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MFL: Help me see the light (1 Viewer)
- Thread starter Clifford
- Start date
Phantom Knight
Footballguy
shadyridr
Footballguy
MoveToSkypager
Footballguy
Raiderfan32904
Footballguy
Good posting
lord_helmet
Footballguy
Why can't you view it? You have realized by now that you can mess around with the modules and arrange your page as you like right? There's a module called head to head match ups, it also includes previews.
I usually set it up with 3 columns, arrange the modules as I like and I'm good to go. It's not hard to do.
shadyridr
Footballguy
lord_helmet
Footballguy
Bonus tip: tweak the width of the columns
Clifford
Footballguy
Kinda my point. Waiver information isn't on the actual waiver, it's on the league calendar. Why is the time the waiver is going to be processed not right next to the waiver claim?
Your matchup is listed but it isn't clickable. To see your matchup, you have to go to live scoring, even though games aren't on and one would naturally look at the matchup and not live scoring when games aren't on.
Everything on this site is klugy, ugly, and non-intuitive. I was kinda jazzed to try and clean up this mess, but people are right: CSS can't fix this. The whole sites infrastructure is just plain wrong.
bagger
Footballguy
the calendar is a new invention to civilization so i understand why you are having issues.
shadyridr
Footballguy
You can click on your matchup from the Reports screen and it even gives you projected pts and a fun article. Not really sure I see your issue.
ConnSKINS26
Footballguy
Clifford
Footballguy
Why is the iPhone the iPhone? Intuitive design. MFL is the antithesis of intuitive design. On top of that the design is technically dated (10 years behind in web dev standards, they are still using tables to format) and insanely ugly.
What you guys are telling me is stuff you have figured out because you have obviously been using the site for long time and have figured things out. What you guys don't get is that the center of my complaint is that the site is not immediately intuitive, usable, pleasing to the eye, and naturally functional. It is none of those things. You saying "duh, it's right here" misses the point. I am not saying these things don't exist. I'm saying the way that MFL has put together content, and the flow and user experience of the site is bad.
Are you against good design principles, or are you saying that MFL illustrates good design principles?
Let's use the matchups example since I already used the waiver example. (BTW, it does not appear that I can move columns above or below each other. I can grab and drag, but all modules return to their original location after I do. All I am able to do is minimize each module)
When I look for matchups I want to see who I am playing and what the lineups are for each team and projections, so let's go through the experience on Yahoo and MFL for this function.
Yahoo: I log into my league. On the front page, above all other content, is a list of matchups. When I mouse over my matchup, it highlights showing me it is clickable, and that the clickable area is over the entire matchup. I click the matchup and see both teams, projected points for each team, as well as every player started and every projected point for each player. 1 click after logging in.
MFL: I log into my league. I see the matchups module and what team I am playing. But the matchups are not clickable. I search the navigation areas for matchups or a matchup link. I then see that week 1 is clickable. I click that and get a full-screen of the exact same list I was just looking at. Matchup still not clickable. I scroll down and discover team starters are listed below. No projections are given. Looking for these, I click back to go back to home screen because I saw a link for a preview article. I then click that and get the matchup info I wanted, which has both teams starters with projections. 3 clicks, and a lot of hunting.
I am not saying the content does not exist or that it can't be found. I'm saying MFL has done an extremely poor job of making their site unintuitive, and yahoo has done a much better job. 2013 web standards are that you should not have to look that hard to find what you are looking for on a web site. Back in 2001 or whenever this site was built, it was expected that you would have to hunt around and find something.
The world and web standards have moved on. MFL has not.
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Raiderfan32904
Footballguy
The problem with this millenia generation is that they want everything to be so intuitive. Practically has to explain itself. Need to spoon feed them everything. When learning to type on a keyboard, was the QWERTY method intuitive? Or did it take some rote learning and practice? Same thing for MFL. You need to play around with the site to understand where to go and how to use it to your advantage. Intuitive is nice, but it's no replacement for common sense. Just look around and you'll find what you want.
It took me forever to find it, too. I completely agree that all information relevant to waivers should be, you know, visible on the waivers page. There's no reason it can't be there *AND* on the calendar, too.
