“My Next Story” improvements planned

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Hey, just to let you know what’s next on the roadmap - I’ve nearly finished this but needs a bit more time before launch. I’m improving “My Next Story”.

At the moment it works great for TV episodes or series or books that are in sequence, such as the VNAs or short stories in an anthology, and it works well for audio drama box sets.

Where it starts to trip up is if you finish a story which has no clear, logical next story. Then it just recommends the next chronological story, which you may have no interest in! Also, you may read a couple stories from an anthology (the highest rated ones, say) but not want to finish it. So your “next stories” list may start to get populated with loads of stuff you have no intention of finishing.

What I’m going to change is this:

  • It will only recommend stuff that clearly and logically follows on from what you’ve just completed. So Dark Eyes ~> Doom Coalition: yes! But random book ~> next chronological book: no!
  • I will add a way to indicate that you do not want to track stories from a particular series. If you just listened to the top 5 Main Range stories, you can turn off Main Range and it will no longer recommend them (until you listen to a new one).

This may lead to more times when there are no next stories to suggest to you. But that’s okay because after this I’ll be working on the Recommendation Engine which is similar but is going to recommend to you popular and highly rated stories based on ones you have rated previously.

Does this all sound ok? Any other suggestions for how to handle this, or any feature requests? :grin:

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This is definitely great, as mine is pretty cluttered by a bunch of EU stuff that I’m not super interested in. One small feature that would be nice (although not sure if it would be easily implemented or not) is when you rate something while on the homepage or next stories page if it would then give you the next story after it, so you could more quickly rate several stories in a row.

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Yeah I forgot to mention I am going to add a “refresh” button that reloads it in place.

I don’t want it to instantly happen automatically because sometimes I accidentally click the slightly wrong rating and want to adjust it.

:smile:

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I do this all the time too.

An upcoming feature that would be nice is that it would be nice to show more than one next story on the front page. Especially with this better up next feature.

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Sure, I was thinking of making it a bit smaller actually :sweat_smile: but maybe an option to expand it on the homepage so it shows more, without loading another page?

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With all the Clubs and my own listening/watching, I have multiple different projects that I alternate with. Maybe a smaller card for eatch object but the option to have more than one?

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I’d like an option to remove this widget entirely (or, at least, a toggle where you can hide it from public view). I think it sends mixed messages. While it’s supposed to be an automated system that gives recommendations based on the last stories you rated, the “My Next Story” verbiage makes it seem like the user consciously chose that story and is telling the world “Hey! The next thing I plan to watch is X serial!”

Considering I’m only interested in EU stories from the Sixth Doctor, I, from an aesthetic standpoint, don’t like how my profile automatically shows that “My Next Story” is an audio for another Doctor, which I have zero intention of ever listening to.

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Yep I totally understand. I’ll make it removable from profiles (it’s already removable from your homepage).

I plan on doing loads to improve profiles and that will be top of the list!

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Sounds good. The ability to skip stories is a feature I am missing, as my Next Story page is already getting filled with stories I’m not currently interested in completing. I also like the idea of a refresh button, as currently, whenever I want to add multiple rewatches to a story, I have to manually refresh the browser so that I can hit the “Log a rewatch” button again.

Also, a minor thing that always annoys me a bit: on the homepage, the button that takes you to the “My Next Story to Rewatch” page says “More of My Next Stories to Rewatch,” despite featuring stories you might reREAD or reLISTEN to instead. Maybe it could be changed to something else, like “More of My Next Stories to Re-experience” or something :smiley:

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Yeah, I have been struggling with the fact that there isn’t a single word to encompass “watch”, “listen”, “read” (and soon “play” :eyes:)

“Experience” is one I have thought about but it’s a bit clunky. I’ll try it and see how I feel about it :grin:

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I’ve heard a lot of people saying they “consume” media… Not sure I know how to feel about that

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Not sure I like that :laughing: sounds too… gross

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Ok so I’ve been thinking about this and would like some feedback to my plans!

I am going to categorise things into “sets”. That’s the best work I can think of to describe them - with the words range and season/series already taken.

So one set would be all of the Second Doctor’s stories. That is part of another set which is all of Classic Who. Another set would be the VNA books. Another example of a set would be Dark Eyes, but that belongs to a set called The Eighth Doctor Adventures.

As you complete stories, if they belong to a set then that set automatically becomes “tracking”. You can track multiple sets and they all appear in the “my next story” widget. I may rename that now.

Once you finish a set, if it naturally leads on to another set then that will start tracking - so if you finish Dark Eyes, Doom Coalition gets tracked.

At any time, you can decide you don’t want to track a set anymore. That will be a simple toggle - you can have it tracked, untracked, or ignored.

So say you read Timewyrm: Genesis and decide it’s not for you - simply untrack the VNA set and it will no longer recommend it. But then a few weeks later you change your mind - you can start tracking it again automatically by completing Timewyrm: Exodus, or simply by toggling it back to “tracked”.

If however you chose to “ignore” it, then you can complete certain stories and it will never start tracking on its own.

This will have the benefit of tidying up the “my next story” page, and also I can show a list of the sets you’re currently tracking on your profile (optional of course), so anyone can view it and get at a glance an idea of what you’re currently tracking. A conversation starter.

Also I can add more badges, you earn one when you complete an entire set.

Oh and this should all work with the “rewatch” feature, you can toggle a set as “rewatching” and then it tracks separately.

These are my thoughts - any ideas how I could improve this? Do you like the name “sets” or is there a better name? Any other feature requests before I start to build it? (It won’t be for a few days anyway).

Thanks!

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oh that’s a great idea! I have no notes except yeah!

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This sounds perfect. Hope the task of implementing this is not too big.

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Hey all,

Progress is going well on building the new tracking system, it’s much more intelligent.

I just wanted a quick bit of feedback before I finish this off (hopefully this week…).

Here’s a screenshot of what it looks like for me - I’m tracking a lot of different series!

Questions:

  • Should I maybe only show 2 or 3, with a button to load more? (They will load on the screen without a refresh).
  • Most recently completed stuff is at the top. Do I need other sorting options?
  • I added the little pictures because without them it was a bit dull. What do you think?
  • The “disable tracking” button will remove it from this list. Is that obvious?

Thanks!

new-next
new-next1920×972 119 KB

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The image looks great - definitely keep the pictures.

I think have a few more than 2-3, maybe up to 10? With an option to load more at the bottom without (as you say) refreshing the page.

Most recently completed at the top makes sense but maybe have the ‘oldest/newest first’ options you have on the main sorting.

Disable tracking makes sense I think.

Great work!

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Just to be clear, this is going to show on the homepage, so 10 is a bit much isn’t it?

I’ll still have a page that shows them all (I’m thinking that page won’t need the filters it has now, that’s a bit pointless?)

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Ah - I hadn’t twigged that, sorry. Yeah, maybe a max of 5 in that case.

Would people still want filters on the main ‘next story’ page to be able to only see their next audios or books or TV etc?

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I guess I could keep the filters, it would mean keeping the page pretty much exactly how it is (just with the better logic behind which stories to show).

I just wasn’t sure if it was needed if fewer stories will be showing now.

When I’m ready I’ll let you test it and see what you think!

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