You can now write to me more easily. A comment box automatically appears with any message you select to read. Then you can simply start typing a ‘Reply’. You don’t need a password.
5 Replies to “Making it easy to Comment”
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I like the new layout and the ability to comment is now made much easier. I hope you’ll get alot of feedback and discussion to help you with your research. I look forward to reading and seeing the development of this blogsite.
It’s good to have your comment Ti, a sign that the new layout is working for someone. From your perspective as a designer, your comments on this Blog and on the antarcticanimation.com interface, are highly valued, and I will ask your advice from time to time.
For instance, last night I re-placed The Antarctic Dictionary definition for ‘katabatic’ in the Antarctic Thesaurus, making a link to Bernadette’s text under the word on the white page. Where to put that material had been unresolved up to that point. It was on the same pages as base worker’s responses, which didn’t ever seem right.
Do you agree that it works better to have the Dictionary definitions separated from the base workers and artist’s response in that way?
Hi Lisa.
Yeap, new format is more streamlined. There’s no duplication of information as well. As mentioned when we last spoke, a blog is like reading a book, you don’t want to turn the page of a book and re-read the previous pages content.
Positioning the comments icon below the blog entry is a great way to entice people to respond. Making it as similar to a face-t-face conversation as possible will, as well, entice people to put forward their thoughts.
As for the thesaurus. Yes, having the definition within the text/ blog can be a mouth full. I like that there is a thesaurus, so that others can look up words. If you’ve used the word in a sentence, turn the word into a link and link it to the thesaurus. Quick way for people to grab definitions.
Possibly, the introductory paragraph of your thesaurus under ‘antartic language’ needs to be tighter. In my opinion, the paragraph should start with, ‘The landscape is so alien that a completely specialized vocabulary is needed to decribe it. This dictionary documents….’
The reader is immediately introduced to the purpose of the thesaurus.
Also, if you have time, you should check out droog’s website. They are a design company. Their website is quite nice and they have taken the idea of weblinks to an extreme (a social comment about how people are hyperlinking everything and readers getting lost in hyperlink world). It is done very well. Both the execution of the idea and the concept. Also The Age has an ongoing blogsite, check out how they have formatted their blogs.
Im sure designning the layout of this blog is not your first priority, but if you find your theme and layout and look at the beginning then you don’t have to worry about it later.
A good design method is to take an A4 paper and drawyeach page out within a square and describe what each square is going to represent (or what is happening in that square). The squares represent each page of your blog and allows you to physically grasp the path and the interaction of each facet of your blog.
Hope this helps.
PS your stay was very short, are you still in Melbourne?
Hi Ti,
I appreciate your eye on the Blog design thus far., and will certainly look into all your comments. Yes, it was a short trip to Melbourne this time. Learned a lot from the National Folk Festival, surprisingly, about editing. A good acts has only what it needs!
Droog: http://www.droogdesign.nl/
…does have a clean interface, and the options to search entries Alphabetically or by Date is something I have been looking into for the Antarctic Thesaurus. I am aiming to keep the code Java-free however, sticking to .htms and .phps. I enjoyed the black vertical slider.
Following your suggestion, I’ve just started placing some sound files into the thesaurus:
http://www.antarcticanimation.com/content/thesaurus/a/Aurora01.php
The voice really needs to be that of the writer. I’ve been having some trouble with a new sound recorder I’ve recently bought (Zoom H4), but that’s all fixed now. Now I just need to finish transcribing the script, and make another trip to Melbourne to record the man.
Also, I’m playing with making a wide format page for the animated entries, but there’s still some work to be done on the css (style sheet0 regarding font sizes, colours and placements. The bigger, plain white page is more evocative of the Antarctic!
See:
http://www.antarcticanimation.com/content/thesaurus/i/iceforming01.php