We appreciate all of the passionate feeback regarding the new design very much - it's very gratifying to see how much people care. Besides a steady stream of suggestions since the site went that we move to a horizontal format, the immediate catalyst for the switch was the addition of the new DIY and Review Links sections - we just couldn't squeeze in any more columns vertically.
I understand the concern over marginalizing the categories that fall farther down on the page but here is what I find myself doing already: I look at the spotlight box to see what the newest posts are for each category, then I use the jump links to go to each category and see what the newest several posts are to make sureI haven't missed anything.
In other words, I have started to think horizontally about the front page, and see each section in terms of starting all over again: each section is a new beginning. I don't think it will take readers too long to start using the front page this way and that will hopefully allay fears that one section will get more or less attention than the others.
Please recall one other thing: many people come to the site via a link to a specific story, so the key to getting them to further explore the site is to make sure they are aware THERE IS more to the site, which Phillip has done nicely with this little blurb that will appear at the bottom of all posts:
- Choose "Home" at the top of this page for more fine Blogcritics.org reading, or scroll down to see comments on this story and add one of your own. Support Blogcritics.org by shopping at Amazon.com from this page.
Thanks for caring.
Article comments
1 - Brian Flemming
Eric,
Is there a reason that instruction tells the reader to scroll up instead of just clicking?
I.e., instead of
Choose "Home" at the top of this page for more fine...
Click here for more fine...
I figure there's a reason, I just couldn't figure it out.
2 - Brian Flemming
Eric,
It's true that regulars will likely learn how to use the new site.
A question I have is, what percentage of visitors will do any "learning" at all?
I'm sure there is a percentage of casual readers, including first-time visitors, who won't do any learning at all but will simply do what the average person would do when given this layout.
I can't claim to know what this percentage is, of course, or what the natural behavior of a first-time visitor would be.
3 - John Farren
Hi
Looks nice but...left edge of right hand column (about 1/4 inch) is hidden under the centre column.
Viewing at 800x600, IE 5.5
4 - Phillip Winn
#2 - Brian, a better way to phrase that might be that only repeat readers will have to "re-learn" new behavior. New readers will probably naturally use the site however they wish, just like any other new site they visit. Maybe they'll automatically click on any one of the several places where one can jump directly to the "Etc." section, or maybe they'll focus primarily on Music, or Video, or whatever.
It is only readers that have been used to one way of doing thing and now have to do something else to accomplish the same ends that are affected by this. That's a bummer, as I've said, but unless anybody has a better way of accomplishing eight distinct page sections, we'll probably stick with something like we've got.
#3 - John, MSIE 5.5 is a buggy piece of crap with far more problems than you are listing, but rest assured that I'm throwing all of the current work out of the window and trying to find a design that works with that buggy old browser that doesn't take 30+ seconds to load a page. In the meantime, do yourself a favor and upgrade to MSIE 6. It's free and easy and MSIE 6 isn't a piece of crap.
Thanks. 8^)
#1 - Oh yeah, Brian, it was my fault. I just wasn't thinking when I typed that up. I only had a very small window of time to make changes to the individual post template, since (as you're aware, being an MT user yourself), changes to that template are immediately reflected on posts unlike the main templates. Sorry. Eric fixed it.