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New Site Design

I’ve just activated Japan Probe’s new site design!

As you’ve probably noticed, there is now a news headlines link box at the top of the main page. It will be replacing our morning news summary posts by adding news links throughout the day. It has a separate feed from Japan Probe’s normal posts, so if you’re interested in subscribing via RSS, use this feed link.

Hope you enjoy our new look!

27 comments - What do you think? Posted by James - August 8, 2007 at 3:05 pm

Categories: General Japan Tags:

http://nonplayercharacter.blogspot.com/ NPC

Having a short(one or two sentence) summary of each headline was nice… but overall I like the new design.

richieopera

Sorry but….I really don’t like it.

Bring backthe old design!!

This is too modular, messy and too…grey and the old logo was much better.

Yuck. This is seriously putting me off

http://www.dannychoo.com/ Danny Choo

Looks awesome. Love it ^o^
Nike

The new design is great, I love it!
http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

From a purely selfish point of view, I suspect clickthroughs from the new news format will decrease, but I can guess that the new format is much easier to maintain.

One thing could you please do is put a width and height attribute on the header or add an alt text. I usually surf with images off, so I cannot click on the header to go to your home page!

http://www.japanprobe.com James

I’m not sure if clickthroughs will go up or down, but the number of your articles I will include in news will. With the old system I was often rushed and didn’t have time to include news links that were lacking a first sentence that summarized their content, so I would sometimes pass over some of your posts. I should be able to add links to you much easier now!

[I've added the width/height and alt= as you requested.]

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Thanks James! I’ll let you know how the traffic goes in a week or so.

sEtH

Cool… Keep it up man ^^
TofuUnion

A monster with three eyes on former site design scared me.

I am glad to see new site design. (^-^) ☆♪
http://www.keepingpaceinjapan.com Turner

Looks good.
typhonsentra

I don’t like it, all the text is squished to one side of the screen and a lot of space is wasted.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

The content column is the same size as it was in the old design, but I’ll look into reducing the “push” from the sidebars.

shazzb0t

hmm.. its ok.. but i like the old format a bit better.. it just seems too busy now..

http://www.awkwardutopia.com/wordpress Matt

I agree. The sidebars take up more than 50% of the right side, squeezing all the content in a ~45% band on the left. The lack of whitespace near the top also contributes to the clutter.

The two columns on the right should be combined into one, and then the remaining 2 columns centered on the page. That would provide a fair amount of whitespace on the right and left margins.

I love your posts but I dislike the new design.

b

Guys, the sidebar takes up like 66% of the page. If you’re going to do a 3 column layout with 2 columns of ads, just put the actual content in the middle. As it is now it looks like the articles are going to be muscled off the screen.
http://www.transpacificradio.com/ Garrett

James,
Overall, I like the new design. I kind of liked your old, old look – the pictures in the header gave it a bit of personality, but was never a fan of the previous look.

I must say I agree with a few of the commenters in this thread, though – I understand that revenue must come in and that, for that to happen, the ads must be prominent, but it now seems like they are the most prominent feature of the site.

Considering that, as you’ve said before, the overhwelming majority of your revenue comes from (or at least used to come from) the few best-placed ads, why not reduce or eliminate the unproductive ads, thereby driving more emphasis to the best ads and cleaning up the layout a bit.

On the praise side, I dig the news headlines at the top and the handy link to your del.icio.us page.

I’m with Ken Y-N, though, in lamenting what I think will be a loss in traffic to us from Japan Probe due to the new layout.

To toss my last two cents in (not that there’s any reason you should give a damn, considering you’ve certainly figured out how to do what you want), the new design seems a bit text-heavy, less graphic, less welcoming. Don’t forget the power of a well-placed image. Your header of a year ago this time was interesting and avoided all connotations with Japan Today, whom I’m hoping you’ll eventually push out by getting a Kyodo feed (or allowing Trans-Pacific Radio to quit our day jobs and provide you with news by paying us exorbitant fees.)

http://whatjapanthinks.com Ken Y-N

Garrett, James, my click-through today seems slightly higher than usual, but perhaps just because I’m top of the list today? I think the delicious feed is a good way of getting more news.

Thinking more about the design, the middle column is too wide and each line seems to have just too much vertical separation.

Garrett, good point about the old schoolgirl picture; it was eye-catching.

Steve

I like the new design, pretty cool, but everything seems scrunched up in the middle, I have like 20%-30% of empty space on both sides… but then again, I’m working with a 23″ widescreen monitor. Regardless, kudos on the new design!
http://hiddenblog1.blogspot.com/ The Unseen One

I like the new design. Great job!
The only thing I miss is the “most recent comment” links.

http://www.japanprobe.com James

It’s in the footer, although I’m thinking of swapping it up into the sidebar tomorrow to make it more visible.

http://hiddenblog1.blogspot.com/ The Unseen One

DOH! Yeah, I just saw this and was coming back to comment on it. Please pardon my lack thoroughness in looking over the new page.

No complaints at all. Excellent job. BIG thumbs up!!!
http://www.equinoxio.org/ Julián Ortega Martínez

Very nice, very clean, too.

Besides the “recent comments” thing, I think the second column [subscribe-adsense-most recent post, etc.] can be shrunk a little so the main content can get at least 55% of the layout (which would also let you keep great pictures). Ah, and I miss the timestamps (posts only appear with the day, without the hour). Besides, pretty cool. Cheers and gambatte!

matt

fantastic. =) i think content columns should be widened to get more attention though. could you not put the ads on the extreme right under the second column, under the site search? could give you more screen estate! otherwise i love how the site loads now.
http://myspace.com/truthson D-san

I hoped you’d change the Japan Probe Personals. One of the girls is my ex.
http://thewilliamg.blogspot.com William G

I find three columns a bit busy, but not horribly so. Personally, I’d ditch the entire contents of the far right column since it doesn’t add to the site and you can place your ads anywhere.

But if the three column look is what you want: I’d move the news-feed to the right. Have it replace the blog roll since studies have shown readers ignore link lists (They go by author recommendations)

Narrow the middle column a bit and move it to the left. The eye naturally focuses on the middle area of the screen.

And most importantly: Have the blog front and center, taking the majority of the screen width. That’s your main draw after all. Having it hidden below the news-feed and scrunched to the side takes away from that.

My $0.02
http://www.japanprobe.com James

To Everyone:

I’ve cut the middle column by about 50 pixels and added that to the main content column. I think it looks much better now. Thanks for your feedback!

TofuUnion

Thanks, it looks better. (^o^)v

Could you probably show more ” Recent Comments: ” by replacing the position of [Subscribe to Japan Probe] ?

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