Extreme Makeover - HighCallingBlogs.com Edition
July 17, 2008 · Print This Article
We will be taking the main HighCallingBlogs.com blog down for a bit starting this afternoon as we perform our own Extreme Makeover to the home site. If you visit HighCallingBlogs.com during this time you will notice a Maintenance Mode notice.
You will not be able to access our blog during this transition.
We expect that the new site will be in place and ready to be unveiled during the day tomorrow.
Your Blogs Unaffected
If you’re blog is hosted on HighCallingBlogs.com your blog will not be affected by this . You will still be able to access your blog normally throughout this transition.
Our team has been working hard to get ready for the new site. The changes go much deeper than simple cosmetic changes. And we have even more exciting things planed for the site after these current improvements are in place.
Stay tuned to this space!
Loving the new site - it looks great, and things are so much easier to find! The only thing I’m wondering about is if there’s a place to find just a simple list of the blogs (either all or by category) ?
Spaghettipie, Good question. Currently you can find a complete list of active blogs in the All Our Blogs page which is in the drop down menu under the Network main navigation button. The category buttons show the most recent posts from those in the network.
We know there are a ton of details that we have to adjust moving forward. Perhaps it would be helpful for folks to have lists of blogs broken down by category as well. We’ll kick some ideas around and see what we come up with.
Great looking site, gentlemen.
Is it OK that I pick at it so soon?
When I’m on the home page and roll over the Resources menu, it pulls down behind Marcus’ Youtube video. I think Marcus is more important than a pull-down menu, but I’m not sure how else to see the options unless they appear in front of him.
Sam
Heya Sam! I was tempted to suggest you switch to another browser besides Internet Explorer but decided that wouldn’t be a very user friendly approach for me to take.
I think I resolved the issue. Can you take another look at it and let me know if you are still seeing the same thing?
Thanks, Chris. That’s what I was looking for. Breaking down by category would be nice, too, but at some point. Is there a reason the categories are ordered the way they are? I think I missed “All our Blogs” before is because it’s second from the bottom - not the most logical place in my mind, but if you have a reason, then cool!
Spaghettipie, The reason is ’cause that’s the way they defaulted & I didn’t change it. However I probably should have so now they are arranged more logically to make it easier to find things.
It worked Chris. Nice.
Before passing HCB along to some colleagues, I wanted to find a good place or two on the site to send them.
So I started at “About” but the first item to click on is “Terms of Service.” This a necessary element for new members, but not much of a welcome mat for newbies. Next is “Badges” which I probably wouldn’t click on if I were trying to find out what this site is all about. There is a welcoming paragraph on the page, but it seems incomplete without an official welcome elsewhere. The third pull-down item is “Welcome.” This is where I would likely go first if I were visiting, yet this page simply tells me how to get involved, not what HCB is.
I’m thinking of three suggestions related to new visitors:
1) Put some sort of welcome at the top of the “About” menu that describes the purpose and maybe even history of HCB (I believe the first or second newsletter said some of this quite well).
2) Since folks need to let you know when they want to join, it may help to include a clear link to you/Marcus on that same page.
3) Put “Terms of Service” on the bottom of the “About” menu, but link to it from elsewhere if folks really need to read it.
I see a homepage like the foyer of a house. It’s a great entry point and it gives a foretaste of what you’ll experience elsewhere. Having said that, I think the homepage is looking pretty good!
Ooh, I just peaked back there and thought of something fun. What about a rollover effect on the “New Blogs…” section? (By the way, there’s an extra “g” in the title.) I like the thumbnails. I even clicked on Christa Allan’s because it caught my attention visually. For some reason they all take me to Flickr, but what if you rolled over them and they expanded a bit, almost like the Snap previews but bigger and clearer? This would serve as an immediate entry point into the new blogs.
OK, I’m done. I love this sort of thing so thanks for listening.
Sam
Heya Sam, We’ve still got some serious tweaking to do here yet. Might have been a bit early to take the “Beta” down, but there you go. We’re optimists!
I see we posted our comments at the same time. I went in and reordered the pages in the About drop down menu while I was in making the Network drop down more user friendly.
As far as the screen shots of the member blogs go, that’s a great idea. Unfortunately I don’t think it’s in our programming budget just yet. We kicked around uploading the screen shots onto our server vs Flickr and decided to keep them on flicker for a number of reasons. We’re putting a link to people’s blogs on the Flickr page when we upload the images so that people can get to the blogs from there. It’s not the slickest solution but it works for now.
And thanks for reminding me of the misspelling. Marcus had pointed it out to me before he left for vacation and now I’ve actually gotten it fixed! (Yes, forgot about it. Doh!)
Chris,
Thanks for considering my suggestions. I wasn’t sure how done you were, but now that I know you’re still plugging away, I’ll hold off while you work your magic.
Sam
Sam, Please feel free to offer up suggestions. One of the beauties of using a blog platform as versatile as WordPress is the site tends to undergo a steady improvement process and never completely “arrives,” if you know what I mean.
We’re open to ways we can make your experience here better.
Chris, does THC Blogs have a button or a widget? If “The Writing on the Wall” gets some love in here, I must reciprocate as a believer.
If you have one, I can’t find an HTML code in here.
Peace.
Chris,
Thinking again about Welcome items, I wonder how new subscribers can contact you. The Welcome page instructs folks to grab a badge and e-mail Gordon or Marcus, but there are no links there.
Second, I think a Registration page could be more visible - either under the About Us pull-down, or elsewhere. I found the green Join box in the top left section on the Home page, in the line-up with Featured Post, TheHighCalling, Subscribe, and Newsletter, but if that’s the only place, it’s difficult to find.
Of course, if you’re attempting to make this a more exclusive network (Seth Godin has a new book coming out called Tribes, and one of his arguments for growth and commitment is exclusivity), then buried links may be helpful. But I didn’t think this was your aim.
Hope these are helpful.
Sam