Better than Better than Your Boyfriend
EDIT : I know the site is kinda a disaster now. At least the cool archive link on the right works. I’m too tired to keep working on it, so it’s time for a nap and then REAL work. And then if I don’t fall asleep instantly, more work on the site.
That’s not a typo - my favorite site just got better. I was talking with a reader of my site and he told me my site was hard to navigate. You know what? He’s right.
So, I’ve done a few things to fix that (and other) problems. The most obvious change is that you no longer have to click “read more” to read the rest of the article. You still have to click “comments” to read comments, because otherwise the page would be even huger than it is now.
Also, if you go directly to a post (either through a link or by clicking the title of a post), you’ll see links to the next post and previous post. This is for people that like to read the whole site in order or have some catching up to do. When reading in this mode you can also see all the comments right on the page.
The oversized “archives” section on the sidebar is now a really cool scrollable calendar. If you hover over the little icons you can read the titles of the posts. I might change this soon, but we’ll try it out for a while.
I removed the “please give me money” section at the bottom of each post. Very few people donate money or play at the casino, so there’s no point in bothering everyone with the messages. The ads make me a few dollars each day, but they might be on their way out as well. If only I could figure out a good way to make money from the site that isn’t offensive to readers.
Lastly, I changed the font to Verdana. Apparently that’s the easiest font to read, and some of my posts are rather long.
Do these changes help? Hurt? Any other changes you think I should consider?
(1 votes, average: 3 out of 5)
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May 2nd, 2006 at 7:45 am
The gradient on the side, while cool, makes the text wicked hard to read as it gets towards the blue.
May 2nd, 2006 at 7:47 am
Yeah… so now I’m going nuts and learning CSS and totally redoing it. That’s why none of those improvements are actually there yet.
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:26 am
Looks a lot better. Good job.
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:41 am
eh the set up is a little better I guess but the colors, title, and parchment kinda reading area make me feel like im at a renaissance festival (never a good thing). Dare I say that it reminds me vaguely of Lord Of The Rings. hehe Just my 2 cents
May 2nd, 2006 at 9:43 am
I love the layout! The placement of the menu bar on the right seems slightly counter-intuitive, but I’ll get used to it
May 2nd, 2006 at 11:20 am
No the menu bar is acctually on the RIGHT place cos there is the scrollbar in windows. I dont know who initiated that stupid trend of navigation beeing on the left, when all the experts say its better on the right, but people got used to the wrong way I guess.
May 2nd, 2006 at 12:19 pm
I never minded the navigation much, but if this is better I’ll take your word for it. Although, I think the colors are kind of depressing — For example when I read your other site, it felt all positive and fun, etc. — This feels kind of dull.. I can’t explain the feeling..but just my thoughts
May 2nd, 2006 at 3:05 pm
Depressing? It’s supposed to be piratey-like. Oh well… I’m not done yet. After work I’ll play with it some more.
May 2nd, 2006 at 3:35 pm
I actually liked the old format more, i had fun winding through the maze of BTYB land.
May 8th, 2006 at 7:28 am
I do like the new look; however, I’m not fond of the new article format. I actually think it makes it *harder* to navigate. I loved being able to scroll down and see the last several articles (one reason being that if I missed a few I could start directly reading the first one I missed) — and I didn’t find it difficult or annoying at all to click “read rest of article”. I don’t like the current format where you only see one article at a time. It feels constraining to me.
May 18th, 2006 at 1:09 am
I gotta be honest and agree with the person who said they liked the old format better. I think the font used to be bigger or something, in my browswer everything looks condensed, and though I’m sure I’ll get used to it some of the things are counterintuitive, like I couldn’t find the home link at the top cause its way up above the header logo