Friday, September 18, 2009

A new layout!

I have been thinking about changing the layout of this blog for a while and have decided to go for it. It has three columns now, which I prefer. I am still playing with a few things, but you'll have to be patient as I try to figure out how to change computer code!

How you like it! I think I do.

2 comments:

Tom said...

Some usability comments:

Hmmm. For a three-column layout, having the articles in the middle is traditional. It looks odd having the two right-hand columns with headings that don't line up. It makes the page look busy and hard-to-understand.

If you don't want to reorder them, perhaps a little more space or a divider or something between the two right-hand columns would make it a bit easier on the eye?

The whole layout would work better if the bookshelves (recently reviewed, books I plan to read) were shorter - can the book lists be in three-per-row instead of one long list? It'd also work better if these were in the same column - perhaps move recently reviewed to the right, as it looks odd for the middle column to be the longest (at least when viewing a single article).

There are two search boxes, one at the top of the page and one in the right-hand column. What is the difference? Are they both needed?

It would flow better to have 'About Me' above 'Musings' - move from more general to more specific information.

It looks a bit odd having both 'Recently Reviewed' and 'All Book Reviews' - can one of them go?

Sorry to have so much skin-deep criticism! I really value the content of this blog and always look forward to your articles.

Wendy said...

Wow Tom - I had no idea anyone would care about the details as much as me!

Most of the things you suggest make sense to me, column width etc, but I am currently confined by the layout I chose. If I can figure out how to change the code on any of these things, I may have a go at it - I am learning how to interpret the code as I go!

The search box up the top is put there by the blog layout - but if you try it, it does not work - I can't yet figure out how to get rid of it.

Thanks for the feedback.