«
»

Subtle Site Improvements

February 22nd, 2010

Thinking about improving the user interface of this site, I did a couple of minor adjustments over the weekend which I thought I’d share. Basically I focused on how the left menu with all the posts works (accessible by pressing CTRL). The improvement is that an open left menu navigation is now persistent across pages, which allows for easier browsing of posts. The left menu now also focuses to the selected post when opening. Finally, the menu does not come into view when pressing CTRL while typing inside a textbox or input box (users can still press CTRL twice to force the menu to open in such a situation).

I also visually brought out the two ways to subscribe to the site in the top right hand corner by means of stronger Twitter and RSS icons. Oh right, and also added an easier way to retweet directly by means of the TweetMeme WP plugin.

Just thought to share and perhaps hear out what other ideas for improving this site readers might have. Feel free to comment here or add ideas to the uservoice page.

Cheers,
Jakub

Posted in Announcements | 8 Comments »

8 Responses to “Subtle Site Improvements”

  1. Jackson Says:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 3:23 pm

    Very cool! I never noticed the 'Ctrl' navigation until this post.

  2. Jorn Says:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 3:31 pm

    Like the idea, but it is confusing to have the feedback label on the left there as well.. I would suggest you move that somewhere else

  3. Jessica Says:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 10:38 am

    How would anyone think to press CTRL for the menu? And what about when I’m viewing the site on my iPhone?

  4. wjc Says:
    February 22nd, 2010 at 10:07 pm

    Switch the 'feedback' tab for 'Open Menu [ctrl]' just in case users can't work out that they have to press ctrl

    Remember – lowest common demoninator!

  5. Jakub Linowski Says:
    February 23rd, 2010 at 5:19 am

    @Jessica & @wjc, I agree. I'll have to rework that a bit. Thanks for the feedback.

  6. Matteo Says:
    February 23rd, 2010 at 8:16 am

    Agree with Jorn, Jessica and wjc, I would probably swap the feedback button with "Press CTRL for all posts" on the right.

    But overall very nice improvements! Keep up the good work

  7. Deon Says:
    February 23rd, 2010 at 8:55 am

    Why not have a button next to feedback, that says menu? That would make more sense to me, as pressing control. Also, labeling it as 'Press ctrl for all Posts' as the instruction, and not labeling the menu at the top as 'All Posts', makes it confusing as the cause action is momentarily disconnected. Use it, don't use it.

  8. Ryana Says:
    March 1st, 2010 at 4:49 am

    I love the feedback button, and the fixed ad on the right.

    The feedback button is so outstanding, and I think it is better to use on the product/enterprise site.

    Ctrl to show/hide all posts is cool! If the hint is displayed at left side, it could get more intuition.