My advice (for what it's worth), keep it simple. The current design works well.

It is a standard blog template so those familiar with blogs will feel comfortable (or will be reading through an an aggregator so will never see the design anyway).

For newcomers an 'about' page listing your top ten would work.

Beware over-design.

colin kennedy
Thanks for the advice, I'm of the same thinking, lo-fi, simple and clean. But with a little character and perhaps making use of the whole page rather than a narrow column up the middle.

Improve navigation. When I load the blog, it feels a little detached. It would be helpful to have the index of recent posts in the sidebar at the top, and the external links at the bottom. Also, maybe a bit more blurb along with the title at the top (a bit more explanation than just "The hallam foe blog"). Mise en scene as they say in the biz.

In terms of looks/design, it's clean and easy on the eye. The colours are nice. I still get those annoying Quick Time things though. I use Firefox, and I reckon that's maybe what's doing it. So I tried using IE, and I got asked six times about running Active X on the page. I could change my Active X settings but I'm lazy. You could put the videos somewhere else, though I guess it's a compromise between quality of content and pissing off the odd reader.

On that subject (content, not odd readers), the content is absolutely great - it's well written and illustrated, up to the minute (updated regularly), light hearted, humourous, not too heavy going (compared to that other blog I mentioned to you for example), and while successfully demystifying the filmmaking process, doesn't give away too much. Though I notice on the page about the "35 feet high club" that a few people have commented about the inclusion of that scene vs what's in the book. Maybe a spoiler alert would be a good idea for those posts?

It's good that you're doing a London bloggers preview, but how about one here in Glasgow? I know a cinema that could probably do it for you cheapish...

Oh and you need more friends on MySpace. It still looks a little lonely in Hallam's corner.

Em

colin kennedy
Brilliant! That's exactly the sort of thing I'm talking about.

My thoughts are pretty much along the same lines. The sidebar really needs some work and I think you're kind of right about the new entries thing and other stuff on the side.

As for the video stuff, I'm sorry it's causing you problems. I use Firefox too and have no problems with video so I don't think that's the issue. But I obviously don't want to piss people off so what I'll do is truncate all the posts with video in them so the first page downloads quicker and then if people want to watch the videos they can just click on the link.

How does that sound?

(If anyone has an issue with this then just drop me an email or leave a comment.)

I give another vote for keeping it simple - it sticks with the independent nature of the film and more crucially avoids clutter. That said I think the left hand sidebar could be added to as Em suggests - but from a usability point of view be careful with the right hand side, readers' eyes have been shown to ignore it because they assume there's advertising there. I think a two column apporach works best - the left for navigation , the centre for the excellent content.

colinn kennedy
Points duly noted, thanks for the input. I was going to expand the page out, just to two columns but making a bit more use of the space. I quite like the layout of gapingvoid because it uses the whole page and I like your idea of using the left sidebar rather than the right side. I agree that there tends to be alot of advertising there but it is also where I first look for info and leads?

Thoughts?

I'm concerned about the video issue that some people are struggling with and would love to understand more about that if anyone can help.

i'm not sure you can steal from hugh at gapingvoid.com but there was a post that i think should be in the top 10. it was about hugh and david living together and david's experience at the Caledonian Hotel. it really brought the movie to life and gave david more credibility on the subject(as if he needed it).

colin kennedy
Well, there is definitely an argument for having more than one top ten and I see no reason why that shouldn't include links to other pages outside our own.

In the future I'd really like it if other people write blogs about the movie as they get to see it. This is most likely to be a spin-off from the Geek Dinner at first and then hopefully wider spread once the movie is in the public domain.

We'll see what happens.

The quick time thing, where the video flickers something chronic when you scroll up and down is often down to incorrect or old quicktime settings in a users browser.

I'm currentley on the new firefox Beta 2.0b2, and it seems to fine.

As for full stretch blogs as opposed to a pixel width set windowed blog, like your's is now. Well i always think the middle colum blog structure is nicer, having borders on the left and right tends to frame the blog which is often a hotch potch of links, clicks and images. This framing focuses you more on the information.

It depends what sort of user experience you want to promote. Gaping void works because Hugh's bold drawings (in black and white) are strong focal points that break up the rest of his textual discussions.

It is possible for you to run a textual commentary in one frame and image based ones in another, effectively two conduits of information on the main page. And this offers visitors who are so inclined to subscribe to a media version rss feed or just a textual feed; or both.

It's a discussion of what's coming next; more of the same or is there a planned execution of material from now on?

There's a great article here about designers talking about who should be doing the designing.

The other option is the selectable style sheets opion, where users have multiple options on how to view the site. Do you view it from Hallam's perspective, moddy, voyeuristic? From Kate's, very offical - almost a mock up of the hotel website that she works for. From a production perspective - a streamlined and further catergorised version of what you have now.

colin kennedy
I think we are going to stay fairly faithful to the blog format at the moment and not go gimmicky simply because have other outlets for that - e.g. the MySpace pages. Which I know need some serious attention. I'm trying to implement that at the moment.

I'm going to try and get a newer version of Firefox I think, although mine seems to be working fine, I like to be up to date.

Colin

For the academic stuff on this see this post on my blog and the embedded links - http://makemarketinghistory.blogspot.com/2006/06/its-fing-obvious.html - it also gives you opportunity to see my very low tech two column format.

My intuition is that you personally look to the right for information because the blogs you read are mostly like that. I concur with you about Hugh's layout but wonder if it works for him because of the significant quantity of visuals and surrounding space. One thing I dislike on all blogs (mine included) is the tendency for some sidebar content to lie outside the first screen because conceivably a viewer could read a one screen post and not be aware of all the navigational possibilities.

colin kennedy
I think we share a similar sense of taste in this area. I think that the page should be a simple layout, easy to read with plenty of space between things so that each post can have room to breathe on the page.

As for the sidebar you make a very good point. Things outside the screen area of the mainpage can take on so little importance that people (like myself) don't even really bother with that info.

The design article you sighted was very interesting, I'll pass on the link.

Good article and site. Congratulations

Nice site. Greetings

hey! your article is great. thanks

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