I met my whole family through Baidu Tieba.

Chapter 109 Leisure Time

After lunch, Shen Kang took He Qiuzhu to the library's computer room.

Yangko University of Science and Technology has many types of computer labs, including laboratories and classrooms, many of which require an application to use. However, the computer lab in the library is different. It's like a "web cafe" set up by the university. You can use it by paying a fee of 5 cents an hour with your campus card. It's cheaper than internet cafes outside the university, a pure perk.

However, there are also many limitations. For example, there are no large games installed in this computer lab, nor are there any popular movies or TV shows. It is mainly for teaching purposes, to help students become familiar with computers.

Despite these restrictions, the server room is cheap and business is booming. Shen Kang and his group arrived right after dinner, so they were considered early, but most of the servers were already occupied.

Seeing Shen Kang enter from the door, Ma Liang stood up. His long hair made him stand out at a glance, so Shen Kang walked over to him.

Along the way, He Qiuzhu attracted a lot of attention, with many boys looking over. Shen Kang sensed that He Qiuzhu was a little timid under their gazes, so he glared back at whoever looked at him.

"I've saved you seats."

When Ma Liang saw Shen Kang walk up to him, he said this and also glanced at He Qiuzhu, shocked by the beauty of this female classmate.

Shen Kang called him yesterday to ask about the website development progress, saying he wanted to take a look. Ma Liang told Shen Kang to come to his dorm, but Shen Kang insisted on coming to the computer lab. Ma Liang was puzzled at the time, but now he understands—he wasn't alone; he brought a beautiful woman with him.

"This beautiful woman is stunning!" Ma Liang exclaimed in astonishment.

There were two empty seats next to Ma Liang, so Shen Kang let He Qiuzhu sit in one of them.

He sat down next to Ma Liang and glanced around. He noticed that some students were watching videos with headphones on, some were chatting on QQ, and a few others had probably brought Warcraft III on a USB drive and were playing it online. This perfectly demonstrated that there's always a way to overcome difficulties.

Shen Kang withdrew his gaze and briefly introduced the two: "Ma Liang, the senior who helped me build the website. He Qiuzhu, my IT consultant."

Upon hearing this, Ma Liang was filled with awe: He never expected that this beautiful woman was not only stunningly beautiful, but also intelligent and skilled in IT.

Hello.

After exchanging greetings, Shen Kang said to He Qiuzhu, "You can play by yourself for a while."

He Qiuzhu said "Oh," turned on the computer, logged in with her own campus network account, and started playing the Minesweeper game. She was quite fast, clicking non-stop, almost without thinking, and she didn't step on any mines.

Shen Kang looked at Ma Liang's desk, where, in addition to the large monitor in the school's computer lab, there was also Ma Liang's own laptop.

"Is the website in here?" Shen Kang pointed to the laptop.

Ma Liang said, "Yes. Just like I told you on the phone, the interest community isn't finished yet, but the secondhand website is. I even borrowed a lab from a senior student to test it, and it's ready to go online."

After saying that, Ma Liang further explained: "Actually, from a technical point of view, interest-based communities are simpler. But as you know, I've made both kinds of websites, and I have the code. The requirements for the second-hand website you want are similar to what I made before, so it can be used with a little modification. However, your interest-based community is quite different from a simple campus forum, so it took longer to modify."

Shen Kang nodded. "Since we can access secondhand websites, let's go there first. I'll see what they're like."

"Okay, turn on your computer and come in from the local area network to take a look."

Shen Kang turned on his computer, while Ma Liang connected the network cable to his laptop. After setting up both his laptop and Shen Kang's computer, Shen Kang accessed the secondhand website and started browsing.

The page was clean and tidy, and as he requested, it was made with a blue and white main color scheme. At the very top was the website logo for "Leisure," and next to it was a search box.

On the main page, the left side is the category window, and the right side is the popular product section, which currently has four sections: "Tickets", "Electronic Products", "Bicycles" and "Home Appliances".

Ma Liang explained from the side, "The content of the 'Popular Sections' area is not fixed and can be adjusted at any time based on website data. The 'Tickets' category was also placed in the Popular Section specifically according to your request."

Speaking of "tickets," Ma Liang looked curious: "Why did you specifically put 'tickets' in the popular section? Based on my experience with the secondhand website I ran before, the transaction volume of tickets and similar items in the college student secondhand market is actually very small."

