[1eyedjack]

I will simply say this, and you can LOL at your leisure: If I am asked to opine which for me is an improved playing experience between, on the one hand, some fancy display that some marketing gurus have determined ought in their view to enhance my playing experience and, on the other hand, my personal experience to the contrary, having had the luxury of being able to try both, then I will go with personal experience every time.

The main danger with that is forming a kneejerk antipathy for one alternative that a longer term trial may erode. That particular danger places diagram mode at the disadvantage, just as it puts the flash interface generally at a disadvantage over the more familiar (to some) Windows download interface.

Fortunately for both of us, BBO are sufficiently undecided in their own minds that in this regard they offer the user a choice, for which we can be grateful, this somewhat running contrary to their normal policy.

So by all means lobby for an improvement to display 'A'. As I prefer display 'B' it does not affect me. Nor am I in the least upset that my preference for display 'B' triggers your derision. Were I the sort to care I could take comfort that I am in good company and your scorn is spread thin.

[diana_eva]

There is some merit to an interface resembling real live bridge, in the sense that it develops the brain patterns and feel of live bridge. This matters to some. I remember when I switched from old version to web, i found it hard to focus because the screen looked different. Being taken out of the familiar look and into something new simply made me lose concentration for the first few times I played. Applying the same logic to live vs online, perhaps people would find it easier to focus and adjust online if the screen would have a more realistic look. No idea how many players care about this, TBH, nor do I see how this can be done without affecting functionality.

[barmar]

While the bridge diagrams are not much like playing at the table, if you do much bridge reading it will be very familiar to you. No bridge books or columns make use of card pictures, they all use diagrams similar to BBO's.

[benlessard]

Every 4 month I make a try to the browser version, I still prefer the windows version by a lot.

Having a user friendly site with a nice design (like poker/casino site) is expensive. So in the short-middle run I don't think its possible.

IMO they should work on making small server improvement rather than on design.
Players rooms so that players of the same level play together and please find an automated way to make TM. Basically they should focus on stuff that should have been there 5 years ago.

[onoway]

I've had to try to train people on how to manage tourneys and team matches on the web version, so I've had to become familiar with it, although it remains far far far from my choice. This for a number of reasons, most of which come down to that for those of us not computer people, and that includes a surprising number of us, the web version is vastly more complicated and non intuitive to negotiate than the web version. Of course people who are forced onto the web version mostly learn to cope, and certainly there are some things such as voice which are probably very useful, and not available on download. The sub system for tourneys is one which is a mixed blessing, but it can haul a tourney out of difficulties so that's one for the web version.

Also, to be fair, some people who have switched have told me they prefer the web version...but they all tend to be people who are much more comfortable whizzing about the net world than I am and I am more comfortable, it seems, than many BBO members, astonishing and a little scary as that is.

Reasons why you never hear complaints are that most of those of us who prefer the download are well aware that a) there was a very good reason to develop the web version b) it won't make any difference anyway and c) we are afraid that if we annoy people by complaining that will hurry the process of having the download version become unavailable entirely. For me personally, that would probably mean the end of being involved with BBO, although I am undoubtedly in the minority. Nevertheless, since this is being brought up...

When it comes down to it, the fact that I daily get appeals about how to get to the club tables is suggestive that it isn't very intuitive. (Maureen in BIL says she gets the same thing and she has people dedicated to explaining to newbies how to do what they want to do.) BBO now has a button on the screen to a huge long screen about HOW to use the web version, in itself perhaps an acknowledgement that it's complicated. The fact that a whole lot of people don't even know it's there, may indicate that it's cluttered.

At the end of the day, though, BBO is a wonderful resource and I am grateful for the hours of pleasure (and pain!) I've had here. The details of programming are entirely beyond me. In spite of my desperate clutching at the download..including paying the same for freely acknowledged inferior GIBs and hanging onto a 15 year old computer just so I don't lose the download version...I am in awe of people who can put a program such as either the download or the web version together. Perhaps it's a matter of not being able to do what you want to do and have it work as intuitively as the download version does, or perhaps it's a matter of things seemingly obvious and simple to those doing the programming which are anything but to those of us who don't have the same sort of mindset.