I've never heard anyone describe "intuitive" as if it were a bad thing. If you can get all of the functionality while cutting the learning curve in half, isn't that a clear positive? I value my time, and anything that prevents me from wasting it trying to figure things out by trial and error is a huge plus in my book.
lord_helmet
Footballguy
I think the idea is that after entering the league, you customize it to your liking. If you refuse to mess around a little with your home page, then I would agree that MFL doesn't make much sense for you.
More than 10 years ago I was in a dynasty league that used MFL. At the time, I was very unimpressed with the functionality of the site and just hated the clunkiness of it. After the league disbanded in 2004 season, I never did a league on MFL until this year when i joined a new dynasty league.
I was totally expecting a huge upgrade and difference since the last time I used the site, but I was shocked that it's basically the same as it was 9 years ago. Over the years, everybody kept pimping the site so I figured that there was some major overhaul that occurred. I keep trying to convince myself to like it and have been playing around with the skins and columns, but its still pretty terrible.
I was considering looking to find an alternative to rtsports but the more i use MFL, the more I appreciate RTS.
I was totally expecting a huge upgrade and difference since the last time I used the site, but I was shocked that it's basically the same as it was 9 years ago. Over the years, everybody kept pimping the site so I figured that there was some major overhaul that occurred. I keep trying to convince myself to like it and have been playing around with the skins and columns, but its still pretty terrible.
I was considering looking to find an alternative to rtsports but the more i use MFL, the more I appreciate RTS.
lord_helmet
Footballguy
hmm....
Click customize, click Home Page tab, add remove modules, tweak columns, place everything anywhere you want.
Enjoy
Click customize, click Home Page tab, add remove modules, tweak columns, place everything anywhere you want.
Enjoy
Donsmith753
Footballguy
bagger
Footballguy
i know there are a lot of improvements that could be made but the over reaction here is a bit ridic.
rocketsauce
Footballguy
Here's my league homepage for the league I commish:
http://www32.myfantasyleague.com/2013/home/19386
I took one intro to web design course in college (10 years ago) and used to make website on geocities back in the day, otherwise, everything you see was taught and shared by the MFL Community Forums. I haven't made any huge design changes in the last 3 years, because our guys all like it as is right now. I made our graphics with my limited abilities in photoshop. Your league page can truly be anything you want it to be on MFL, and while the work can be tiresome to learn, it is only as much work as you want it to be. Or, as others have said, if you have the disposable cash, there are plenty of people out there that will make your dreams come to life on your site as well.
I will say, however, that if a commissioner moved one of my leagues to MFL and just had the bare bones design that it starts with, I would be extremely skeptical and disappointed as well. To me, the allure of MFL comes in this ability to have a one of a kind site designed to your league's needs.
I will say though, in the functionality department, that MFL's rules, scoring, and waivers customization is second to none. I've encountered many fantasy sites, both free and expensive as hell CBS, where the simplest little things can't be set up the way we like them (for instance, we run FAAB waivers followed by FCFS waivers -- you can't set it up that way on CBS. Which is absurd, for 170 bucks a month.)
http://www32.myfantasyleague.com/2013/home/19386
I took one intro to web design course in college (10 years ago) and used to make website on geocities back in the day, otherwise, everything you see was taught and shared by the MFL Community Forums. I haven't made any huge design changes in the last 3 years, because our guys all like it as is right now. I made our graphics with my limited abilities in photoshop. Your league page can truly be anything you want it to be on MFL, and while the work can be tiresome to learn, it is only as much work as you want it to be. Or, as others have said, if you have the disposable cash, there are plenty of people out there that will make your dreams come to life on your site as well.
I will say, however, that if a commissioner moved one of my leagues to MFL and just had the bare bones design that it starts with, I would be extremely skeptical and disappointed as well. To me, the allure of MFL comes in this ability to have a one of a kind site designed to your league's needs.
I will say though, in the functionality department, that MFL's rules, scoring, and waivers customization is second to none. I've encountered many fantasy sites, both free and expensive as hell CBS, where the simplest little things can't be set up the way we like them (for instance, we run FAAB waivers followed by FCFS waivers -- you can't set it up that way on CBS. Which is absurd, for 170 bucks a month.)
