9 replies to this topic

[eKstreme]

The Socializer is 1 year old tomorrow, and I thought an update is in order.

The new Socializer design.

The old one.

It's mainly an aesthetic and layout update, but I would love to hear comments about anything and everything. Suggestions for improvement are also welcome

Thank you!

Pierre

[bragadocchio]

Hi Pierre,

I like the changes that you've made, though I have a concern about the layout of the page (actually true for both versions).

When I view the new page, in the window of my monitor, I see the icons for the different services and the ad - and the ad looks like it is the bottom of the page. I don't know if you get many new visitors who look at the page, and don't scroll down.

I understand why you want all of the icons in the same window view if possible, but I think that there needs to be a clear way of signally to visitors that there is explanatory text after the icons.

The links in the top right(about, etc.) were good additions, too.

Are there any changes to the code itself? I ask because I think that when people see "Socializer 2.0" that they will also be asking. Better for me to ask once, than many people to ask many times.

[eKstreme]

Hi Bill

Thanks for your comments. You're absolutely right that there isn't a clear signal there is more content below the fold. I'm open for ideas for how to do this. My gut reaction is to add a little sentence to say "Scroll down for help" above the first batch of icons.

As for updates in the code: yes, but nothing visible yet. There is a whole new set of features in developement as part of this update. I won't say much now, except to say, there is plenty of new code It does deserve a 2.0 label...

Thanks again!

Pierre

[bragadocchio]

A "Scroll down for help" or "Scroll Down to Learn How it Works" or something like that might be helpful.

New code sounds good.

[joedolson]

Making it an internal page link might be better still - rather than directing them to scroll, make it more immediate: allow them to just link directly down the page to the instructions.

It's a nice change - much cleaner than before; and I agree with Bill that those links in the top right are a good addition.

-Joe

[JohnMu]

I like it

I still see some missing spaces -- at "MesFavs", "Spurl", "del.icio.us" and "Netscape". I know, I'm picky. But I tend to pick up on that and it always bothers me

I hate giving you advice on this since I know you already know all of what I'm going to say, but anyway -- it looks like you have your lists hard coded, perhaps even in HTML (missing spaces here / there). As a programmer, I've learned that anything done more than twice deserves to be put into a "loop" and not done manually. I would propose that you put the URLs, the icons and the names into arrays and let the PHP page put them together properly. That way you can just add new services, update URLs or names, move them up / down programatically. Run tests - move a random service from the bottom up top, etc -- no HTML coding involved, just change a number in the code or better yet, in the database.

Something else that ... bothers me ... but won't bug any normal user: you're using rel=nofollows to link and it's highlighting the links in my browser (you probably have the same installed, which SEO-geek doesn't ). You're already blocking the page from being indexed, you don't need those rel=nofollows in there.

If you want to leave them there, I suggest one of the following:
1. Build the links with javascript (kind of iffy....)
2. Code with rel=nofollow but use javascript to remove them as the page is loaded (kind of sneaky)
3. Just use normal links and make sure that search engines can really never read the page (ie check user-agent/IP and return 500 for them)

I would do the last -- or the second if you feel sneaky. It's easy to add an onload-handler that will go through the links and remove the rel=nofollow attribute on the fly, that will make the links look straight but they'll still be blocked. On the other hand, maybe that's just going tooo far - just drop the nofollows.

The rel=nofollow is something that only a handful of the users will ever notice, but the SEO types are sometimes responsible to implement your script on their sites and they might be worried about something like that if it always highlights in pink with a red dotted border (at least that's my setting). Also, you never know when a browser like Firefox will start highlighting nofollow'ed links by default: to show the user that those links are not to be trusted (if I had my way, that's what it would be doing, but that's another subject).

One thing I'm also not so sure about ... is the design of the logo text/graphic ... it looks very "simplicic", it seems (to me -- as an absolute non-designer) to be lacking a bit of polish, a dash of "power". I really can't put it into words (and again, I am an engineer not a designer ).

I hope it helps! I really like the new design!

John

PS any reason you're not including Slashdot?

PPS how about a simple way for the users to suggest other "social" sites? That way they would keep you informed instead of you having to notice that there are new sites out there. Perhaps a last link with "Your favorite site" that leads to a feedback form.

[eKstreme]

Apologies for the (very) slow reply on this. I did all of the changes suggest above except two:

1. The links are still hard-coded. There is (was) a reason for that, but it will go into a database/loop soon I did take a look at the spacing issue and I thought I fixed it. Not too stressed about it as it will be re-coded anyway.

2. Logo design: I know, but I can't place my finger on it either. Keep an eye out though - you never know when it will change

Pierre

[25k]

Hi

Nice idea.

Your new design already looks a lot better than the old one.

I would strongly suggest to left align the text - not aligning it makes it look untidy and unreadable.

Why is the text above the banner not aligned with the banner. Either center or left align the banner, but at the moment it is just floating.

Also try adding line seperators (grey, thin 1 px) as this will seperate the text and make it more readable.

My initial impression of the page was to click out as there was too much going on - too much text and not readable.

Try cutting down the text and tidy the page up a bit. Remember, web writing is short and to the point - people make up their mind about your site in the first 2 seconds - most people will click out before taking 2 minutes to read what your site is about.

Just my 2c.

[stinhambo]

I think I prefer the old version! The padding is much better there which makes the site more readable...

Also the light blue of your headers doesn't break up the paragraphs well enough.

The logo is a huge improvement though!

[Jozian]

Pierre-

I didnt give you any feedback on your site earlier, because I wanted to play with your functionality first. Finally able to do so and I really like the service.

I'm just starting some blog and article marketing for a client and will be using Socializer 2.0 a lot.

Only real suggestion I can make is this: Your functionality page and main page are one in the same... Imagine you are doing this to build traffic and page rank. If so, you might or might not like the suggestion below. Or maybe you can still accomplish both somehow

I think your 'Function page', the one hit when someone clicks a Socializer link in a site or blog, should go to a smaller, cleaner page for the selection of the service. I mocked up what I was thinking below:



-Jeff