New sidebar: Help create it here!

Chris OConnor

Within a month we will have a fully functioning sidebar on our forums page. It will be located in the left margin and will be about 20 - 25% of the width of the forums page.

I could use some help deciding on what to include in this sidebar. All suggestions will be considered.

I am well aware that existing active members rarely visit our Home page once they have discovered the forums. And there is little I can do to change this, so I need to be realistic and not even try.

The sidebar on the forums page needs to contain all the info that active members need, so that they don't have to depend on the home page. I want to consider the Home page as more of a hook for new members. Once they arrive on the home page the goal is to get them to hop on over to our forums page and get involved in the discussions.

So look at the sidebar on the home page. There are links in that sidebar that really don't exist anywhere else. Many of these links will need to go in our new forums sidebar, such as...

Community Rules
Book Selection Process
Suggest a Book
Rationally Speaking
Donate to BookTalk
News for Freethinkers

Also, we want links to the chat transcripts page. Maybe we should have a list of past guests so that visitors that are arriving on the forums page can see the names of guests we have had in our chat room???

I'm all ears. Please help create the perfect informative sidebar. We don't need the Hot Topics that you see on the Home page. That is too much work for me anyway. Hot topics are already given visibility with the flaming icon that apears next to those thread once they hit 20+ posts.

I plan to have some Google links to make some ad revenue. We'll probably have an amazon.com search box too.

Chris

MadArchitect

Well...

1) Links to each of the discussion forums would make navigating easier.

2) Links to threads of particular interest or popularity might be good for directing newbies. You could also use this sort of link to direct people to the polls for quarterly book selections. They would require frequent updates, though there may be a way to automate that through EZBoard.

3) Amazon links and advertising links for the good of the site, of course, although you want to be classy about it, I'm sure.

4) An announcement box might be useful. I'm a fan of moving as much as possible from the top of the forum pages into the sidebar so that it's easier to get immediately to the threads.

Two things to bear in mind. One is, that it's important to think about the order in which you present all of this information. The point of the sidebar is that it makes the site easier to use. A link to the homepage should probably be at the top; important announcements under that, if you want a space for announcements; links to the forums next, probably with the quarterly discussions at the top of that list; everything else to follow. That seems like the best order to me, but it's debatable, I'm sure.

The other thing to consider is the length of the side bar. Any length that it stretches beyond the body of the page to which it is appended will appear as white space. Beyond which, it doesn't really ease navigation if people have to scroll past all the information in the body of the page to reach the link they're looking for. So while you want to have as much useful information and as many helpful links as you can, you also want the sidebar to be relatively short. At least relative to the rest of the page, which is, itself, variable.

Chris OConnor

I'm not sure adding links to book discussions makes sense. The forum names are links to book discussions. The more we duplicate stuff in the sidebar the further down the useful new links will be pushed.

I like the idea of a link to the polls and book suggestion thread. Any other links to "Hot Topics" or other such threads is more work than I am interested in doing. One of these days I'd like to actually be able to start spending time in the discussions, as opposed to being simply the administrator.

We'll definitely have Amazon.com links and Google links. The revenue is needed. I also like the idea of having an announcement area near the top of the sidebar. I'll add comments in there all the time.

A link to the Home page is already at the top. It is the first link in the orange link bar. But maybe adding another link in the sidebar would be a good idea. Not everyone clicks on the Home link in the orange link bar.

Thanks for the suggestion! Don't worry about the sidebar being longer than the forums. I on't allow that to happen.

Chris

MadArchitect

Chris OConnor: I'm not sure adding links to book discussions makes sense. The forum names are links to book discussions.

That's what I meant. Maybe the distinction I should have made was that between forums that are permanently on the front page and quarterly forums that will eventually be archived.

A link to the Home page is already at the top. It is the first link in the orange link bar. But maybe adding another link in the sidebar would be a good idea.

You may want to also look around and make sure that the orange link bar shows up on every page. It probably does, but I don't know that I've ever watched closely enough to be sure.

Also, put a camera into your fridge to make sure that light really does go off when you close the door.

Chris OConnor

Ahh I see what you mean. That sounds like a good idea, but here is the problem. Our newsest book is our 24th book selection. Think about how tall our sidebar would be if we had a link to all past book discussion forums.

But I like the idea. It sure would be nice to have the names of our books AND author names right on the forums page. But I don't see how we could do it. I've noticed that past book discussions get virtually no activity at all. So adding 24+ lines to the height of the sidebar doesn't seem wise.

And then there is the issue of author chats. As you know our home page has a table with the author chats. Do we want these on the sidebar too? Wouldn't it be better to simply have a link to "Chat Transcripts"?

I'm wondering if we might want to keep the current book images/links up at the top of the forums. If they go in the forum sidebar the sidebar gets pretty tall. Right now there are three books up there, and we need all three highly visible. Perhaps keeping the books up top is good for book sales AND letting new members know what we're reading.

Here is how I am envisioning the sidebar...

Announcements
This will be a box that I am
constantly updating and
posting important news. I
might put info on book
polls or our need for more
book suggestions.

Upcoming Author Chats
The Pope
April 1, 2006 9:00 pm E
God Almighty
April 1, 2006 9:00 pm E
Chat Transcripts
Chat Information

Amazon.com search box
***************
***************
***************

Home
About
Join
Books
Foru ms
Calendar
Links
FAQ
Support
Store
Contact

Community Rules
Book Selection Process
Rationally Speaking
Suggest a Book
Member Photos

Google Links
***************
***************
***************
***************
***** **********
***************
***************
***************
***************
***************

Edited by: Chris OConnor at: 1/28/06 9:28 pm

Chris OConnor

I'm open to suggestions. I like the idea of having the Guest Map link. I think its a cool feature and more members and visitors would use it if it was on the forums page.

