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October 22, 2002
Want Feedback on Site Design
Hey all!
As you can see, I've mucked around and added drop-down menus for navigation at the top of the page. I'm thinking about cleaning up the site to give it a slightly less "busy" look. If folks have opinions, I'd like feedback on various possibilities and whether current links that I might get rid of are useful. Here's some thoughts or possibilities:
1) Most likely-- Get rid of all navigation in left column, since the new drop-down menus replace them
2) Replace the "recent posts" at the top of the middle column with a drop down menu
3) Get rid of the Recent Entries on the right-hand side, maybe in favor of a "best of" listing of posts
Any other thoughts on site design are appreciated. I have no aesthetic taste, so asking that I make it prettier is a bit of a lost cause but I might act on any concrete suggestions :)
Posted by Nathan at October 22, 2002 11:34 AM
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Comments
I like the drop down menus, but I think having the recent entries both on the top and on the side is not necessary. I would get rid of one, if it were me.
Posted by: kevin at October 22, 2002 11:58 AM
Since you asked -- I think that the first thing someone sees (after your banner)should be your most recent post. Going past a bunch of links to get to it is mildly annoying.
I have a similiar problem with my site which I'm working on.
Posted by: zizka at October 22, 2002 12:54 PM
First, I'd suggest making the font in your main column larger, and removing the light gray background. A legible font would be 12 pt. Yours is 7 pt (based on a cut-and-paste into Word).
Second, you can get rid of at least one column. I'd suggest the right, since it's now redundant.
Having your recent entry headings at the top is less than perfect. However, it would be a good trade-of if you used the freed-up space to make your main column run in the present center and right columns.
In short, your current wirting should get the lion's share of the page space.
Barry
Posted by: Barry at October 22, 2002 01:11 PM
Looks great to me in general -- with one exception. Though the three columns look great and work well in IE for Mac OSX, they don't work in OmniWeb (OS X). The right-hand column doesn't show up (at least sometimes), and the left-hand column is out of whack. I don't know whether it's hard to make such things work in all browsers, or whether you're content not to worry about the 0.1% of us who use off-brand browsers. (Fight the power!)
Posted by: Sam Heldman at October 22, 2002 03:16 PM
Dropdown list boxes and menus are much more difficult to use than navigation links on the flat main canvas.
It's dipping too deep into the techie trick bag, if you ask me. (And I'm a programmer.)
And I agree with the comment that the main article should be front and center, not links to other stuff.
I thought your previous designs were more attractive, and it's becoming progressively worse. You're worrying it too much, in my opinion.
Sorry. But I'll keep reading anyway for the content.
Posted by: Bob Haugen at October 22, 2002 06:49 PM
Dropdown menus don't make navigation easier for
visual and otherwise handicapped persons.
Posted by: Martin Wisse at October 23, 2002 07:01 AM
Probably am playing with the design too much, but it's part of the fun of having the site to play with some HTML tricks.
The advantage of the drop down menus is to clear some space on the desktop for the writing itself. I was hoping to do mouse rollover menus which are usually prettier but couldn't find free software to do it-- if anyone knows of some, that would be fun.
Curious on the theory of why dropdown menus are worse for the visually impaired compared to small print flat listings? The category archive titles are a bit larger now, but is there something about drop-down menus that are harder to identify for visually impaired folks?
Posted by: Nathan Newman at October 23, 2002 07:39 AM
You don't want to use mouseover dropdown menus. That's a technology called DHTML, and it's buggy as hell, crashes browsers, doesn't even work in half of them, and is extremely difficult to implement.
I think the dropdown menus are fine. If I'm not mistaken, the visually impaired cannot make the dropdown menu items display in a larger font, but as long as they can view your postings, I would guess that's enough. Nothing in those dropdowns is critical to the success of your site. I visit your site to read your posts, not for all that other stuff.
Personally, I'm not a fan of "recent entries", and I definitely think listing them twice is overkill. Personally, I have never gone to a blog and perused their "recent entries" list to find something to read. I just scroll down the page scanning for items of interest. That's just me -- I don't know how others approach blog reading. But as for me, I would rather unclutter the page and make it load faster (for those unfortunate souls that still do not have broadband).
Posted by: kos at October 23, 2002 11:31 AM
Problems with dropdown menus:
* Mouse manipulation of dropdowns requires more of both
- manual dexterity and
- how-to knowledge
than flat links on the main canvas.
* Can't bookmark or copy the link.
Suggestion: if you want to get all that stuff off the main page, simple links (on the side) to archives or articles or categories of articles or whatever could take the reader to simple lists of other stuff.
Posted by: Bob Haugen at October 26, 2002 08:32 AM
Don't forget about security. Secureroot.org
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I never thought of this like that! Refreshing point of view. Reminds me of the other day when out of the blue my friend said you need need a good dental plan and hey presto my teenage daughter's orthodontics expenses were cut by upto 60%. Well this is the same sort of suprise! Who would have ever thought about it like that?
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