Blog aggregation site - Crits welcome

aido179

Hi guys,
I'm a 3rd year I.T. student in NUIG and I've been working on this site for a couple of months as a personal side project.

The idea is to provide a way for blogs across all blog service providers to connect and be compared fairly with the final aim to provide a non-biased service for writers and readers alike to get exposure and enjoy great blogs.

Well that's the idea anyway. I was hoping a few of my class mates would take a look first, however exams are next week and they have other things on their minds at the mo. I would really appreciate a quick look and some feedback. If there is anything I should change, or that isn't working or is blatently stupid, please let me know.

The homepage for alpha testing is blogify.org/design.php. You can't upload anything yet unless you are set up as an alpha tester, which I would be more than happy to do for anyone wishing to try it out. Send me a pm.

Criticism more than welcome.

mahamageehad

Hi.

Nice idea, i hope it works out for you!

A few quick initial thoughts-

The blog posts by the poster "Aido" don't actually work- you can't click into them. However the posts by AndrewBuckleyXI do work.

I would also look at the spacing around the names. AndrewBuckleyXI is a little too long and it has no padding on the right hand side, it's touching the bar.
You should also only have one h1 element per page!

Why have you decided to go without a navigation bar, just out of curiosity?

Sign up page also leads to a 404 error, you should probably have a custom 404 page as well.

aido179

I was beginning to worry about the lack of feedback...maybe I'm just paranoid.

mahamageehad, Thanks for the reply and the feedback.

I'm sort of perplexed that you can't get into those posts. I've never had a problem clicking through, and I've done it since I read your post to check and I can't reproduce the error...Hmm...

The names will more than likely be resized, it is something I've had on my mind (and its such a quick thing to change) however I've decided to leave the CSS to a colleague. I'll put it on his gripe list.

Re the navigation bar, I hate putting them in and then struggling to make them look like they are useful. Also, I wanted to try a slightly new layout to the millions of sites out there. Would you say the site is still navigable?

I'd missed the signup 404. I had a js alert just to mention signup is unavailable. The signup is next on my list so don't worry, that will be resolved before beta.

Thanks for the feedback again.
If anybody else has feedback or questions I'd be glad to answer them.

mahamageehad

aido179 wrote: »

I was beginning to worry about the lack of feedback...maybe I'm just paranoid.

mahamageehad, Thanks for the reply and the feedback.

I'm sort of perplexed that you can't get into those posts. I've never had a problem clicking through, and I've done it since I read your post to check and I can't reproduce the error...Hmm...

The names will more than likely be resized, it is something I've had on my mind (and its such a quick thing to change) however I've decided to leave the CSS to a colleague. I'll put it on his gripe list.

Re the navigation bar, I hate putting them in and then struggling to make them look like they are useful. Also, I wanted to try a slightly new layout to the millions of sites out there. Would you say the site is still navigable?

I'd missed the signup 404. I had a js alert just to mention signup is unavailable. The signup is next on my list so don't worry, that will be resolved before beta.

Thanks for the feedback again.
If anybody else has feedback or questions I'd be glad to answer them.

Well I still can't click into those posts, I'm using Firefox 3.6.16 on Mac. Hmm I've just tried it in Safari and it seems ok. Weird. Maybe an overlay is blocking it in firefox or something. I'm getting the rollover effect but it's not even recognising it as a link- the pointer stays an arrow instead of changing to a hand.

Yes the site is still navigable at the minute, but I just wonder if it takes of and you have hundreds of blogs how you intend people to be able to find content relevant to them?

Yup it's pretty hard to get feedback in here, I imagine it's not the most visited forum! And I often want advice myself so I try to be as helpful to others as possible so that hopefully karma will return the favour!

aido179

I'll have to research that issue further.

I've done a lot of thinking about that. My first idea is to go and make the "Blog Roll" the main content finding feature, and logged in users can narrow down their desired topics from their account control panel.

The second idea I will also probably implement in the future is links to all categories bringing you to a page listing the top posts in those categories but I want to do that down where the little cat emoticon is. Hopefully this will emphasize the content of the actual posts on the page, instead of links.

I've seen plenty of sites similar to this and every single one makes it impossible to tell the content from descriptions or advertisements.

I tried posting in a few threads here before posting this one (and after) to hopefully get some attention but I reckon a lot of people come to show off their site and then feck off after they get what they want

zig

- for the "what is the blog roll" hover, it would be better if either a: you didnt have to click it for the explanation to come up, or b: you had to click it like it is there, but hovering over the mouse would at least indicate its a link. Only saying it because I hovered my mouse over it twice and clicked on the main blogroll link before actually realizing I was supposed to click on the writing "what is the blogroll?" Yes Im a bit dumb, but remember you want thing to be ridiculously easy for people.

- Im still not too sure what the site ACTUALLY 100% does, people submit blogs and others read them and vote? and basically all the high votes make it to the front page?

- I know you dont want a nav bar for originality but maybe add a link or something, just to lay out exactly what the site does and how it works, I read you post on it, but its a small bit vague and more of your future dream for it rather than what to do right now.

-sign up link wont work ....Error occurred: 404 - not found

Apache Server at: d1137887.cp.blacknight.com // BOS Media

-submit button just takes me to http://www.blogify.org/post.php?post=173, dunno if thats intentional

- I like your well written/interesting thing, its simple and effective, I think it would be nicer to have a better font there though, it looks slightly unprofessional.

- I like the background colour and the main header font etc

- I think you should include more in the preview of each post on the main page, "Ive spent a huge amount of time..." is very little to get an idea what you are about to read.

- regarding submitting a blog, do many regular casual bloggers know or use their rss url?


Anyway , sorry didnt mean to sound like im bashing it, I like it, just spotting all the things I think are worth pointing out, cause its a nice idea!

aido179

Zig, Thanks a load. Don't worry about being harsh.

I'll go through each of your points and just explain how I plan to fix it.

-The blog roll button explanation is actually a slight bug. It *should* glow orange to indicate it is a link, however it only does that after it has been clicked once, basically I edited the js and forgot to edit the html. I'll fix it for the next update. I might also add a little down arrow to indicate more info without the mouse over.

-On the nav bar. I'm re-thinking the idea, though I might do it like a tree on the right under the blog roll or even in the orange info box in the main content area. There is a need for that visual indication of the layout/function.

-That 404 on sign up is something i hadn't noticed. It'll be fixed at the next update. when registration is opened.

-The submit is also something I didn't notice. slight oversight on my part as I was testing signed in the whole time. add that to the list.

-voting will be beautified, I just tried to get it working instead of looking good. thanks

-Thanks again. I posted a link to an art based board and some people suggested it looked too flat, I may add some colour conflict.

-Working on getting more information to show up there.

-I would have thought most people could find it but there will also be a "Copy paste" submit option also.

God I love good feedback! haha. There hasn't been any work on it over the last two weeks (ish) as I've had exams. Thankfully they are over now. so I should get most of these things done before the 24th.