As I continue with my plans to redesign this front page of the blog, I need to determine the usefulness of each of the items on it (apart from the blog entries themselves).
To that end, could as many people as possible respond to this question?
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The calendar
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List of the 20 most recent blog entries
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The link to the Bettnet Discussion Forum
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Link to the Bettnet Store
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The search box
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Link to the archives
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The blogroll
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Archive by summary
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CWNews ticker
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Bettnet for PDAs page
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RSS Feed
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Menubar (with link to my bio, email, list of other pages, photo gallery)
Which of the following items do you use on a regular basis? (or which would you miss if they were gone?)
If you were going to vote out the ads, sorry, but those help pay for keeping this thing going. Thanks.
I use the RSS Feed for my MyYahoo page and click the link to you blog when there are new items. The RSS Feed also shows new Forum posts so I check those if there is anything new. Other than that, I don’t use the rest of the stuff.
I think removing the following would be best:
2) List of the 20 most recent blog entries
Many if not all of the 20 most recent blog entries are on the homepage anyway.
9) CWNews Ticker
IMHO, tickers like this take up too much room and look too much like advertising. They never get my attention.
7) The Blogroll
With all the other content on your page, the blogroll would probably work better if it was on its own page, perhaps on a Links page. You could then add links to more of your favorite Catholic sites instead of just blogs. One less javascript item too.
Other thoughts:
1) The Calendar
Some people use them, many do not.
6) Link to Archives
Convert the list of months to a drop-down menu to save a *lot* of space.
3) The link to the Bettnet Discussion Forum
4) Link to the Bettnet Store
5) The search box
6) Link to the archives
8) Archive by summary
10) Bettnet for PDAs page
11) RSS Feed
12) Menubar (with link to my bio, email, list of other pages, photo gallery)
All of the above items could easily take a lot less space in a redesign. I think you should keep them all.
Final thoughts:
Move the Bettnet Blogtones to a links page along with the Blogroll, and get rid of the counter (no professional site has one). If you want to keep stats, you can keep the sitemeter image. Finally, as much as I love Macs, I’d get rid of the “pMachine powered” and “Powered by Mac” images.
I use RSS and couldn’t follow you without it (I already read too many blogs, using an RSS reader at least helps me organize it).
I personally don’t use: month calender, most recent, archive by summary, bettnet for pda.
The webrings display wrong on both IE and on the browser embedded in my RSS reader – it’s possible that the ‘center’ tag is causing it, possibly it’s defined with margins in the stylesheet.
The advertising scrolls off the right edge of my embedded browser too – it would be nicer if the Amazon one was below instead of next to the other. Also, because I trust amazon and not dyndns.org, IE prompts with a ‘do you want to allow this page to access the trusted domain’ for rcm.amazon.com box every time I open your page.
On loading your page, there’s a noticable lag that starts just before it displays the calendar – it could be server response time during php processing, or it could be loading images, I’m not sure.
I use the RSS feed (through Bloglines) though I notice that for each post it links to the PDA version. This isn’t necessary as I’m on a desktop. I like the blogroll and I think links to the Archives are important, though I haven’t used them recently. Last time I tried the search (a few months ago) the results were terribly jumbled and there was no logic to it – i.e. I couldn’t find anything in each result that seemed to correspond to my search terms. If I could remember what I was searching for I’d try to reproduce it.
I like:
9. CWNews ticker
5. The search box
7. The blogroll
3. The link to the Bettnet Discussion Forum
6. Link to the archives
12. Menubar (with link to my bio, email, list of other pages, photo gallery)
I don’t use, but would find extremely useful if I upgraded to the appropriate software on my end:
11. RSS Feed
10. Bettnet for PDAs page
I don’t use now, but might use if you restrict the size of the front page to save bandwidth (as many sites do):
1. The calendar
2. List of the 20 most recent blog entries
8. Archive by summary
I have never used (sorry):
4. Link to the Bettnet Store
Which of the following items . . .
This will be embarassing, but:
1. The calendar – uh, where is it?
2. List of the 20 most recent blog entries -no (don’t use)
3. The link to the Bettnet Discussion Forum -no
4. Link to the Bettnet Store- no
5. The search box -yes
6. Link to the archives yes
7. The blogroll -Huh?
8. Archive by summary- no
9. CWNews ticker- no
10. Bettnet for PDAs page- no
11. RSS Feed – another Huh?
12. Menubar (with link to my bio, email, list of other pages, photo gallery) – yes
And it’s a great blog!
This is the only blog that I read consistently, but, I have to admit, I don’t use any of the features. Just keep your great posts going, please!