Reading Habits »
As you all should know, I'm in the process of redesigning things. It must be something in the air, at least for people named David (1, 2). Though my name isn't David, I'm still working on mine. Anyway, I haven't changed much in the last month or so, while trying to determine if I like the new look or not. I think I do, which means I can't really use that as an excuse anymore. Now the problem is the rest of the site.
Specifically, the monthly, daily, category and individual archives. I'm not sure what to do with them. Rather, I'm sure what to do with them (that is to say that I'd like to keep them), but I'm not sure of the best way to rework them. So I'm wondering about reading habits.
Looking at my stats, I see that nearly 50% of my traffic comes through an RSS reader. Which is great. I use one too, and I don't have a problem with that at all. It's just that none of that traffic can see the site itself. So if you read through an aggregator, you can safely ignore the rest (or visit the site to let me know your thoughts).
Jeremy talked about losing his blogroll the other day, which I think I'll do. I removed it from the front page, and I think I like the look. Moreover, I haven't updated it for a while, and I generally seem to link to things I like, so if you keep up, you'll be able to tell who I read. So that was easy enough. I think where I'm stuck is on the formatting of the pages - namely the monthly and category archives, which can get pretty big. The daily archives and individual ones aren't generally too bad, since they have maybe 5 entries at most.
Those larger archives are the ones that really pile up the entries, especially over time, and thus result in these incredibly unwieldy pages that just don't seem to work quite right. So while I'm tossing ideas around, feel free to add a comment and let me know your thoughts - on the new design, on the old design, or on any design at all. What I'd especially like to know is how you read through entries if you visit the site.
That is to say, do you like to have a list of entries on the side that you can click through? A list at the top? Simple next entry/previous entry links on the entry itself? How do you determine what you will read? Do you even visit the archives, or do you simply scroll the main page to see what you've missed? Do you like to read backwards (from the most recent back) or forwards (from the oldest forward)? Any insight you can add to the process would be great. Thanks for your help.
Comments (6)
Despite my husband's pressure, I have not gone to reading blogs via RSS, I still do it the old fashioned way...one at a time. That being said, I usually do not visit your archives, or many links. When I get to your site I scroll down to the last post I read and work my way up. I like how your posts shrink, but are still visible, with the newest at full length(ish) at the top.
My method probably isn't the most popular, but I thought I'd add my $0.02.
Posted by rebecca on December 1, 2004 12:02 PM
I recently redesigned our larger archive pages (monthly and category pages), so that for the first N entries it shows the complete entry, and for the rest it just shows a shorter link with no excerpt or anything. e.g.:
http://prwdot.org/?p=archives/cat_books
or
http://prwdot.org/?p=archives/2004_11
As far as how I use your site:
* I read all new entries through Bloglines.
* If I want to read a recent entry again after I've already read it in Bloglines, I just go to your main page and find the entry, and read it there.
* If I want to look at something you said in a blog entry in the past, rather than look through archives, I simply use the search feature to find what I'm looking for.
* If I'm looking for something related to one of your software products, I use the Software link and click onto the appropriate index page.
* I don't use your archives to browse through past entries.
Posted by Peter on December 1, 2004 2:06 PM
Not completely related, but when you fix your templates, could you remove the comment count for your feeds? They keep on comming up saying there is new information, but when I look for new inforamation, there isn't any. I finally noticed that the comment count goes up.
I read everything I can from the feed. If I like what I read, I will go to the site to see if the feed is missing any details.
Posted by Mike Wills on December 1, 2004 3:31 PM
Mike:
I don't know if Chad's reasoning is the same as mine, but I have comment counts in my feed too.
The reason I do this is that not everyone subscribes to my comments feed, and I want those people to be aware of when my entries receive new comments. The comment count updating forces the feed to update. Other than encouraging people to subscribe to my comment feed, I haven't found a more elegant way to accomplish this.
Posted by Peter on December 1, 2004 4:40 PM
Take a look at Optimal Desktop with its tabbed matrix interface. I guarantee that once you use it you will never go back to a linear, or even tree based indexing.
We all face the problem of managing hundreds of links, especially over time stuff piles up. There is also consideration for sharing your links and re-designing the order of things to optimize it for what you are doing at the time. Optimal Desktop makes all of this possible.
I think we have solved a lot of information management problems on the desktop. Take a look and let me know what you think. Here is a flash demo of how I manage over 250 feeds in one cabinet file.
http://www.optimalaccess.com/en/Flash/ManagingFeeds.htm
You can download a 30 day trial from htt://www.optimalaccess.com
Posted by Karan on December 1, 2004 5:40 PM
While I know the topic was "reading habits", and specifically the reading habits of the readers of blogs, the question was about how people read my blog specifically. And not offline or through an aggregator of any sort, but how they use the web site. Unfortunately, Karan, your answer, as interesting as it may or may not be, doesn't address that issue.
As such, I'm tempted to delete your comment as spam. But I'll leave it, since it is at least remotely related and I have no reason to believe that it was intentional spam. But to anyone else who is reading and thinking of commenting - please try to address the post. Thanks.
Posted by Chad Everett on December 2, 2004 11:50 AM