Ways to make RECENT POSTS even better

[chrisgiz]

LOVE this site, what a terrific community!

Some of us still use the scrolling wheel on their mouse, so here's my humble suggestion:


Under New posts -> recent posts (one of the best parts of this site IMHO)

What would you think of making the default number of posts per page to at least 50. Of course 100 would be much better, or perhaps the technology used on the site makes it possible to have this as an option for those of us who are registered (50, 100, 200, 500 per page, etc.)?

Also, doubling the width of the "title" column would make the page more legible and user-friendly (about 40% of the page is blanl on my wide-screen 22" monitor.)

Don't forget, the more "clicks" one has to go through on a site, the less page 2, 3, 4 etc. are visited! I think these small changes would make using this part of the site much more effective. In turn, it's likely that many more contributions would be made.

Hope this helps!

[chris.p]

This is Gizmo's territory but I'm not sure if he reads all the boards here, and I haven't got the energy to email him. I doubled the entries per page to 50.

This is a Drupal CMS so that stuff is one click >> done. But someone will probably complain and say it's done this or done that to their whatever

It's not an individually-controllable option I'm afraid, it's set for all.

Screen width: there are basically two ways to run a site, fixed width and fluid. If you set the page to fixed width, it has to be set to the max width of the smallest commonly-used screen. The industry in general has just ditched the 800px monitor width as the minimum, and we use 1024px as the standard, as used on a 15" panel. If you set it higher then there will be a scrollbar at the bottom of the screen for many users, and that's probably the worst sin in web design.

The way round this is to set the page to 'fluid' width - it expands to fit the screen. But this is controlled by the template and our current one is not optimal, it's fixed. It's due for change but no one can agree on any aspect of it apparently... Using a fluid width brings in a bunch of design problems but if the page content is fairly simple, it can work.

A widescreen monitor seems a good idea but we have to cater for all users. Films and stuff will look good, but many websites are just text content so there is no benefit to going bigger and bigger - until you can display two browser pages side by side maybe. Also the text etc can appear tiny and it may be better to simply drop the resolution so everything is bigger - then at least you get some benefit from a big screen. Otherwise eventually you have a huge screen like a wonderwall, with a tiny bit of content in the middle.

Let's see a screenshot from your monitor, it would be interesting. If you post one, make it a zip, as the forum just turns any gfx into a postage stamp.

[chrisgiz]

Apologies for the late follow-up and thank you so much for your thoughtful reply.

Ditto for the prompt change to 50 posts, I feel it makes a big difference and now my scrolling wheel is again giving my middle right finger a great workout (those bulging muscles <g>!)

I found your technical explanations quite enlightening too. I wasn't surprised that 1024p is now the standard, but I was surprised that a 15" panel is considered the norm. Aside from a few businesses with very old monitors, I just haven't seen that size recently in home or at work.

FWIW the way I use my 22" widescreen monitor (res is 1680 X 1050, non-changeable as are apparently all LCDs) is this:

I have a slightly older version of the Maxthon browser which takes about 90% of my screen. I have 30-50 tabs (sites) open at any given time. The "bit of content in the middle" doesn't bother me at all, it's actually nice to have a feeling of spaciousness on a site from time to time, as opposed to the ridiculous MTV-like assault on the senses more and more sites seem to adhere to...

Not sure how to do a screenshot of your site but right now the Recent Posts page measurements are as follows (column widths, rounded to nearest inch):

left (blank) 3"
Get our latest freeware finds 2"
type .75"
title 3.5"
author 1.5"
replies .5"
last post 1"
right (blank) 3.5"

I can see how a more dynamic template would probably solve the issue of giving the actual Recent Posts (title) more room and better visibility, but it's no big shakes, really since the site looks so clean and pleasant.

Thanks again Chris!

PS I noticed an apparent increase in posts after you made the change to 50 per page, but maybe it's just an impression?

[chris.p]

Tnx for the update.

I think what's happening is that strangely, on your widescreen monitor, the site is smaller than on a 1024px 15" monitor. For example the left column (Get RSS feed at top) is 215px / 60mm / ~2 3/8 inch wide on a 15" screen,but smaller on yours I believe. Hmm.

