What would you change?
You may have noticed a few small changes in the appearance of Grand Forks Life. A few of the fonts and colors have been changed and I added a "Recent comments" box. Nothing major here, folks...just a few little changes.
This made me think about the overall design of GFL. I wonder if there is anything that you would change about the blog's appearance if you could? Would you arrange the sidebar differently? Would you change the size of a particular font? Do you think there are too many posts on the main page or not enough? I want your opinions and constructive criticism.
Please keep in mind that I'm no expert at web design so I'm not able to implement anything too groundbreaking here. I am more than happy to make small changes if the community of readers wants them.
This can even go beyond mere appearance to the content of GFL itself. What types of threads do you like the most? What areas should I be focusing on? I think feedback is the best way to know what this blog is doing right and what it is doing wrong.
Digg 
del.icio.us 
Posts
15 comments:
I don't like the dots! That is all.
I hate the pop comment box. I hate popups.
The dots ROCK!
I agree that the dots and the pop up comment box is annoying. If you're really concerned about the appearance, I would change the colour scheme and background. I would also weed through the "GF Blogs" box to the left and take off the blogs that haven't been updated in months. Maybe add more links to GF businesses?
Otherwise, I enjoy your blog.. if you don't make any changes, that's fine, I'll still read it anyway. :)
"I like the dots, and the popup window is a blogspot thing, so that's not likely to change."
I think I could actually chose to not have the comment window be a pop-up...it could just take you directly to the comment section instead of presenting it as a pop-up. I would be happy to try it without pop-ups if people would prefer that.
And I like the dots too! I like the color scheme...in case nobody realized it, the colors are supposed to be vaquely "UND-y." At least that's what I was thinking when I picked the scheme.
"The "new comments" thing, I have mixed feelings about -- when you removed it the last time, I remember being glad to see it gone, though I can't remember why. Possibly because it makes the page very disjointed, as it's not sorted by what post they're replying to."
We'll see how it works out this time...I'm happy to remove it again if it doesn't work.
As for the light green text...that's what some of your guys said in the past. Unfortunately, Google Reader has a very limited selection of color schemes for these little boxes...should I go back to what I consider to be the very ugly khaki-colored box?
I think you should consider banning anonymous posting. I know this might cut down on the post volume, but it would also cut down on the idiocy by about 90%.
I think you should ban posters that fake having a blog so when you click on their "non-anonymous" name you get this:
Profile Not Available
The Blogger Profile you requested cannot be displayed. Many Blogger users have not yet elected to publicly share their Profile.
If you're a Blogger user, we encourage you to enable access to your Profile.
Not a big fan of the background dots here, because it reminds me of a mommy-blog. The post title dots are vaguely UND-y, and that's cool, but I know the two go hand-in-hand in this template, so it is what it is.
I wouldn't bother disabling anonymous comments, because either a) the comments would practically die, and some of the anon comments are kinda funny; or b) all the idiot anons would make up fake names for registering, and the pointless comments would continue anyway.
Thanks for providing this forum, GFG. I'm no web design person either (and I still have to ask my husband about even the most basic CSS commands), but I have learned a lot about the Blogger templates recently when I redesigned my site. I could help with some basic formatting changes if you're in the mood for a re-design.
I think it would be nice if you picked a different blog template (no dots behind the text would be nice) Make a header that relates more to GF, like having Smiley up there or something. Purely a suggestion, I read in my feedreader and come over to comment, so I'd pay more attention to people that read directly from the site every time.
I strongly urge you to please keep the pop-up comment window. I find it very frustrating to have to go back and forth from the main page to the comment box, waiting for this to load, etc. The fact that I can be reading one or two posts at the same time I may be writing a comment is great, it even helps when pointing things out or relying on maps. If people really want to comments on a whole other page it really simple~~right click, choose 'Open in New Window' and there ya go! It's even big and can be refreshed! WOW!
Anonymous, Thanks for the heads up on my profile. I do have a complete profile and two blogs linked to this username. I'll be fixing that ASAP.
I believe keeping things fresh is critical. But I also appreciate that this isn't a money-maker for you. Perhaps you could invite guest-posters to shake it up... and relieve yourself of having to do it all.
I agree about guest bloggers! I think that'd be a great way to get more content and fewer open threads. Not that open threads are bad, but maybe only once a week.
I think the dots definitely look lame and need to be changed.
Post a Comment