What overreaction? I'm not calling for MFL to issue me a full refund, or to disband, or to commit ritual suicide to hide their shame. I'm just saying that it took me forever to find out when waivers were going to run (I'd actually given up and then stumbled across it accidentally the next day). I'm also saying that there's no reason MFL can't have that information on the waiver page *AND* on the calendar. Both of these statements seem to be objective facts. Well, technically, "took me forever" is hyperbole, but it's a common enough figure of speech that I'd assume my meaning was clear.
ConnSKINS26
Footballguy
You can't just drag the modules around on the main home page. Go to For Owners>Franchise Setup>Home Page
Mister CIA
Footballguy
Clifford
Footballguy
Clifford
Footballguy
These guys are making tons of money. The suggestion that they put a little bit of money into some UX improvements is pretty far from overreaction or ridiculous.
Holy Schneikes
Footballguy
Clifford and others are spot on. You CAN make the site look a lot better, and navigate a LITTLE better using CSS and their module system. It has a lot of content and you can eventually find most of what you want, but after well over 10 years using the site/software (many years as a commish) it still often takes me a long time to find what I need (and I like to think I am a fairly good user/consumer of sites like this - I don't often have huge usability complaints on the hundreds of sites I visit regularly).
There are also many things that can't be improved with CSS. Simple functionality things like support for co-owners and a message built in message board system that doesn't look like it was built for the atari console. Did anyone notice that one of the early examples of a great looking site (and it was very nice looking) used an external MB service? That's not an accident. And a solid way to communicate with your league mates is kind of one of the core functionalities no?
Someone else REALLY nailed it when they said it looked exactly like it did 10 years ago. It's not a coincidence - it's the same base code.
I'm not saying a site needs to rebuild itself every year. But every decade? Yeah, you're due for an overhaul. Maybe they wouldn't need 469234 servers if they didn't do a full page refresh on a timed schedule for live scoring for example. That's REALLY basic stuff.
There are also many things that can't be improved with CSS. Simple functionality things like support for co-owners and a message built in message board system that doesn't look like it was built for the atari console. Did anyone notice that one of the early examples of a great looking site (and it was very nice looking) used an external MB service? That's not an accident. And a solid way to communicate with your league mates is kind of one of the core functionalities no?
Someone else REALLY nailed it when they said it looked exactly like it did 10 years ago. It's not a coincidence - it's the same base code.
I'm not saying a site needs to rebuild itself every year. But every decade? Yeah, you're due for an overhaul. Maybe they wouldn't need 469234 servers if they didn't do a full page refresh on a timed schedule for live scoring for example. That's REALLY basic stuff.
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Nucker101
Footballguy
There's no way I'm paying extra just for hosting my league on a better site. I've stuck to ESPN and have no complaints. Running a dynasty league at ESPN can be done, it just requires a bit more work by the commish. And for redrafts and keepers, it's much more simple and easy to use for me.
KCitons
Footballguy
Just to pile on a little more. Why did MFL make position changes on the day before the season started? We have DT, DE, LB requirements in our league. This last set of changes left some teams scrambling to submit legal lineups.
Roll the changes out on Monday's. This way leagues that have weekly waivers can plan accordingly.
Roll the changes out on Monday's. This way leagues that have weekly waivers can plan accordingly.
Donsmith753
Footballguy
Yeah this mainly came out of the fact this is a contract/cap league and MFL's messageboard isn't great.
I'm not saying MFL is perfect, far from it. It offers the best range of features and customisation at the most competitive price (especially compared to RTS or CBS).
GregR
Footballguy
Phinneas Q. Butterfat
Footballguy
I've used it for 6 or 7 years now, but I still hate it. Functionally, it's fine. Design and workflow wise, it's a nightmare.
CalBear
Footballguy
From a geek perspective, MFL reports its HTML as "XHTML 1.0 Transitional."
