how you’d want to see them all together. We’re working on our Favorites page and hope it will soon be easier for you to collect and sort all your personal choices.
I have an answer for you: Yes, our engineer can make it possible for you to select multiple qualities of whatever – to find French and Danish names that mean nature or God and are stylish, international or vintage, for instance – so look for it in the not-too-distant future!
Not necessary, but would be nice.