Comments on: Footnotes on the footer

By: Josh

Josh — Wed, 15 Feb 2006 22:55:43 +0000

Hi John,

Love the site, and the footer is a good idea.

Just a few comments. Aesthetically, I think your indented "projects" are not looking as nice as they could. Perhaps distinguish them as a subcategory by use of colour, font, size or some other means. Because you are running a two column list, the indent is making things look a little messy.

Also in IE 6.0.2 (I know, I hate it too!) the footer doesn't quite fill the whole centre column of the page. Neither does your header (at 'Normal' text size). Ideally everyone should upgrade to Firefox, and that will happen about the time we broker peace in the middle-east. Until then, perhaps a few revisions to make it a little more cross-browser compatible?

Great site though, thanks for sharing the insider info with us plebs.

By: Jason Looney

Jason Looney — Sun, 12 Feb 2006 02:54:56 +0000

First and foremost, THANK YOU for putting the Go scripts online. They are an inspiration.

Now about those archives...

(I'm still using the default templates for my own site, but why should that stop me from commenting here?)

The footer looks great, but your posts get so many comments that I doubt most people would scroll far enough to find it. But, I really like that your design doesn't have a lot of clutter on the sides of each page. The average web site makes me nauseous these days -- there is just too much crap encircling each piece of content.

Maybe you could add a little bug at the bottom of all your posts that would take you to an anchor tag at the top of the archives section... but anchors can be confusing for a lot of users. Maybe you could put the entire archives section in an expand/collapse type thing... no, that would suck too.

I guess I can't think of anything better.

If you think I'm constructive with blog comments, you should see me with construction paper.

By: Anna

Anna — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 17:34:54 +0000

Great! The re-organization is the picture of clarity!

By: Devon DeLapp

Devon DeLapp — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 17:24:00 +0000

I, too, like the addition of the footer. I think your design reasoning is sound -- particularly that people in search of more would naturally scroll to the bottom of a page. Such a robust navigation in the footer, however useful, bucks the more typical "top, left, and/or right" navigation found on many sites, and there may be a portion of your audience that never wander far south enough to take advantage of it. Perhaps something "above the fold" could clue them in, such as an "Expanded Navigation" link (or something like that) included in the right menu bar that would drop to a target embedded in the footer?

Regardless, excellent addition!

By: gaijin

gaijin — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 12:18:08 +0000

i get your blog on my rss feed and came over to see the change and really like it. for one, it simply pulls my eye to the text of the most recent post, which ultimately is what's most important. i'm glad archives are more accessible.

on a completely unrelated note, i just read this article over at josh friedman's blog, and though very humorous, i also found it incredibly troubling and frankly, frightening as hell. i would love to hear your take on it.

By: Carby

Carby — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 11:08:42 +0000

Kudos! The footer information is brilliant! I wish more blogs were designed like this!

By: Erick Herring

Erick Herring — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 07:29:14 +0000

John,

I love reading your stuff, so I thought I would take a minute to find – and supply you with – a reference I thought you might be interested in.

It is for another weblog, Joel on Software, that did a redesign for many of the same reasons you did. I like his left column better than your footer. It might just be a taste thing, but I don’t think so; I think it’s a usability thing. Maybe you need both, as they have slightly different purposes. It’s certainly convenient to have everything in one easy-to-find place.

Joel’s main site is: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/ The article discussing the rationale of his redesign is: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/items/2005/10/30.html

Best of luck and thanks for your entertaining and informative writing.

By: Eric

Eric — Wed, 08 Feb 2006 23:04:53 +0000

I think it’s all good. I’m just glad the archives are easier to search now.

By: Colin Woodward

Colin Woodward — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 21:43:16 +0000

I usually read your articles via the RSS feed, but the footer encourages me to read your older articles that I may have missed. I find the catagory listing quite useful. Yes, I likes it.

By: Warren Hsu Leonard

Warren Hsu Leonard — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 21:03:20 +0000

I like the redesign. Just spent some time navigating through the archives, and found the process simple and efficient. And I don't think that it's a problem listing archive categories on the bottom of each page. Readers that are interested will use it, and those that aren't just won't scroll down that far on the page. Also, it's nice having your off-topic links readily available. I tended to forget to go to that section when it was on its own page.

Overall, I think the entire redesign raises the bar for the rest of us using Wordpress. Now I have to roll up my sleeves and get busy with my own site redesign.

Glad you kept that mysterious hanging brad, though!

By: Dylan

Dylan — Tue, 07 Feb 2006 20:27:24 +0000

I’ve made use of the footer already – I was writing an informal essay on a Zavattini article for my screenwriting course and thought something you said would be a valuable quotation. Hope you don’t mind.