SP Home Page
Posted: Wed Jan 16, 2013 7:13 pm
Here is a proposal for layout of the SP Home Page. I took Josh's mockup and just rearranged things. Easy changes for me to make! Nothing earth shattering here except for the 'Photo of the Moment' addition. I'll get to that.
The main theme is just to move things around. Most things I switch from left to right column and vice versa. No real need, other than to get people's eyes moving around after so many years.
Also...
1. Newest members is at the top, since this is dynamic and always changing. We should encourage these folks, not bury them at the bottom.
2. Added a 'Photo of the Moment'. I got this idea from some of Dow's earlier comments. The idea here is that it would be constantly changing. It should show the most recent photo added to the site that has some minimum criteria... a low one. The threshold is very low to make it almost random, basically showing the most recent photos added but with some criteria so it isn't just garbage. Often this photo might not be present very long, maybe just minutes, sometimes hours, depending on site activity. It isn't the highest scoring photo, since it is replaced as soon as a newer one meets the criteria. This also shakes up the POTD process until we can get adjustments there (there becomes some advantage to submitting photos mid-day as opposed to 1:00 - 4:00 AM). I don't know how easy this is to program, but if Matt can do it this will be very cool.
3. POTD and POTW just under POTM, but moved POTD above POTW since it changes more often... it is less stale. Matt- I don't know if it is easy to change POTD so that it is updated to the highest scoring photo in the last 24hrs when you hit the home page (instead of the highest in the previous calendar day), but if that is an easy change, I would do it. That also changes things a lot, and can result in POTD changing a few times within a day... a good thing! And opens it to newer members who don't know you have to submitt a photo in the middle of the night for it to have a chance. If you can make this change, I would go ahead and do it while we wait on other changes in this area. What I really like about this idea, and Pic of the Moment, is they are maintenance free for the elves.
4. If we can't implement my Pic of the Moment idea, I would move the 'new members' into the top right spot and have an additional featured page on the left.
5. Tried to keep 'recent forum posts' relatively high up since this is always changing
6. Under 'best new stuff' at the bottom left, I added 'best routes' and reordered them. I also show 7/30/90 days instead of 1/3/7 for all but photos.
7. To truely make the home page dynamic, we need to implement new features that have nothing to do with the layout shown here. Things like rotating featured pages through more frequently. Aat least 2 featured pages should change daily (could do this by automatically randomly selecting a previously featured page). Similarly at least 1/3rd of the featured articles and TRs could change to a historical one daily.
The main theme is just to move things around. Most things I switch from left to right column and vice versa. No real need, other than to get people's eyes moving around after so many years.
Also...
1. Newest members is at the top, since this is dynamic and always changing. We should encourage these folks, not bury them at the bottom.
2. Added a 'Photo of the Moment'. I got this idea from some of Dow's earlier comments. The idea here is that it would be constantly changing. It should show the most recent photo added to the site that has some minimum criteria... a low one. The threshold is very low to make it almost random, basically showing the most recent photos added but with some criteria so it isn't just garbage. Often this photo might not be present very long, maybe just minutes, sometimes hours, depending on site activity. It isn't the highest scoring photo, since it is replaced as soon as a newer one meets the criteria. This also shakes up the POTD process until we can get adjustments there (there becomes some advantage to submitting photos mid-day as opposed to 1:00 - 4:00 AM). I don't know how easy this is to program, but if Matt can do it this will be very cool.
3. POTD and POTW just under POTM, but moved POTD above POTW since it changes more often... it is less stale. Matt- I don't know if it is easy to change POTD so that it is updated to the highest scoring photo in the last 24hrs when you hit the home page (instead of the highest in the previous calendar day), but if that is an easy change, I would do it. That also changes things a lot, and can result in POTD changing a few times within a day... a good thing! And opens it to newer members who don't know you have to submitt a photo in the middle of the night for it to have a chance. If you can make this change, I would go ahead and do it while we wait on other changes in this area. What I really like about this idea, and Pic of the Moment, is they are maintenance free for the elves.
4. If we can't implement my Pic of the Moment idea, I would move the 'new members' into the top right spot and have an additional featured page on the left.
5. Tried to keep 'recent forum posts' relatively high up since this is always changing
6. Under 'best new stuff' at the bottom left, I added 'best routes' and reordered them. I also show 7/30/90 days instead of 1/3/7 for all but photos.
7. To truely make the home page dynamic, we need to implement new features that have nothing to do with the layout shown here. Things like rotating featured pages through more frequently. Aat least 2 featured pages should change daily (could do this by automatically randomly selecting a previously featured page). Similarly at least 1/3rd of the featured articles and TRs could change to a historical one daily.