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Your ideas on layout - all Blog Harbor bloggers invited!
 
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 6:24 pm    Post subject: Your ideas on layout - all Blog Harbor bloggers invited! Reply with quote

It's been bugging me how far below the main section's content my sidebar (right column) runs on individual post pages. OTOH, two sidebars can make a blog page look "busy". It's hard to fit it all in - login, categories, calendar, recent posts, archive links, "favorites", etc., etc., in one sidebar. I've reduced the number of "recent posts" to make it a little bit shorter, even though I didn't want to. What's worse, I'm seriously considering creating my own archives components; I really dislike the weird limits in Blogware's own.

What do you think? Is it better to have two sidebars, and fit all the stuff you want people to see into the first couple of page views/page downs? Or is it better to have one sidebar, but half (or more) of the sidebar is accompanied by "whitespace" in the main column. Is there a trick to keeping two sidebars from looking "busy" and distracting visitors unduly from "content"?

It's not a problem on my index (main) page, because I have it displaying 25 days' worth of posts. But my posts are usually 500 words or less, with an absolute max of 1,000 (as from last spring). That's longer than many bloggers' posts, but not as long as the components in the other column.

It's seemed like forever, but my transfer usage has recently made the jump that results when multiple search engines start picking up a post here, a post there. So I've got a toe on the first rung of the ladder. Smile I'm glad I upgraded when they had the special offer last spring.

I've decided that it is definitely time for me to start working on a redesign. I doubt I'm ever going to have a flashy looking page. The most important thing about my posts - most of them - are the ideas. I don't live in a cloud castle all the time, Razz so there's some trivia and just plain junk. IMO, for talking about ideas, text legibility needs to be first and foremost (no playing funky - or funny - games with appearance).

Oh, yeah. If you want to see what I'm talking about, my extremely simple-looking blog is at http://gristandgristle.blogharbor.com/blog

Sooooo. What do you think? What's your philosophy of blog design?
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Fri Nov 10, 2006 7:56 pm    Post subject: Go collapsible Reply with quote

I used collapsible sidebars on my blog. This allows me to fit all the stuff I want, but still have only one sidebar. Very Happy

http://unbecominglevity.blogharbor.com
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 11:00 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm impressed. It's worth thinking about, and it's not something I'd ever have thought of on my own. Not quite sure it's for me, but I hadn't even dreamed that could be done.

A significant proportion of my readers are about as non-IT-knowledgeable as people can get and still be able to use a computer at all. That's counting those I know about, and the reasonable-assumption profile of people likely to search for the two most popular search results I see on my referer summaries.

Maybe I'm underestimating them, but I'm very much afraid some of those visitors that I hope become readers would look at the collapsed sections, and try to click on the headers, totally ignoring the arrowheads. :slaps forehead:

I think back to the '70s and '80s and the way I used to hear the programmers and analysts talk about "dummy users", and wish I could reach back through time and show them some of today's computer novices. But today's computer novices try hard to find the stuff they want to see/read. I just want them - as many as possible - as regular readers. Wink

Loved your post for this morning! It's amazing how callers that don't know you always make the assumption that since it's a good time for them, it's a good time for you. My normal responses are similar to yours. Razz
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 1:33 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

The sidebars are triggered by capturing clicks, if you wanted to you could capture the clicks on the headers by turning them into links. Should be relatively easy to do... something like:

<a onClick="<insert javascript here>">My Header</a>

I wrote an article on how to do the sidebars awhile back... hang on...

http://unbecominglevity.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/6/30/97796.html

There you go. I think John wrote up a nice article somewhere on here providing more details.
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Sat Nov 11, 2006 7:28 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Wow, thanks! I'm not sure that's what I'll want to do, but it's certainly an attractive option that I hadn't imagined before.

I'd still love to hear from some of the people that use a three column layout, to see what they think about the appearance issues. I've seen some that looked good, and I'd love to h/e/a/r/ know what thoughts they have on the subject.
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john
Site Admin


Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 1:34 pm    Post subject: Collapsible Components link Reply with quote

abacquer wrote:
I wrote an article on how to do the sidebars awhile back... hang on...

http://unbecominglevity.blogharbor.com/blog/_archives/2004/6/30/97796.html

There you go. I think John wrote up a nice article somewhere on here providing more details.


I think Collapsible Components (sidebar items) was the thread where we discussed this topic.
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john
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Joined: 16 Mar 2004
Posts: 3434

PostPosted: Sun Nov 12, 2006 2:16 pm    Post subject: Thoughts on blog layouts Reply with quote

I'd still love to hear from some of the people that use a three column layout, to see what they think about the appearance issues. I've seen some that looked good, and I'd love to h/e/a/r/ know what thoughts they have on the subject.

