Comments on: Global Voices Relaunch

By: Andy

Andy — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 10:11:39 +0000

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.

By: David McDuff

David McDuff — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 23:23:00 +0000

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

By: Boris Anthony

Boris Anthony — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 20:46:18 +0000

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.

By: Katy

Katy — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 19:24:05 +0000

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.

By: Boris Anthony

Boris Anthony — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 18:53:11 +0000

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.

By: Katy

Katy — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 17:45:40 +0000

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.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 17:28:35 +0000

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.

By: Boris Anthony

Boris Anthony — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 17:20:46 +0000

(I just saw your firefox badge down at the bottom. )

By: Boris Anthony

Boris Anthony — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 17:20:02 +0000

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.

By: Nathan

Nathan — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 17:14:32 +0000

Boris, fwiw, I do think that for putting all that info on one page, you did a helluva great job.