Instead of answering, Shen Kang asked, "Haven't you been paying attention to the secondhand section of the Yangbei Forum lately?"

Ma Liang shook his head: "Why would I care about that?"

Shen Kang explained, "I recently opened a study room called 302, and currently it mainly uses a trial ticket system for entry —"

He briefly described the situation of the "secondary market for experience vouchers" over the past two days.

After hearing this, Ma Liang was very surprised: "I didn't expect that you actually owned that 302 study room."

He had heard about this recently, but he was busy building a website and hadn't been there yet. Little did he know that the 302 study room was run by the junior who had asked him to build the website.

However, Ma Liang's interest immediately shifted to what Shen Kang had mentioned about the "secondary market for experience vouchers." "Is the secondary market for those experience vouchers really that hot?"

"It's hard to say whether it's popular or not, but the transaction volume is indeed quite large. I also participated and learned about it—" Shen Kang then talked about his employees buying and selling experience vouchers, and gave some specific figures.

After hearing this, Ma Liang became somewhat hopeful. "In that case, the ticket sales might help us get off to a great start."

He didn't say it, but deep down he still felt resentful about the two websites he had worked on that went bankrupt.

Although some people told him that the closure of those two websites had little to do with him, he was a technical support staff member, so it was impossible for him to have no connection at all.

So, although Ma Liang wasn't suffering from inner demons, he still harbored some obsessions. This is probably one of the reasons why Ma Liang is currently so engrossed in music; there's also a bit of escapism involved.

If Shen Kang's secondhand website really succeeds, he will have proven himself.

Ma Liang began to feel some anticipation.

Shen Kang continued browsing the web.

Further down the main page, there's a row of small labels, which are for product categories with the highest transaction volume. These will be adjusted later.

Below the small labels are individual product images and information.

Ma Liang told him on the phone that these items for sale were materials added by Ma Liang, and there were no real products or sellers. They were mainly for the purpose of presenting a complete page preview.

The entire main page contains only this much content: a search box, categories, and product displays.

Compared to current mainstream web page designs, it is very simple and easy to understand, which is what Shen Kang specifically requested.

Shen Kang tried the search function, then clicked into the categories, looked at the second and third level pages, and finally said with satisfaction, "Well done, I'm very satisfied."

Ma Liang glanced at Shen Kang with his one eye that wasn't covered by his hair, thought for a moment, and then offered a suggestion: "Isn't the page too simple? Perhaps we can expand it further. For example, we can shrink the product icons to display more products. Categories and popular sections can also be significantly reduced to leave plenty of space for Google Play."

After his previous secondhand website failed, Ma Liang has been thinking a lot over the past year. As a technician, he has even started thinking about profit models.

In his view, the previous second-hand website went bankrupt because it failed to find a good profit model and charged customers a commission. So, commission might not be a good way to make a profit. Ma Liang thought of renting out GG slots.

He is bringing this up now because he genuinely wants to help those in need.

Shen Kang shook his head: "This is fine. I know, Senior Ma, you want to display as much information as possible, but you haven't considered the user experience. Take our website for example, imagine a page layout like the one you described, and our current page layout—which one would be easier for you to browse?"

One is covered in dense, smeared psoriasis-like markings, while the other is clean and simple. Visually, the difference is immediately apparent.

After a moment's thought, Ma Liang had the answer: "It must be this one."

"That's it. The kind you're thinking of is an 'information display first' model, which is more beneficial to the website owner. What I want is a 'user experience first' model, which is more beneficial to the user. My idea is that only when the user experience is good will they be willing to use our website."

When Shen Kang designed the page for Anjia Housekeeping, he followed this principle: minimalism and white space, retaining only the most important information and minimizing information burden on users.

Information display takes priority, user experience takes priority — Ma Liang seemed to be deep in thought.

After discussing page design, Shen Kang then brought up Google Play, saying, "As for Google Play space, we can consider it, but it definitely has to give way to user experience." He added, "We don't necessarily have to sell the traditional Google Play space; we can learn from Taobao and 58.com and offer value-added services."

"

"Value-added services?"

"For example, if you are a seller and you want your secondhand items to be seen by more people and sold faster, you can purchase our value-added services to make your items rank higher and more prominently among similar items. Of course, it's not possible to follow this entirely; a significant portion of traffic still needs to be reserved for sellers who don't pay."

The overall goal is to ensure everyone can sell their items, maintaining fairness, but it's even fairer for paying sellers.

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