If I opened 50 sites on Firefox it would crash immediately
Maxthon is obviously much more stable. It's a shame Firefox is so fragile, apart from that it's A1, the plugins make it 1000% better. A problem on any one tab on Ffx paralyses the whole thing. Oh well.

More hits: yeah, that would be good, fix something and get better results straight away... Well, sometimes it can work like that I guess, but usually it's a bit harder unfortunately. What's happening is that the site traffic is growing daily. Changing the forum for a better version gave us a big boost, and you can see the way that works by the fact that every week shows a higher 'most online at any one time' figure at the foot of the page. And the same applies everywhere on the site, it's growing week by week. Average 23,000 visits per day now, 25k some days.

Whenever one of the guys posts something cool, like 10 Best Ways To Get Free Money On The Net, we get a big spike, and some of that sticks.

[Jillian]

Originally Posted by chrisgiz

LOVE this site, what a terrific community!

Some of us still use the scrolling wheel on their mouse, so here's my humble suggestion:


Under New posts -> recent posts (one of the best parts of this site IMHO)

What would you think of making the default number of posts per page to at least 50. Of course 100 would be much better, or perhaps the technology used on the site makes it possible to have this as an option for those of us who are registered (50, 100, 200, 500 per page, etc.)?

Also, doubling the width of the "title" column would make the page more legible and user-friendly (about 40% of the page is blanl on my wide-screen 22" monitor.)

Don't forget, the more "clicks" one has to go through on a site, the less page 2, 3, 4 etc. are visited! I think these small changes would make using this part of the site much more effective. In turn, it's likely that many more contributions would be made.

Hope this helps!

Please , don't. That is just way , way too many. It is fine like it is. I am new here too. It gets downright boring when there is no end to scrolling.

[victor363]

Originally Posted by Jillian

Please , don't. That is just way , way too many. It is fine like it is. I am new here too. It gets downright boring when there is no end to scrolling.

Is it possible to include an option that allows user's to specify the number of threads viewed per page? This would mitigate the downside of of having never ending threads which is a higher bounce rate on people landing here from Google searches.

If you were doing a google search for something esoteric and came to a forum, which would you rather do: read 50 comment's in search for the answer google promised you, or read comment 40 to 50?

In regards to paragraph width, usability studies show that people tend to be intimidated by paragraphs of exceptional width. In Marketing Sherpa's 2008 landing page handbook, they actually recommend using column's if you need to cram data like this.

[chris.p]

No way for users to adjust the page display parameters of that type I'm afraid.

As you say, 50 posts is enough. But also you can see that there are directly opposing views here - some want 200 a page, some want 10. So the answer is you can't please everyone, you have to compromise, and 50 seems about right.

Yes, it's hard to find an item sometimes when you land on a big page. Tough when there's 5,000 words...

But the answer is simple: just do Cntrl+F, type your word/s, and up it pops. Couldn't be much easier.

However it's too hard for most people I guess, which is why there is an average 50% bounce rate across the Net, from search result landings. People are sent directly to the exact page they need, but the term they are looking for is below the fold, so they bounce.

The only way I can see around this, as people just leave if the item they want isn't in big letters at the top of the page, is to have a scripted interaction on the site, linked to the search engine, so that when people come to a site, the phrase they want is highlighted on the page. Even better, the page jumps down to that anchor, so then the phrase is highlighted and at the top of the page

Now that would be progress eh? And in theory it can be done on a CMS, it needs some heavy PHP but that's no sweat -

- get the referrer
[see if it's a search engine]
- get the search term
[it's available anyway, no problem]
- locate the phrase on the page
- highlight the phrase
- scroll the page to the anchor

...and bosh! Done.

OK I'll put that job out to Drupalancers / Elance for a Drupal / PHP coder

Wonder why nobody ever did it before though?

Hey and thanks for the idea Victor.

[victor363]

- get the referrer
[see if it's a search engine]
- get the search term
[it's available anyway, no problem]
- locate the phrase on the page
- highlight the phrase
- scroll the page to the anchor

That sound's like a great plan!

Will you be able to set the anchor on the page so that it corresponds to the description the person read's when clicking on the organic link in Google's SERP?

-Victor

[chris.p]

You don't want much do you?