If you don't mind, I'll chime in with some personal observations and opinions on this subject...
  • Fixed-width designs, such as the one currently in use on my blog, work better as 2 column designs due to the limited width of the columns. Some of the fixed width color schemes in our system are shown here.
  • Fluid-width or full-page designs, such as the one you are currently using, are better suited for 3 columns than fixed-width designs.
  • There is no perfect page design. Even the largest sites can not solve the problem you identified here: not every page will have the same length content so it is impossible to create sidebars optimized for all pages.
  • I don't think the Calendar component offers much utility anymore, I just don't think that readers are using it to find content.
  • Likewise with the Year and Month Archive components: I don't think readers use them as a navigation aid. They are, however, a gateway to additional links for search engine spiders so I might include them on a blog only until search engines have discovered the content. I wouldn't place them near the top of a column, I would leave them on the bottom right where you have them.
  • It's a personal preference, but as a reader I think one of the best attributes about a blog is the immediacy of the content: the home page is not a set of links to content; full content is posted right to the home page. No need to click, just go the blog and start reading. Try posting a few articles without summaries, let the full text appear on the main page... Over time, you may find that more visitors turn into regular readers. And search engines will likely index your main page much higher. If you want to use summaries, make them informative and enticing...
  • Categories are overrated. Readers don't usually read categories, they read bloggers. While categories may help you organize your content, very few bloggers have blogs whose readers will read them by category as opposed to by date. So if you're concerned about the height of your sidebar, the Category Tree might be something you could consider removing.
Just some thoughts...
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Mon Nov 13, 2006 12:04 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

Definitely food for thought. Thanks for taking the time.
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kiosan



Joined: 04 Nov 2004
Posts: 7

PostPosted: Thu Nov 16, 2006 8:26 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I started with a two column design some time ago, but eventually opted to go with three column because I thought the single column of links got a little more overwhelming than one column on either side. First, as I added more links and navigational items, I felt they began to compete with the content for attention. Second, I felt it was difficult to highlight both navigation items (to increase depth of hits) and blog exchanges/groups (to increase number of hits, albeit indirectly).

Though the three column design makes the overall page slightly busier, it did allow me to give relatively equal weight to items I believe contribute to the overall click-health of my blog. I did tweak the style template, increasing the default font size for the main body, in order to provide additional focus on content.

Most visitors tend to read just the main page, or click through the "Next 15" link for additional content. However, I do find quite a few using categories. This may be a phenomenon of the nature of my blog, however, which focuses on politics - people looking for information on Democrats or Elections will follow those category links rather than sifting through all of the stuff on Republicans or Religion.

But as to overall look and feel, I really think it's a matter of person taste which depends mostly on the person who owns the blog, and whichever design you prefer.
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abacquer



Joined: 22 Mar 2004
Posts: 193

PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 9:57 am    Post subject: Reply with quote

I *love* your blog kiosan, but I prefer the 2-column layout. More room for the content.

John, it's interesting what you say about excerpts. I was trying to keep my bandwidth consumption down, because I often like to add graphics to my articles and so forth. Maybe I'll try it for a week without excerpts...
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kiosan



Joined: 04 Nov 2004
Posts: 7

PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 8:30 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

Hi Chuck, and thanks for the compliment!

I tend to write a lot of longish articles, and tried using excerpts on the main page for a while. It did cut down on bandwidth, but I didn't see as many clickthroughs to the main body as I would have liked. Since I'm focusing on growing readership right now, losing those clickthroughs outweighed the BW savings, so I switched back to posting full articles.

As readership is increasing and BW is becoming more of a concern, I may try a combination with shorter articles getting posted in full and my 1000 word essays being excerpted. I'm not sure yet. It's a lot of trial and error. Smile
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gristgal



Joined: 05 Jan 2006
Posts: 209
Location: Mississippi

PostPosted: Fri Nov 17, 2006 10:00 pm    Post subject: Reply with quote

I'm with Chuck; I think you've done a great job styling your blog, kiosan. And I might just go in your direction, if I can think of something similarly classy-but-subdued (under no circumstances would I copy someone else's original design, but I think I'd like to steal a concept or two). And you've got interesting content, too. Smile Great blog, period.

As for John's thoughts on summaries, I've decided to go with long ones for a while, and see if I can discern any effect. Many (most?) of my posts are entirely too long to just push out there, wham. I want people to choose to read a post; I don't want them to choke on too many words in one gulp. Wink

I used to work with a political scientist who always had catchy titles for his papers and books. Bryan could put the most fascinating titles on articles, but (although well and interestingly written) they were every bit as serious, in terms of research, as the dullest papers ever published (IOW, not junk science).

I don't have his gift at it, but I try to make my titles my ... I dunno ... hook? to interest people. There are some of my old posts that I swear people read just because of the titles. There's no other reason that those keep showing up in the Most Popular lists. And they're the "throwaway" posts about me, not about an idea or a news event. Not really the ones I most want read and thought about. There's been a time or two that I re-titled a post I thought important that wasn't getting read; it worked! But I can't usually take the time to make titles really good. If they seem at least interesting, and aren't misleading, I try to console myself with that.

Hmmmmm. I definitely have some more thinking to do.
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