New Crossword Club site

Author   petebiddlecombePosted on Categories Announcement
As regular readers will know, I visited the News International offices in London yesterday to have a look at their new Crossword Club web-site. I’m not going to go into much detail because development versions of software can change considerably before going live, but I was very pleased with both the new things that I saw and the level of interest shown in working to make improvements that club members (at all solving ability levels) want. The areas of change that are most significant for me are:

  • a strong move towards online completion of puzzles, with records of your solving performance and the chance to compare it with other members (printing to solve offline will still be available)
  • the return of member feedback, which this time can be linked to individual puzzles or possibly even individual clues
  • a new version of “Race the Clock”, extended to (blocked grid) cryptic crosswords as well as the Times2 puzzle

18 comments on “New Crossword Club site”

  1. I never solve online, unless the printer is broken… I spend too long staring at screens as it is. And not interested in speed either. Oh well, perhaps they will identify “reliability” as one of the things club members want..
    1. Reliability was discussed as well as the bells and whistles. Likewise devising scoring systems and records of performance suitable for people who solve online but don’t care about speed.
  2. I’m pleased to hear that printing will still be available. Was there any suggestion that it might not have been? Can we also be assured that the option to print the grid in grey will continue?
    1. No suggestion that printing would be removed – I just wanted to avoid people saying “but I only want to print and solve on paper” after I’d talked about online solving. Grey grids are still there.
  3. I’m very impressed that NI took the time to consult someone who’s in a good position to advise on the needs and concerns of regular users of their site. The Guardian’s recent relaunch of their online crossword service, despite the fact that it offers many advantages over the old version, was a real mess. Doubtless there will still be problems and grumbles, but making use of PB as a representative is a smart move.
  4. I should have raised this before but didn’t think of it.

    Did you get any insight into the tech. support arrangements? I’m specifically interested in whether an email addressed to technical@crosswordclub or the Times Online support people in the middle of the night when plenty of us (in the UK and elsewhere) like to solve actually gets read before office hours the following morning.

    It really would be nice to have some sense of how these issues are addressed and by whom so that we don’t feel like we’re trying to communicate with hypothetical life forms in deep space.

    1. Not discussed yesterday, but this area has been covered in e-mail discussions. I suspect there will always be some degree of “wait for UK office hours”, but I’m hopeful that (a) the number of times you need to contact tech. support (specifically the frequency of service outages) will reduce, and (b) the form and speed of response will improve when you do.
      1. Thanks, Pete. That’s moderately encouraging.

        It does seem strange to me that major corporations open 24/7 stores (which anything on the internet is) and then staff them largely from 9 to 5. I guess the culture of work hasn’t really caught up with technology. One day, perhaps.

  5. I have worked in the past on computer systems that were open 24/7 apart from occasional shut-downs for releasing new software. The technology was old-fashioned but the way things worked was extremely similar to a website with log-ins required. The staffing (all 2 of us) was definitely “largely from 9 to 5” – we took turns at carrying the bleeper but I can only remember a tiny number of call-outs.
  6. I don’t mind solving online, though it is a subtly different experience. Solving the Listener online, now that would be something, especially for example with this week’s offering or perhaps the wren of recent memory – now where did I put my screen folding toolkit?

    I’m sure I reflect everyone’s thanks, Peter, for representing our frustrations and concerns so directly at this level: lets all at least hope that the new launch goes without hitch and with happy results.

  7. I would like to add, that as a slow beginner, I like to print off the puzzle, and then solve it bit by bit throughout the day. I don’t solve ‘on screen’…ever!
  8. I practically never print out puzzles – in fact the only ones I regularly do with pencil and paper are The Listener (I buy the Times on Saturday) and the ones at Cheltenham. I’m hoping that Mephisto will be solvable on-line (as Azed is from the Guardian site).

    Since major changes are promised, the sensible thing for the Times to do would be to run a trial version of the new system in parallel with the existing system for a while to allow feedback and the fixing of possible errors.

    1. I believe a parallel run is intended.

      Your print/online preferences have demolished some of my preconceptions about what sort of people might want to solve online and on paper. Azed online doesn’t always work when he goes into “special puzzle” territory, but of course Mephisto hardly ever does that.

  9. Perhaps I should expand on the “subtle difference” of solving on screen. As an inveterate keyboard watcher when I type (I know, I know, should have learned by now) entering script online is a bit hit and miss, especially making sure you start and finish in the right places. Deleting letters is especially hazardous depending on how close to the end you’ve got. Filling in on screen always takes me longer because of the frequent need for re-entering once I see what’s actually turned up on the screen. The only reason for online entry is exactly that – entry into the competition without the chore of posting real paper. I rest content that I’ll never win a speed competition: I simply can’t physically enter that many characters accurately enough fast enough.
    That said, Listener online is obviously impossible, but Mephisto would be good, as at present Listener is the only one I enter by post.
    1. I’m a quick but sometimes inaccurate typist, so have some high old times fixing my typos in my daily encounter with online solving in the Times 2 Race the Clock contest. I avoid the other online completion options, partly to keep my manual completion speedy (probably unnecessary, as there are always some paper puzzles), and partly to avoid the need to remember whether I’m in RTC’s “skip-typing” mode where you click on the second letter in “A?T?R?A?E” and just type “LENT” to complete the word ALTERNATE, and the “over-typing mode” used in most other online crosswords, where you either just retype the whole word or all but a couple of letters, or type “L,->,E,->,N,->,T” to put in the letters not already there.

      It is my hope that the new club site will allow you to choose between the two methods.

      1. Surprisingly I find I can switch between the two methods reasonably well, but on the whole I prefer “over-typing” mode.

        There are a number of areas where configurable preferences would be useful, for example whether the space key is suppressed or not.

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