Friday, October 9, 2009

Blog's Appearance

Is this blog getting too busy? Are the font colors annoying? What recommendations do you have for changing the fonts for text, blog titles, links, visited links, the sidebar, and other features? I have been making changes, and have considered changing the main template also. Suggestions are welcome, as I work to make the blog more user friendly.

6 comments:

Scott Kossbiel said...

I think this blog and blogs in general are tough to follow. Let's look at this blog. It is plain to see the purpose of this blog; to post new and issues relevant to education. However, there is just too much going on, on the page itself. The blog is easy to scroll through, but the sujbects change so rapidly. Maybe organize the subjects into certain areas...such as a major link for issues about technology in the classroom, a major link about general issues in the classroom...and so on...then the user can click on a major subject of interest, taking that person directly to the subjects he or she is interested in. It would save time on behalf of the user, and make the blog more subject specific focused to specific audiences

Judy Arzt said...

Scott, I will move the labels to the top of the sidebar. By clicking on a label, a group of blogs with that label will appear. I wanted to keep the suggested list of educational websites at the top of the sidebar, but guess the labels need to be moved up. I am not sure if users, though, know how to use labels. We will see, and perhaps I need to add more labels. They do take a while to put on all the postings, but I will work on that. Yes, the template creates a busy look, and I might try another one, but will wait to see what others say. Judy A.

Judy Arzt said...

Scott, I changed the template. Does this template work better? It was the one I used to use, and just decided to try it again. There are about seven others templates available (some with options for changing the color scheme), and I can show these in class, and see what others think are more user friendly. What do you think? Should I do a demo?

Scott Kossbiel said...

Dr. Arzt...this looks a lot better... I LIKE IT!

Judy said...

Thanks, Scott. I am limited by the options in the Blogger templates, but this particular template is the old I had been using for two years, so I went back to it. However, I never had the labels at the top of the right column, so moved them there. People don't like to scroll, so I don't think people realized the labels existed. I like some other blogging programs better than blogger, but they involve more time to set up and maintain, and time is the essence, so I have stuck with blogger. It is easy to use, but does have some limitations. Thanks for your initial feedback. I did sense the blog was getting busy looking, but wanted to see if others agreed. Any other suggestions you have are welcomed.

Amy said...

This is the first time I have ever had to use a blog for a course. So far, the screen has not bothered me though I have not really navigated through it enough to allow frustration to occur. I have basically focused on the headings which has then furthered me into reading the rest of the article.

I really enjoy reading the articles you post to the blog. You tend to grab my attention by the way in which you word the headings such as: Is technology frustrating you? This particular topic immediately gets my mind thinking with the question, "does it bother me?"

I was thinking of a suggestion for the site and thought f making the background a darker tone, so that it portrays a journal-like figure. When I think of a bog, I think of an online journal that is used to express your opinions.

In all, the site is organized and neat and I do not mind going on and using it every week. :)

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