Global Voices Online has a spangly new design.
In other Global Voices news, they are seeking bridge bloggers. I do what I can of that, but as I mention time and time again, I am all but illiterate when it comes to Russian. (The gist I get, but the finer points I miss.)
I hope to get more active with Global Voices once I am resettled out west. To that end, I need to beef up my former USSR and Eastern Europe blogroll. Suggestions would be grand! I know there is quite a bit of lively discussion in online forums as well. Anyone have any good suggestions for those?
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I find GVO’s new design distracting and difficult to read.
Hi Katy,
Could you please elaborate? I spent alot of time making sure of the opposite and I would very very much like to hear what I could do to make sure it is not distracting or difficult to read.
Thank you!
I understand what you’re saying. I’m no big fan of three-column layouts, and especially not a fan of that use of the three-colum layout. I’d almost rather see the blog and roundups only on their own pages. Single post pages are still good.
However, I should say that this is one of the better three-columns I’ve seen. I do get what’s going on and can read the stuff. Not as distracting as some I’ve seen.
Boris, fwiw, I do think that for putting all that info on one page, you did a helluva great job.
Nathan,
Thanks. I tried very hard to make that middle column as unintrusive as possible. It works quite well in browsers other than Internet Explorer, where the column is actually totally muted gray until you roll over individual Roundup posts. In IE, that feature was not possible to carry though.
The separation of round ups from regular weblog entries was seen as necessary since… they are different in nature.
Thanks again for the feedback.
(I just saw your firefox badge down at the bottom.
)
It works. It definitely stands head and shoulders above other three column layouts. It’s just a little different at first. Once one gets used to it, it definitely does the job.
And, ugghhh, I hate having to worry about how IE handles things! It was always a nightmare with my old design.
I agree, Nathan, 3 columns is really busy. I use Firefox on both a PC and a Mac and it was hard to read in both.
I also don’t like the Global updates on the side bar.
It looks nice, but difficult to read.
Nathan, thanks a bunch. yeah … “the IE factor”.
Katy: Global Voices is busy.. they have alot of content and alot of stuff and we have to make it as easy to find as possible… Separating the Global roundups was for clarity’s sake, as they are sort of the main focus of the Global Voices project (while still needing to remain as “blog-like” as possible for regular blogging stuff).
I understand you find it difficult to read but perhaps you could elaborate on “why” that is? Is the font too small? Perhaps you have your monitor resolution set very high (I do too on one of my monitors and I find it hard to read there)? Too many colors?
I am very interested in hearing your feedback ont his. Thank you.
There is SO much text on the page. The font is fine, the colors are a bit bright. But it is the quantity.
I used to teach internet search skills to 1st time users – many of whom were disabled, had limited mental capacity, and many who were not native English speakers.
They were always overwhelmed by pages like Yahoo or About.com with all of the text. Google.com was sometimes tough for them even.
With Global Voices wanting to be as accessable as possible, I think that simple is best, at least in my opinion.
Right now I have 5 different monitors before me (ack!), all with different resolutions. It seems just as “busy” in all of them.
Hi Katy,
Thanks for taking the time to answer.
I’m taking what you say very much seriously. We do however need to balance all kinds of considerations here. What you’ve said I have definitely taken note of. Thank you again.
Nathan – re suggestions for your former USSR and Eastern Europe blogroll: though it’s not really a blog, Yezhednevnyi Zhurnal has an RSS feed and some of the best independent analysis of current affairs in Russia, Europe and the world that’s available online. It beats most of the Russian-language blogs I’ve seen.
http://www.ej.ru
The blogroll of Siberian Light was as up to date as I could make it as of a couple of months ago, although it will probably need another update fairly soon, so that might help you out a little with your research.
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