XHTML 1.0 was proposed in 1999, and became a W3C standard in 2000. It was superseded by XHTML 1.1 in 2001. AJAX, which runs most of the dynamic web sites on the net (Google Maps and most other things you interact with, use either AJAX or the bits of AJAX which have been subsumed into HTML5) has been widely implemented since 2005. If you have dynamic content (like, say, live scoring) and you're updating it with HTML refreshes, you're a minimum of 8 years behind the times; if you're still putting out XHTML 1.0 Transitional, it's more like 13 years.
That age translates into bad user experience, because your apps don't behave the way people expect apps to behave in 2013. People expect to be able to interact with their apps by clicking and dragging, for content to dynamically update, for data display to be customizable not in color or style but in substance--for example on the MFL matchup previews, can I see the date and time of the games and the opponent for each player? On the live scoring can I see what I'm getting points for? CBS manages to put more relevant information in a quarter of the space of MFL, and update it dynamically. I don't care what color it is, I care what info is there.
For that matter, FBG has the same problem with the Draft Dominator; it's built by fantasy geeks, with a ton of relatively esoteric functionality that fantasy geeks love (including me). But it's clearly a 10-year-old application and it looks and feels that way. Want to change the multipliers for auction values? Edit C:\FBG\auctions.csv. Are you kidding me? C:\FBG? What century are we programming for? But if you get the iPad app, which FBG purchased, you get a pretty nice interface with very stripped-down functionality. Integrating geek functionality into a user-friendly app requires skills which small-scale developers don't tend to have, and it's expensive.
XHTML 1.0 was proposed in 1999, and became a W3C standard in 2000. It was superseded by XHTML 1.1 in 2001. AJAX, which runs most of the dynamic web sites on the net (Google Maps and most other things you interact with, use either AJAX or the bits of AJAX which have been subsumed into HTML5) has been widely implemented since 2005. If you have dynamic content (like, say, live scoring) and you're updating it with HTML refreshes, you're a minimum of 8 years behind the times; if you're still putting out XHTML 1.0 Transitional, it's more like 13 years.
That age translates into bad user experience, because your apps don't behave the way people expect apps to behave in 2013. People expect to be able to interact with their apps by clicking and dragging, for content to dynamically update, for data display to be customizable not in color or style but in substance--for example on the MFL matchup previews, can I see the date and time of the games and the opponent for each player? On the live scoring can I see what I'm getting points for? CBS manages to put more relevant information in a quarter of the space of MFL, and update it dynamically. I don't care what color it is, I care what info is there.
For that matter, FBG has the same problem with the Draft Dominator; it's built by fantasy geeks, with a ton of relatively esoteric functionality that fantasy geeks love (including me). But it's clearly a 10-year-old application and it looks and feels that way. Want to change the multipliers for auction values? Edit C:\FBG\auctions.csv. Are you kidding me? C:\FBG? What century are we programming for? But if you get the iPad app, which FBG purchased, you get a pretty nice interface with very stripped-down functionality. Integrating geek functionality into a user-friendly app requires skills which small-scale developers don't tend to have, and it's expensive.
belljr
Footballguy
the commish can allow owners to customize their own view if they turn that setting onalso i click week 1 preview on my home page and get everything.
sounds like your commish didnt set up the home page..
but its nice i have my own layout compared to the base view
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We moved from CBS over to MFL. Last year I started a thread here complaining about CBS - and so many users here in the shark pool pointed at MFL. This year our league voted and agreed it was time to move.
There for sure has been a learning curve on the MFL site. Things don't seem to be as well organized and some views just don't seem possible.
But we are in with both feet - here is our site. www.dynastychamps.com
It is really coming along - thanks to the guys at MFL Addons and a little bit of my own skills learning how to customize all the tabs. Things are finally getting there.
There for sure has been a learning curve on the MFL site. Things don't seem to be as well organized and some views just don't seem possible.
But we are in with both feet - here is our site. www.dynastychamps.com
It is really coming along - thanks to the guys at MFL Addons and a little bit of my own skills learning how to customize all the tabs. Things are finally getting there.
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
MFL is great if you are a hardcore league that wants to spend a lot of time/money customizing things. Because if you don't spend that time/money, it's the worst site out there. If you leave the base configuration, it looks like something hosted on GeoCities.
