Ajax loads of home page content and a quick survey
Some more news on the new design, as well as a request for an opinion on a specific design element.
I've replaced the old clunky full-page reload when you select a content theme with an Ajax refresh of the centre pane. So now if you click on "True Crime", for example, the entire page is no longer reloaded with a Google-confusing parameter. Instead, the centre frame has the content replaced with new content. This will increase the speed of people's browsing experience.
Other changes: the bio page, the quotables page, and the dedication page have all been deployed. Also, the newsfeed have been improved using Feedburner.
Finally, a question. I've purposely kept the page limited to 800 pixels in width, not including the ad rail on the right. So that means a person viewing the blog using an 800x600 resolution can see all the important horizontal content. For people with wider screens, though, that means that the chance put more on the screen is lost as my columns do not currently resize. I have three options:
- Leave well enough alone. The design works under all resolutions.
- Widen the page to 1024 pixels (or more) and have low-res crowd put up with sideways scrolling.
- Make the centre column variable width.
The last option seems like the most obvious, but it means redesigning my slices, and will take some time. I want to know what people think before I make that leap.
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Poll Answer: 1
But you should shift the video box, news feed, etc to the narrow left column (below the existing stuff) and make the main center screen (of maybe 600 px) your prime content, which is the first few paragraphs or your latest few articles. On my 1024x768 screen, your prime content (which is the only thing I ever look at) makes up about 15% of the screen -- you could assign 20% to navigation, and 20% to advertising, but then give us the last 60% for your prime content. All the blog-lists, news feeds, etc, etc should he shifted to the sides or the bottom -- they are lower value uses of screen real estate.
Posted by: Frank at February 20, 2007 06:04 PM
Thanks Frank. I'm looking at something like this, or even user-configurable layout.
Posted by: Steve Janke at February 20, 2007 06:14 PM
I'm thinking that you're never going to satisfy everyone, Steve. One possibility as far as a user-configurable layout goes is to allow the user to select among several skins, sort of like the way that Captain's Quarters does. That way the user can pick the template that looks best on their monitor.
You do need to fix the Add Comment box though, it's all kattywampus.
Posted by: Ed Minchau at February 20, 2007 07:08 PM
This does look better than the old site. 800 pixels fixed get my vote, I think variable sizes can run into flow problems.
ditto on the comment box. F/F 2.0.0.1 The text area overflows on the right and the submit button is obscured on the bottom of the page. All I can see is the top of the submit button. Also, it's mighty small font.
Posted by: the bear at February 20, 2007 08:45 PM
Definitely go with the variable width centre column. Do you have the ability to track what things are clicked the most often? Use that to rearrange your screen. A 2 up would give you a lot more space.
I also vote for fixing the comments box.
Posted by: jgriffin at February 20, 2007 09:06 PM
I'd give my vote to a liquid layout over fixed. An example of a nice looking blog site using this format is: http://www.jmarkbertrand.com/
Posted by: Denis at February 21, 2007 10:54 AM
 
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