Loomio
Tue 23 Oct 2018 1:10PM

Feedback, improvement ideas about the new look RChain Blog

SR Suku Roy Public Seen by 169

We would like to capture and consolidate ideas and feedback on how to improve the new blog. This could be related to design elements(including branding), navigation, bug reports, etc

A

AyAyRon-P Tue 23 Oct 2018 5:13PM

I took a look at the blog and I have a few comments:

1) Recommend creating a different lock up for the BLOG.
- In it's current state it doesn't have the proper clear space around the RChain lockup.
- I would suggest doing a divider line in the light grey PMS and use the word BLOG in the dark gray PMS

2) The elements seem rather large to me
- Top carousel takes up 60% of the page when I open it
+ The topics in the carousel are CTAs not articles, was this done intentionally? This would confuse most visitors in my opinion
+ This should go at the bottom of the page or be a sub-nav headline banner
- The 2nd carousel should be the first thing we see on this page with it's high level headlines and eye-catching imagery. This should be followed by Top Posts and finally older tetris articles.

3) All Articles section does not have a search bar
- I see the search bar in the top right corner, but there is a disassociation with what and where it's searching
- Could we add filter drop downs?
+ Recently published
+ By Author
+ By interest- Community, Developer, Ecosystem, Events
+ By tags

4) Become a RChain Validator
- This graphic area here is where I would put 1 and all of it's CTA graphics and links

5) Is there a place to add LinkedIn feed next to or around the Tweets?

6) Join Our Newsletter and Footer would look better at reduced size

SR

Suku Roy Wed 24 Oct 2018 2:15PM

1) Adding the word blog with clearspace after the logo- Point taken Aaron. This will be done
2) Large elements and prominence of the first carousel- This was a considered business call. Given where we are in terms of business development, we decided we needed to place these CTA's front and center. This is especially true for the validator and learn Rholang CTA. Having said that, i do see your point about the size. We could consider decreasing it.
3)Search Bar Position- This is the norm across most blogs where the search bar is fairly inconspicuous and placed right at the top nav bar. We are assuming this is what our audience(most of whom are savvy internet users) are used to
Filter drop downs- The blogs as of now are in chronological order(most recent first). We can accommodate a total of 9 posts per page. The reason why we don't have drop downs is for a cleaner UI. Clicking on the subcats(community, developer, Ecosystem, events) filters posts. Clicking on author name pulls up each bio page and list of contributions. Filtering by tags is a good idea. Point taken.
4) Do you mean the on the top right? Or the CTA carousel? Could you help explain this ask better?

5) We currently have the youtube and twitter posts synced. These have been our most successful mediums in terms of traffic source. Adding Linkedin might make it a) repetitive- content wise b) create clutter
6) reducing size of newsletter and footer is a good idea. Will have to check if the theme permits it

A

AyAyRon-P Wed 24 Oct 2018 4:43PM

1) Let me know if you'd like me to propose some lockup options

2) Understandable, thank you for considering size reduction

3a) What is distracting to me are all the other links at the top related to various RChain sites. If you look at other blog sites like Medium, their search bar is by itself on the right side and when clicked the search expands out. Reddit's search bar takes up the middle portion of it's top nav bar with no competing elements at that level. What if we did something similar. Move the search bar to the middle and perhaps highlight it with a red stroke around it? That would allow the RChain related sites to be right justified and not competing in the same space.

3b) I understand your reasoning for the filters. Coming late to the party I figured I missed some early UI/UX discussions but glad that the idea was well received.

4) Certainly, the area I'm referencing is the the CTA at the very bottom, directly below the <- 1..2..3..4...5..-> article navigation, and above the JOIN THE NEWSLETTER graphic

5) After thinking further on it and seeing your feedback, I agree.

6) Sounds good

SR

Suku Roy Wed 24 Oct 2018 5:24PM

1) We've taken the recommended clear space into account and moved the word 'blog' to the right. Have a look at the blog and let me know what you think. We tried using a grey PMS delineator but it wasn't looking great
2) The size of the CTA section has been reduced. You can now see the top of the posts above the fold
3a) The idea behind placing the social icons in the center was also to drive up subscribers. We felt social media needed a more prominent real-estate. Presently, if you click on the search icon, the remaining tabs disappear and the search bar appears. IMH it should suffice. Not sure how important the search functionality is.
6)We're working on using tags as a filter

A

AyAyRon-P Wed 24 Oct 2018 6:28PM

1) Can we use evenly distributed spacing between RChain the delineator and the word BLOG? See attached image.

2) CTA size reduction is much cleaner, nice!

3a) I think there was a misunderstanding, I meant to say have a centered below subscribe icons, see attached image.

SR

Suku Roy Wed 24 Oct 2018 6:41PM

1) I think this might work. Lets give this a whirl!2) Its great iterating with you
3) Not sure about this Aaron. Still prime real estate just for the search bar. Its too prominent and central for a function which isn't used very often for a site that would have 500 articles in a year. And even if they did, the search icon should suffice. Medium/Reddit would need more emphasis on the search bar given the volume of information that's available. Navigation would not work for them. For us, it easily would.

P.S- Thanks for the illustrative examples. They definitely helped my understanding.

A

AyAyRon-P Wed 24 Oct 2018 7:33PM

1) Thank you for entertaining my curiosity

2) Likewise! This has been incredibly productive, thank you again for inviting me to the thread!

3) Being such prime real estate - do you think this would be a good spot for banner CTA? The reason I put it there was that the space wasn't being used, but I clearly see your reasoning for it. Again this was a thought for functionality similar to Leah's request for high level search/accessibility.

P.S. Absolutely - if that's easiest moving forward I'll continue with mocking up suggestions and edits

L

Leah Wed 24 Oct 2018 5:42PM

I thought we agreed we would have drop downs. I think it will frustrate users not to have it. It frustrates me, especially when I can't remember which menu item things are under. Lots of extra unnecessary clicks when I could just hover and find things quickly.

SR

Suku Roy Wed 24 Oct 2018 6:09PM

IMO this makes for a cleaner UI. Also most of the terms we discussed are largely internal. Can't imagine a visitor needing additional drop downs. I think 5 larger buckets works better. Also not sure if this theme supports dropdowns (not that that was the limiting factor)

A

AyAyRon-P Wed 24 Oct 2018 7:34PM

Are we going to add a Favicon? Right now it's just a blank white page icon. Just a quick fix that would help with branding.