I've made this proposal already on Discord, but here I'd like to present it in more organised format and more in detail, since this is UX + UI related enhancement suggestion.
Problem Statement
The current issue with BBBs is: as online chess gets more popular, esp due to chess boom after the pandemic, there are more and more chess events as well as users. However, the BBB spots limit has remained same since much older times, and has not adapted to the needs of this change. This has been increasingly leading to more and more BBB clashes / and conflict between what to show, what not to show etc. The current design with idea of limiting spots to 4-5 items max, and having no more than 3 BBB features simultaneously is based on the fear of 'Banner Blindness' - "We'd train people to ignore BBBs" is a phrase and argument I've heard a lot over the years, whenever the BBB topic has been discussed.
However, one major underlying issue with the current BBB policy and how it is implemented is that both 'Play' and 'Watch' mixed. In reality, chances of training people to ignore content (Banner Blindness) actually increases when unrelated items are mixed. When a user looks for a "Play" button and repeatedly finds "Broadcasts," they develop Selective Attention, eventually ignoring the entire sidebar. I can kinda confirm this for myself as a user. I personally use the site mainly to play, so all those broadcast events that 'steal' a reserved spot from 'Play' events has actually made me ignore BBBs a lot more. One simple recent example of the clash for BBB spot was; we couldn't feature the Weekly Chess960 Team Battle on Sundays (Play) due to Candidates taking that spot. So users were 'had' to 'watch' and not 'play'.
Solution Suggestion:
To tackle these both problems (conflict between two categories to take a BBB spot + and very limited number of spots that does not meet the demands of current online chess boom), I suggest separating BBB buttons in two clear, distinct categories. So I've made a mockup to illustrate how it could be (note that I did this back then very quickly, so used the items present at that moment, thus duplicated RK Yearly etc. but just imagine actual Broadcast related buttons there etc.) :
E.g. This would give everyone + both groups more space, and solve both issues at once imo. Plus, we can make those category labels, clickable that navigates to '/tournament' or '/broadcasts' etc. I'd suggest 3 BBB items max limit for Broadcasts, and 3 BBB items max limit for Play related (Lichess' own events like Bundesliga, TA, or Variant Team events etc.) + 1 Simul BBB for 5 mins (instead of current 1-2 mins which is extremely short). I'd say Tournaments Group on top of Broadcast groups would even make more sense (on ss its other way around, but feeling too lazy to redo all this again)
Explanation from Cognitive Psychology POV - (had to review my uni notes to make sure I recall names of stuff correctly lol):
So by grouping "Watch" and "Play" functions separately, we'd be moving from a linear list (high cognitive load) to a taxonomic structure (low cognitive load). (See Hick’s Law for this). Even tho eventually we are increasing the total number of BBB items perhaps, e.g. Broadcast 3, and Play being max 4 so 7 in total (see also Miller’s Law), when grouped as 'chunks' like this, its a binary choice at the top level (choice between 2, vs 4-5 items as is now). So we r shifting the user's cognitive task from exhaustive search to hierarchical filtering at first. So even Even if we have 7 total buttons, the user only ever "sees" 4 of them once the first category is chosen. The other 4 are mentally discarded. (Reduced Search Space)
I'd go as far as saying that Banner Blindness is actually driven by irrelevance. When "Play" and "Watch" are mixed, 50% of the list is always "noise" to the user. By separating them, we kinda create a "Clean Zone" for their specific intent, which imo actually increases the engagement rate for both sections.
If interested in more, I suggest checking out these two studies: Chase & Simon (1973) and The "Template Theory" (Gobet & Simon, 1996)
Pretty sure, many chess players are familiar with the terms: Pattern Recognition and Chunking and how important they are for decision making process.
Position A
Position B
I'd say Position B is way more easier to process, recognize etc. despite more pieces are on the board.
So in this case, More is less!
I've made this proposal already on Discord, but here I'd like to present it in more organised format and more in detail, since this is UX + UI related enhancement suggestion.
Problem Statement
The current issue with BBBs is: as online chess gets more popular, esp due to chess boom after the pandemic, there are more and more chess events as well as users. However, the BBB spots limit has remained same since much older times, and has not adapted to the needs of this change. This has been increasingly leading to more and more BBB clashes / and conflict between what to show, what not to show etc. The current design with idea of limiting spots to 4-5 items max, and having no more than 3 BBB features simultaneously is based on the fear of 'Banner Blindness' - "We'd train people to ignore BBBs" is a phrase and argument I've heard a lot over the years, whenever the BBB topic has been discussed.
However, one major underlying issue with the current BBB policy and how it is implemented is that both 'Play' and 'Watch' mixed. In reality, chances of training people to ignore content (Banner Blindness) actually increases when unrelated items are mixed. When a user looks for a "Play" button and repeatedly finds "Broadcasts," they develop Selective Attention, eventually ignoring the entire sidebar. I can kinda confirm this for myself as a user. I personally use the site mainly to play, so all those broadcast events that 'steal' a reserved spot from 'Play' events has actually made me ignore BBBs a lot more. One simple recent example of the clash for BBB spot was; we couldn't feature the Weekly Chess960 Team Battle on Sundays (Play) due to Candidates taking that spot. So users were 'had' to 'watch' and not 'play'.
Solution Suggestion:
To tackle these both problems (conflict between two categories to take a BBB spot + and very limited number of spots that does not meet the demands of current online chess boom), I suggest separating BBB buttons in two clear, distinct categories. So I've made a mockup to illustrate how it could be (note that I did this back then very quickly, so used the items present at that moment, thus duplicated RK Yearly etc. but just imagine actual Broadcast related buttons there etc.) :
E.g. This would give everyone + both groups more space, and solve both issues at once imo. Plus, we can make those category labels, clickable that navigates to '/tournament' or '/broadcasts' etc. I'd suggest 3 BBB items max limit for Broadcasts, and 3 BBB items max limit for Play related (Lichess' own events like Bundesliga, TA, or Variant Team events etc.) + 1 Simul BBB for 5 mins (instead of current 1-2 mins which is extremely short). I'd say Tournaments Group on top of Broadcast groups would even make more sense (on ss its other way around, but feeling too lazy to redo all this again)
Explanation from Cognitive Psychology POV - (had to review my uni notes to make sure I recall names of stuff correctly lol):
So by grouping "Watch" and "Play" functions separately, we'd be moving from a linear list (high cognitive load) to a taxonomic structure (low cognitive load). (See Hick’s Law for this). Even tho eventually we are increasing the total number of BBB items perhaps, e.g. Broadcast 3, and Play being max 4 so 7 in total (see also Miller’s Law), when grouped as 'chunks' like this, its a binary choice at the top level (choice between 2, vs 4-5 items as is now). So we r shifting the user's cognitive task from exhaustive search to hierarchical filtering at first. So even Even if we have 7 total buttons, the user only ever "sees" 4 of them once the first category is chosen. The other 4 are mentally discarded. (Reduced Search Space)
I'd go as far as saying that Banner Blindness is actually driven by irrelevance. When "Play" and "Watch" are mixed, 50% of the list is always "noise" to the user. By separating them, we kinda create a "Clean Zone" for their specific intent, which imo actually increases the engagement rate for both sections.
If interested in more, I suggest checking out these two studies: Chase & Simon (1973) and The "Template Theory" (Gobet & Simon, 1996)
Pretty sure, many chess players are familiar with the terms: Pattern Recognition and Chunking and how important they are for decision making process.
Position A
Position B
I'd say Position B is way more easier to process, recognize etc. despite more pieces are on the board.
So in this case, More is less!