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The LEGO Wall: New site for tracking Pick A Brick (PAB)
I created a website where users can update the contents of the Pick A Brick wall
for various lego stores. The site is
http://www.thelegowall.com/I used my iphone to inventory the wall at the lego store in Orlando, FL. If you
inventory your local store please send me some feedback on how the process works. I tried to make the GUI easy to use from a cell phone so that you can inventory a wall quickly.
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Comments
There are some aspects of your UI that I prefer or think has potential, though.
I agree...looks great! Hope it gets traction.
I'll look at it when I'm not on my phone.
(SMH at the first response.)
I will give it a testrun in the Copenhagen Store one of the following days!
1st, some parts aren't available, for example the 2x2 tile modified with central stud (jumper).
2nd, when updating, there's a small grid at the top of the page, but it would be very useful if that was populated with small icons of the bricks, so you can see what is where.
Regarding the grid at the top don't you think the icons would be so small you couldn't see what they were? It's a neat idea though, I'll try it on my test machine and see how it looks.
I would second the suggestion of having small icons on the grid when updating, perhaps making each cell square. The dimension selector is a great idea, but to make selection a little quicker perhaps use sliders.
Other than those things the process has so far been much quicker than BrickBuildr. I'll complete the wall when I get back.
All it needs is something to help you distinguish where you are on the wall (I don't really use the 'column 2 row 3' way of referencing it)
Interface
I do like the click, click interface you've come up with, and it's definitely better on touch devices than the drop down boxes and typing on brickbuildr. A few things about it though:
I agree with others that it's not obvious where you've got to on an empty grid.
It would be massively useful if there could be different orders for cells - starting at top left, or top right, and then always up, always down, or up then down. I tend to take a video of the wall, and then enter the details later. That video starts top left and then goes down one column and up the next.
If there are a lot of elements to choose from (i.e. you've selected red, 2x2) then the button "Save Part" is a long way down and needs a lot of scrolling.
General Improvements
Use the LEGO parts database, rather than BrickLink, like Brickset does. This will mean you get better consistent graphics. You don't need such a wide database because LEGO can only put production parts on the wall.
Display the contents of a wall sorted by colour or part (without duplicates)
Allow entry of notes associated with a bin ("I'm not sure if this is light grey or medium blue from my photo", "there are actually two elements in this bin", "Almost empty, unlikely to stay around for long", "Not available element: " etc.)
Allow link to photos/video of the wall.
Limit set of parts choices to those already on other walls, with a button to choose "not in list".
Store Metrics: Things like number of different elements, number of duplicate bins, number non 2x4 bricks, % elements at no more than n other stores (obviously you'll need more data to allow for this).
Link to Brickset for elements, for easy view of which sets elements are in.
Also, I don't know what your database format looks like, but you should store histories as well as latest version. This is enable a) a roll back if someone malicious messes things up and the potential for other stats (element at #stores though time) as your database grows.
Something you couldn't do would be to store who made the change (brickset id).
In general I encourage something new as I think brickbuildr is a bit stagnated (although I'll still update there too), but I think ultimately this most sensibly lives on Brickset (have I mentioned that before @huw :-)
Regarding the dimension selector, I did try sliders but you have to let the slider go from 1 to 36 and it is really hard to increment it by 1 on a small screen like an iPhone. If the range were smaller I think it would work :(
I originally did just a dropdown menu where the user picked the dimensions from a list but this didn't work well on my iPhone because it zooms into the page when you click on the dropdown. So then I had to keep zooming back out to see the parts. It was really annoying and is what led me to the current +/- buttons UI.
But I appreciate the heads up...I hadn't thought about that at all when picking a domain name :(
Oh and I wondered what on earth that disk was for until I realised you'd removed the 'save' button. Maybe have 'save' written on the disk label so it's obvious?
EDIT:: I tried adding a Pearl Gold 1x2 tile with grille to the Manchester UK wall, but it didn't add it. Odd.
Regarding the pearl gold tile, I just tried it and it let me add it. If you click the save button without first selecting a part it will give you an error. Maybe that is what happened since it only returns one part when you search for a pearl gold 1 x 2 tile?
I removed the tile from the Manchester store since I don't know what row/col it should go in.
