I’m going to be changing the site layout today. I’ll start in a few minutes, actually. I’ve already changed over I Am Richard. The new layout is very minimal. I’m taking all these multi-sidebar multi-widget blogs as a contrary indicator. :-)
I’m sure some of you will like it and some of you won’t. That’s just the way it goes. Take comfort in the fact that I’ll probably get bored in another 6 months and change the layout again.
As with every time I change the layout, some things will be broken for a few hours while I check things out. If you have any suggestions, please feel free to comment (once commenting works, anyway). Don’t feel bad if I don’t make every change you request, though…
August 11th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
test comment. hopefully this will work.
August 11th, 2007 at 4:26 pm
Ok, I think everything works. Please let me know if the site renders really wrong on your web browser. I’ve looked at it briefly on Safari, Camino, Firefox, and IE7.
August 11th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
I think it’s great! Minimalism is good. It renders fine for me in FF (though some of my author page is jacked up. Might be my use of tables or something). I also like that there isn’t a fixed width for the page anymore; that always bugged me. There is only one widget / sidebar thing that I miss: I like to see the new recent comments without having to go hunt for them.
August 11th, 2007 at 6:01 pm
Yeah, I miss that as well. I don’t know what I’m going to do about it yet, if anything. I may insert a thin box below the top post, which has recent comments and links, and ads. Since you have a login, you can see recent comments on the /wp-admin page, of course.
August 11th, 2007 at 6:40 pm
The easy navigation aspect is gone. If this is it, I don’t like it. The focus is on the last post, where before it was easy to find older posts and see what you wanted to read. Modern web design has always provided a couple of different ways to find your you are looking for, plus pre-set classifications. This reminds me of a giant notepad with a scroll bar. I’ll shut up now.
- TraderD
August 11th, 2007 at 6:43 pm
What did you use before to find older posts, that isn’t there now?
August 11th, 2007 at 6:58 pm
There are RSS feeds for the comments on individual posts–is there a bulk “all comments” RSS feed?
I could also see having a “Site Map” type page in the Pages menu, and just load it up with all the crap like we used to have–the recent comments code, ads and whatever TraderD is missing. Then it’s minimalistic on the front page, but if someone wants to head for the mosh pit, they can get all the sidebar stuff on that page.
August 11th, 2007 at 7:16 pm
This is from memory, I’m kind of jarred, like I turned the key and opened up the front door and found myself in a strange house. The first thing I always looked at was “recent comments” as that was a pointer to what ever was getting the most discussion. Maoxian to me is a good example of an easy to navigate site. Your’s also, to me, was about the best, the same as Maoxian or better. I always found this site easy to navigate before, now I’m lost. I’ve done alot of UI design. Myself I look at the best working models and then think about why they work, and do they pertain to the problem I’m trying to solve.
Things can always improve, but I found the previous layout great, and just my opinion, this is a big step back. Its just a sequential list of posts with a scroll bar. Was there a site with this layout that caught your eye? What was the site? What was the influence? I don’t mean to seem harsh, and I apologize if this seems so. I always find tone difficult to convey in text.
My wife is from Malaysia, and we have a house in Borneo (Sarawak). I can find still find it on a map. :)
- TraderD
August 11th, 2007 at 7:47 pm
@TraderD: Go to google, search for Move the Markets, and hit cached to see how it used to be, or just hit this link: http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:Ou8lmA9G3RYJ:www.movethemarkets.com/+movethemarkets&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a
Richard: I’m missing the “Related Posts” now, too. :(
August 11th, 2007 at 7:49 pm
I’ve had 3 columns. I’ve had 2 columns. Now I want 1 column. I like variety. The way things are going, we may be able to get away with 0 columns one day.. when everyone just reads things from RSS. In fact, the #1 request I get from people is to open up the full RSS feed. Maybe I will do that, but right now I don’t think that will work because I’ve got measures in place to avoid serving images anywhere but here. I’ll also need to add some sort of anti-splogging code to the feed.
I spent a lot of time on the last design, and I do still like it, but I’ve looked at it long enough. I’m going to wait and see what other feedback comes in, and then I’ll make some changes. It seems like we all liked Recent Comments. Right now, I’m thinking I will add a “What’s New” kind of page, which gives lists of everything recent… recent comments… recent posts by author… recent ‘Article’ posts…. most popular tags… recent del.icio.us links…
August 11th, 2007 at 7:50 pm
Related posts are on the page for the post, but not on the main page. It’s easy enough to add them to the main page. I can’t decide.
August 11th, 2007 at 7:51 pm
DOH! Just saw that. No, that’s good enough for me. I click down to any posts I want to read anyway–I just missed it.
August 11th, 2007 at 7:52 pm
The feed for all site comments is:
http://www.movethemarkets.com/blog/comments/feed
August 11th, 2007 at 8:04 pm
I guess then the recent comments, and the search with a text field already there. I found the authors list helpful. I’m really anti-mouse clicks for a number of reasons. One because my hands are shot from writing code since 1977. Second, by last development gig was doing a UI for radiologists. They look at images and dictate into a microphone. They use one hand for the microphone, and it has buttons, but the trackball is unusable. Forcing a mouse move/click when I could have eliminated it got me whacked.
So theses addition:
1. Recent comments
2. Search field
3. Author list
If I had my way, I’d have you go buy a new outfit for your cat so you could look at something new, and we could have the old site back. You could dye your hair blue.
- TraderD
August 11th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Hi Richard,
I also like the old layout better…. it was comfortable. That said however, the pull down menus are an increasingly popular alternative to the 2 or 3 column layout format. One thing that I’ve noticed is that you no longer have the link to allow readers to subscribe by email - is there a reason for that? That could be another item to add in the top menu bar.
August 11th, 2007 at 11:27 pm
Yeah, I need to find a home for the email subscription thingy.
I have made a rudimentary “what’s new” page. It’s far from done, but at least has the recent comments and posts on it. I’ll add to it over time.
August 12th, 2007 at 3:51 am
The del.icio.us links that used to be in the sidebar will now be daily posts, like you see on several blogs. The first one just got posted!
I spent forever looking for the WP plugin, and it turns out to be a service that you set up in your del.icio.us account! rrrgh…. But, it was easy to do. I wish it were more configurable since I’d prefer to just have it publish entries tagged “Move_The_Markets”. Oh well!
August 12th, 2007 at 11:36 am
i’m with traderd on this…since this isn’t a democracy, it doesn’t matter…however, one thing i’m sure u keep an eye on is the growth of this site…newer visitors may not stick around long enough to find the true value of what’s here - which means less ad revenue (i don’t participate in ad reveneue, so i have no real interest there either)
if u want to surpass maoxian and ugly for the top financial blog, this probably isn’t the way to do it…another way is to drop the dead weight (i suggest axing bass ackwards trader) :-)
August 12th, 2007 at 12:03 pm
I’m really not too interested in growing the site. If I were, I would do everything in my power to get people to link to us. I used to do a lot of that, but mostly stopped last year. And, ad “revenue” (if you can call it that) and my Technorati ranking have both tapered off all year, in response.
What I want is a small audience of serious, smart traders with whom I can exchange ideas. I realized last year that it’s preferable to a huge audience of unwashed masses. It’s kind of like how WallStreak is really nice right now, but if it ever doubles in size I bet it starts to suck. With wide readership, you get all the meaningless arguments about whether daytrading “works,” and random outpourings of negativity, and so forth.
August 12th, 2007 at 11:56 pm
Maybe I will turn “whats new” into a permanent “first post”, and have it contain recent comments, recent posts, and the “top 50″ tag cloud… Then it would be right at the top at all times… just a thought.