Like Adam, I like Fleaflicker. It's free, pretty customizable, looks nice and is easy to navigate and use. The only thing I don't like are the huge ads they've added with the prominent suggestion to pay to remove the ads. Although Firefox and an ad-blocking add on can take care of that.
Like Adam, I like Fleaflicker. It's free, pretty customizable, looks nice and is easy to navigate and use. The only thing I don't like are the huge ads they've added with the prominent suggestion to pay to remove the ads. Although Firefox and an ad-blocking add on can take care of that.
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Return of the Sheep
Footballguy
Yeah, I agree. MFL pretty much sucks, but it has some hardcore loyalty out there. As soon as yahoo comes out with dynasty settings, MFL will be out of business within 2 yrs...
Lydia
Footballguy
Yahoo is fine for a league that you don't know anybody and you just want something to maintain your rosters and standard scoring. It sucks for everything else.
MCguidance
Footballguy
Agreed with OP. Decent site as a commish but Christ, it's ugly. The average fantasy player doesn't care about much more than UI.
Yeah, when I was recommending Fleaflicker, I was about to mention that it was ad-free, but then I realized that was probably just because I have an ad-blocker on my browser.
Still, unless you specifically need one of the features that MFL has and Fleaflicker doesn't, I don't see why anyone would shell out the $70 for it.
odin09
Footballguy
I have been using My Fantasy League for years now and love it. It doesn't have the flashy look of other sites, but the customization is endless. Each team in our league has custom sound clips! The league history including what I added in from previous leagues goes back 15 years and is awesome. I really don't understand the appeal of CBS, I was in a league there last year that was horrible. It has gotten worse over the years. ESPN for a free service seems better than CBS in my opinion. I say, keep working with the My Fantasy League site until you get everything set up the way that you want. Once you do, it's great.
CalBear
Footballguy
As I've pointed out a number of times, it's not possible to customize the parts of MFL related to user interface. You can't make their live scoring or their lineup tools not suck.
KCitons
Footballguy
MFL needs to spend a little more effort on the Weather conditions for players. When you go to submit lineup, it looks like every player is either in a dome or has sunny conditions. I know some of my Bears players are looking at rain.
If the info isn't accurate, don't put it on the site.
If the info isn't accurate, don't put it on the site.
madd futher
Footballguy
I play (and commish) in multiple leagues on both MFL and Yahoo. Yahoo has improved greatly over the last few years, and IMO is the best free league of it's kind. It is a great site for those who play in leagues with fairly straightforward rules. Now if you play in leagues that require customization - dynasty leagues with separate drafts for rookie/ developmental players, MFL is far superior.
As a commish, Yahoo offers no personal customer support that I've been able to get specific answers from. MFL always responds with detailed personal answers within 24 hours The settings on Yahoo aare simple and very straight forward. The commish settings on MFL can be a virtual maze, especially when combining waiver options like blind bidding immediately followed by FCFS open waivers.
As a commish, Yahoo offers no personal customer support that I've been able to get specific answers from. MFL always responds with detailed personal answers within 24 hours The settings on Yahoo aare simple and very straight forward. The commish settings on MFL can be a virtual maze, especially when combining waiver options like blind bidding immediately followed by FCFS open waivers.
stugnut
Footballguy
David Dodds did an interview with MFL owner Mike hall in 2006 and 2008 and asked the forum users here to submit questions for Mike. My 2008 question was:
The question wasn't posed exactly as I had asked it (but was close) and Mike's answer was a slap in the face to those that really wanted an answer; he ignores the real question/criticism, which is that MFL has an atrocious UI, and blames the ugly sites on commishes customizing them to make them look ugly!
The reason our league moved to MFL in 2005 was because of the many different scoring options, options that other sites didn't have. But have you noticed how utterly stagnant MFL has been regarding scoring or rule changes? They add useless stuff like Facebook integration, but ignore the most commonly requested features in their feature request forum. Heck, back in that 2006 interview David asked him about two feature requests (importing from Draft Dominator into MFL and Ebay style +1 proxy bidding on blind waivers) and he said they would be added to the "wish list". Of course, they were never added because, well, nothing of substance has been added in the last 7 years.
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