Just started looking seriously into D&D Beyond, and playing with the Basic rules, clicking around and asking myself if I like the dynamism of this online platform. Looking at D&D 5e spells, I see some missed opportunities to better cross-connect spell metadata:
1) Schools (e.g., 'Evocation') - clicking on a spell's school should result in a listing of all that school's spells, and maybe a brief explainer.
2) Tags: However a spell is tagged, the tags should be clickable to produce relevant search results based on that tag
3) Applicable classes (e.g., 'Wizard, Bard'): these too should be clickable to show more spells relevant to those classes.
All of that is already implemented in the spell listing. School of magic and tags are in the advanced filters, the class filter is by clicking the icons of the class on the top.
All of that is already implemented in the spell listing. School of magic and tags are in the advanced filters, the class filter is by clicking the icons of the class on the top.
OK, then this isn't a data issue, just a UX missed opportunity that I'd argue raises to the level of a real gap: I can see the filters on the main spells entry page. But say I'm looking at 'Alarm' and I note the "Available For" tag for 'Ranger'. I can't click on 'Ranger' if I wanted to jump to the other Ranger spells. Same for the cool tagging: Alarm is tagged 'DETECTION' -- that's cool. I quickly want to browse forward to see other spells tagged similarly. Nope, can't do that. I have to navigate out of the path to go around to tag querying. Same for spell 'school' -- Alarm lists 'Abjuration'. Why can't the UX allow me to just click 'Abjuration' in that case to browse forward to see the other Abjuration spells. Feels natural to me to leverage all that meta-data linking to allow for more navigation discovery like this. E.g., clicking Abjuration in a spell listing should just take me to loading https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells?filter-school=3 and clicking 'Detection' should simply load me https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells?filter-tags=15
All of that is already implemented in the spell listing. School of magic and tags are in the advanced filters, the class filter is by clicking the icons of the class on the top.
OK, then this isn't a data issue, just a UX missed opportunity that I'd argue raises to the level of a real gap: I can see the filters on the main spells entry page. But say I'm looking at 'Alarm' and I note the "Available For" tag for 'Ranger'. I can't click on 'Ranger' if I wanted to jump to the other Ranger spells. Same for the cool tagging: Alarm is tagged 'DETECTION' -- that's cool. I quickly want to browse forward to see other spells tagged similarly. Nope, can't do that. I have to navigate out of the path to go around to tag querying. Same for spell 'school' -- Alarm lists 'Abjuration'. Why can't the UX allow me to just click 'Abjuration' in that case to browse forward to see the other Abjuration spells. Feels natural to me to leverage all that meta-data linking to allow for more navigation discovery like this. E.g., clicking Abjuration in a spell listing should just take me to loading https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells?filter-school=3
That is a good suggestion.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Just started looking seriously into D&D Beyond, and playing with the Basic rules, clicking around and asking myself if I like the dynamism of this online platform. Looking at D&D 5e spells, I see some missed opportunities to better cross-connect spell metadata:
1) Schools (e.g., 'Evocation') - clicking on a spell's school should result in a listing of all that school's spells, and maybe a brief explainer.
2) Tags: However a spell is tagged, the tags should be clickable to produce relevant search results based on that tag
3) Applicable classes (e.g., 'Wizard, Bard'): these too should be clickable to show more spells relevant to those classes.
All of that is already implemented in the spell listing. School of magic and tags are in the advanced filters, the class filter is by clicking the icons of the class on the top.
OK, then this isn't a data issue, just a UX missed opportunity that I'd argue raises to the level of a real gap: I can see the filters on the main spells entry page. But say I'm looking at 'Alarm' and I note the "Available For" tag for 'Ranger'. I can't click on 'Ranger' if I wanted to jump to the other Ranger spells. Same for the cool tagging: Alarm is tagged 'DETECTION' -- that's cool. I quickly want to browse forward to see other spells tagged similarly. Nope, can't do that. I have to navigate out of the path to go around to tag querying. Same for spell 'school' -- Alarm lists 'Abjuration'. Why can't the UX allow me to just click 'Abjuration' in that case to browse forward to see the other Abjuration spells. Feels natural to me to leverage all that meta-data linking to allow for more navigation discovery like this. E.g., clicking Abjuration in a spell listing should just take me to loading https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells?filter-school=3 and clicking 'Detection' should simply load me https://www.dndbeyond.com/spells?filter-tags=15
"Any society that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both" -- allegedly Benjamin Franklin
Tooltips (Help/aid)
Thanks. Really, the entries should cross-link like mad to make the learning process, and just inspired investigation, more intuitive.
Spell listing shows its damage-type is 'fire'? Click for others of that sort.
Spell listing shows its casting-time = Bonus Action? Click for other Bonus Actions spells.
Spell listing shows it requires Concentration? Click Concentration for a list of the other Concentration spells...