In Opera, I select a piece then click the disk icon to save it, and it goes to the 'is this correct' page, showing the old piece, not the new one - it doesn't update it.
- Down one column and up the next. Let's assume most people would start at the top left corner.
- Row by row where you go from left to right, then right to left on the next row, then left to right, etc.
I put in a Save icon and moved it to the top. The most common parts are displayed first so this should be reduce the amount of scrolling. Where do I find the official lego parts database and graphics? You raise a good point though that I don't need to show all of the old stuff in the results since those will never be on the wall. How about a filter where you could say "Show me all the red parts" or "Show me all the 2x4 bricks"? I don't want to change the order that the parts are displayed on the wall but I could blank out the cells that don't have the part color/type you are filtering on. I think photos, notes, etc will have to come later.
Store metrics would be cool but yeah I'll need to wait until I have much more data. I'm keeping records of what changes in each row/col of each store so if someone does a bunch of wrong edits I can back them out. If that becomes a problem I'll have to force people to login to an account in order to edit the wall.
Thanks for all of the feedback
- Start at top left corner and work right for 4 pods, then move down a row, do 4 pods on that row, then move down another row etc.
- When I get to the bottom, I start at the top again in the next batch of 4 pods wide.
Basically the 'next pod' feature is useless for me, I just click each pod individually as I want to edit it - that's why having a visual reference on it was so important to me.
EDIT:: it's back now for some reason.
I was at the MK store today and if I'd known about this I would have updated fully. Have updated with some elements that were available for sure, but not necessarily in the correct bins.
One problem for the MK store is that they mix most bins with two or more element types (at least 6 types in one of the bins today!) so currently impossible to update the site fully - unless im missing something.
Also I have accidently put pink 1x2 tiles into stratfords store and cant seem to delete them. Sorry.
I have to say it's a much quicker interface, even on a PC. And great stuff in making the enhancements already.
To answer a couple of your questions above...
I go down the first column up the second etc.
Parts can be scraped from LEGOs sites - maybe check with @huw exactly how Brickset does it.
And I think multiple parts could best be done with notes - my experience of multiple bins suggest its usually done towards the end of a line and there's still one main element - but I've not been to the Milton Keynes store personally - so enter the main element and then put some notes in to point out there are other things there.
- I cleaned up the 'part search' interface some more to try to get back some screen real estate. Before, when using my laptop, I couldn't see the results without scrolling down but now I can see the first row without any scrolling.
- I'm now only showing parts used since 2010 in the search results. This cut down on the number of search results by a good bit.
- You should be able to find any part used by any set since 2010. If not let me know.
- I added a signup page to join an email list for the site (see the 'Learn More' link on the main page).
I'm still working on the code that lets you select which way to navigate through the wall when updating. I should be able to finish it later this week.
Someone inventoried the Lynnwood, WA store today and there has been a lot of activity on the walls for the stores in the UK!!
In that there is already a secondary colour selected, a part type and a size, would it make sense to have an element selected - I would suggest this should be the first item in the list, and that this should be adjusted to be the 2x4 brick if it's not already.
more than a third of cells have 2x4 bricks in generally (the bottom two rows have to have bricks at least that large in case smaller children get them), so this could save even more time.
The screen estate changes you've made work really well. On my PC I now hardly have to scroll. It would be slightly improved if your order of commonality reflected commonality on the PaB first (another area where more data will help).
The redirect from the old name should start working soon...I hope.
I sent an email to the old domain that the Stratford store is in the wrong location (the postcode works fine in Google Maps).
And you still have "TheLegoWall" at the top of the page.
I still find the location of the country and store drop downs to be the wrong way round (I'm sure someone else mentioned that), but I think it's already ready for wider publicity (whilst there are features that would be great it already does everything brickbuildr and more does witha superior interface).
The openness to make changes already is the icing on the cake.
If only it was actually integrated into BrickSet (@Huw), it would be perfect - did I mention that before :-)
Some numbers to share (because I like numbers)
- 20 stores have data so far
- 1200+ parts have been entered
- The site got 12k hits in the first week. I know that isn't a gigantic number but I'm excited about it :)
For the Stratford store do I have the address correct? If so do you know what the latitude and longitude is for the store? I got the latitude/longitude from a google maps API based on the address.