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by donohoe
4746 days ago
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I can't reply directly, but in reference to: huge fixed banner at the top of the page, and a fixed sidebar.
I see what you mean - but I don't think I"d call that "cruft" but thats my opinion. Thats the Navigation Bar at the top, and the sidebar is a Queue of the Articles in the feed. These are basic page elements.We get feedback specifically calling this out as good and relatively distraction-free (hence your comment struck me as odd) Also - the width of the page dedicated to text/images is the same as the NYT mobile site (600px aprox) |
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It has a search field I will never use. It has social media buttons I will never use (because if I wanted to share this I would just copy/paste the URL). It has a "more" button that I will never use also.
The nav bar is fine at the very top of your page, making it float and scroll with me is just a waste of space.
Floating UI elements should be reserved for critical functionality that's core to the site. Facebook gets a pass because the things on the floating nav bar are actually important. If you really must float it, consider floating to the side - most of us on modern laptops have an abundance of horizontal space but not a great deal of vertical space.
Some more feedback:
- The organization of content is confusing. Just scrolling casually I cannot immediately tell where one post ends and the next begins. The large images aren't a good indicator, since some of them appear to be ads. I shouldn't have to read the tail sentence of something just to determine if I'm looking at the end of a post or not.
- There is a mismatch of expectations. When I go to a link that clearly refers to a single piece of content, I do not expect to keep scrolling and go right into a completely different piece of content.
- I find the photos oversized for their purpose. In this particular piece you have generic-stock-photo-of-Google-employees, which is only superficially related to the topic at hand. It doesn't have business being this huge. It's distracting and keeps me from the actual content I'm here for. Note in the original NYT link the image is also only tangentially related, but it does not overwhelm the text.