Visual Novel Aer Blog

[sanahtlig]

Hello, I've been lurking around Aaeru's blog for a while now, and I thought I'd come out of the shadows to comment on the recent changes. I was looking around for Aaeru's useful post about VN compatibility with Windows 8, and after a while of failed searching realized that the old blog had disappeared into the void of Wordpress.

My difficulty finding the post I was searching for points to one of two problems: either the post is gone (recovery failed), or it's just unexpectedly hard to find using the new layout / search functions.

I also wanted to provide some constructive criticism on the new blog layout. I hate it. Just kidding. But seriously, the blog is really tough to browse in its current state. A blog is a database. While it should ideally be attractive, more importantly essential features need to be prominently located, and browsing posts should be quick and efficient. The search bar should be at the top of the page, not the bottom. Consecutive posts should be abbreviated by default to headlines or small blurbs (which are clicked on to see the full post); this conserves spatial real estate. These are the problems that jump out at me right now. Going beyond basic functionality, a tag system and word cloud would be nice.

[Guest]

hey thanx for the feedback

that blue sidebar is just incomprehensible, it isn't a normal sidebar where i can put widgets on it. ideally i want the search bar to go there AND a categories system, but i dont know how to... the theme doesnt support it

i think u have to code it in, and that's beyond me.

the windows 8 post is probably gone.... when we ported the old posts into the new one, a lot of them didn't make the transition (for some reason). i have them all backed up, ill try to dig it up and repost.

prefer the system of not having to click on a post in order to see full post, bcuz that's one more click. the ideal number of clicks for me is 0.

i think the black bit at the bottom is too long... but i can't think of much of a way to reduce it. it's already the bare minimal.

I guess it could have a Find Older posts/Archive method, maybe ill add that. but likewise, it'll have to be at the bottom where it'll be useless.

I agree it's not anything like a metanorn or a randomc or an emptyblue, i actually picked this theme because of the minimalistic style. And the tradeoff is that it isn't nearly feature-rich enough.

[sanahtlig]

Thanks for reposting the missing Windows 8 post.

"Click-less" browsing seems great in theory...but your posts are ordered on separate pages, which means we have to click anyway--and the more posts you can fit on a page, the less pages you need = less clicks required. Another problem with the current format is that you have many posts that are really long and have many images. This increases page load times. Assigning a fixed amount of space to each post on the front page also makes it easier to locate posts / topics of interest, similar to how a table of contents functions. Finally, I think most people would rather click than scroll--and scrolling is harder mechanically on the hand (I'm more aware of this than most due to my bouts with wrist / tendon problems).

There's a lot of advantages to condensing posts for display on front pages--which is why most of the Web does it. The current layout is optimized for reading from "front to cover"--but that's not how most people consume blogs. Most people want to sift through and read a few particular posts.

I'm a fan of the previous layout as it was on Wordpress (which included condensed post display). But if you're still not convinced, try polling your users.