I also want to have google links. These make money and money helps pay for this site.

And an Amazon.com search box is essential. We're a book community and we need to provide such a feature.

Edited by: Chris OConnor at: 1/28/06 9:30 pm

MadArchitect

Chris OConnor: Think about how tall our sidebar would be if we had a link to all past book discussion forums.

No, that's not what I had in mind. I'd only have the current discussions listed in the sidebar, punctuated with a link to the archives.

Wouldn't it be better to simply have a link to "Chat Transcripts"?

I'd say so. You want everything to be accessible, but not necessarily makng equal claims on the browser's attention.

Perhaps keeping the books up top is good for book sales AND letting new members know what we're reading.

You've got to weigh it against the ease of navigation. Personally, I think it's important to get the viewer immediately to whatever information they were looking for on that page. If they click a link expecting to see the thread listing, then don't make them scroll to see the listing. But that's just me -- you may think it worthwhile to have those books up there.

What I would probably do, if it were my site and I was handling the sidebar, is put small images of the book in the sidebar, small enough that you can fit them side by side or in two rows, and then have a roll-over script so that, whenever the browser moves the cursor over one of those images, a larger version of the image pops up, probably in the announcement window. That way, you have both compression in the layout and the full images, albeit in a limited context. That allows gives you a kind of positive feedback mechanism for drawing attention to the books -- a user who has seen the gimmick once may feel curious about any small images that they haven't seen before, so they scroll over the image to see them in bigger form. You don't even have to use two set of images -- there are HTML tags for scaling full-size images to smaller dimensions.

Here is how I am envisioning the sidebar...

Where would the forum links fall on here? Or have you decided against using them? I think the best use of the sidebar is making it more convenient for people to do what they would normally do. To that end, I'd set it up something like this:

Announcements
Current Quarterly Readings links
Other forum links
Upcoming Author chats
Non-forum BookTalk links
Amazon
Google

Having some sort of criteria for what order different parts of the sidebar takes would be helpful. I'd say one good criterion would be, whatever's likely to get used most should be closer to the top. Another criteria is, whatever you want people to see the most should be closer to the top. Those two criteria might sometimes conflict -- information about upcoming author chats isn't always immediately useful, particularly if the soonest chat is months away, but it should go fairly close to the top just because you want people to keep the dates in mind. How close to the top is the question, and it's not one that's easy to answer. The best answer I can think of at the moment is, not so close that it makes the sidebar less convenient as a way to navigate.

You might even want to push the Amazon link farther up, but that depends on how large the image is and whether or not it's likely to push the important information substantially down the page. The big benefit to having a sidebar is compression -- it makes it easier to do what you want with a page without having to scroll around a lot. Never underestimate the laziness of someone surfing the internet.

Chris OConnor

Mad

I'm still not following you on a few things. Why would we want to have a link in our sidebar that already exists as an individual forum.

Example:

#24 | The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time - by Mark Haddon

This is the top forum in the "Book Discussion Forums" category. It is an actual link. If someone clicks on it they enter that forum. Why would be ever want to duplicate that link in the sidebar? And how could we ever have such a lengthy link in the sidebar anyway? Look how many characters long that link is.

The main point is that all of our current books are already links. They are actual forums. And all older book discussions can be found by clicking on the "Archived Book Discussions" link.

Just to make my point I have moved the book discussion category back to the top, and moved the other general forums down below. With what you're suggesting the current books would be listed in both the sidebar AND in the list of forums....idrectly next to each other. Why would this be helpful? Wouldn't this confuse people?

I see that you're not advocating duplicating all the links found in the top orange link bar down in the sidebar. Since my last post I came to the conclusion that that wasn't necessary too. It was a waste of sidebar space and made it too tall.

Chris OConnor

I wanted to discuss the book images up at the top of the forums page. There are actually two tables of books. Since you know how ezBoard administrative screens look you should understand what I'm about to say.

I have the 3 current books coded into the "Annoucement" box in the General Settings page. This means those 3 book images appears on every single page, no matter what forum or thread a member is in. This is annoying as hell. I'd rather they only appear on the main forums page.

Because...

On all the book forums I have an additional table. Click on this link to "The March" forum. Now you see a table at the very top with info on "The March" AND then below it the same repeated annoying table with our 3 current books.

I do like having the table at the top with The March information and think it is nice to have it up there while posting in that forum. But the 3 current books below it forces the actual threads down too low and looks silly.

The only solution I can think of is to not use the"Announcements" box in the General Settings page. This way there is never anything forcing the forum list down on the main forum page. But I would have to move the current books over to the sidebar for sure.

And before you suggest that I do away with the table at the top of each individual forum just think about how much useful info those tables include. I have added one to every single book forum.

Example:

pub141.ezboard.com/fbooktalkfrm64

Note the link to buy the book, link to read the chat transcript, and the brief description of what the book is about? I don't want to do away with all that.

So I like the idea of putting the current books over in the sidebar.

Can you post another link to your own forum please?

MadArchitect

Chris OConnor: Why would be ever want to duplicate that link in the sidebar?

So that a person viewing this site could jump directly from one forum to another. Currently, if I'm in, say, "The Academy", if I want to access another forum, I have to go back to the main forum listing and access it from there. Not a lot of work, granted, but when you're going through the forums on BookTalk, think about how many times you click back to that main page. There are, let's say, 14 forums on BookTalk -- that number varies. That's at least 14 fewer clicks to the main forum listing if those are listed in the sidebar, which means fewer demands on EZBoard, not to mention on your mouse. For that matter, it would presumable allow you to jump from the mainpage directly to the "Development" forum. It might seem lazy to you, but that's the instinct that you're dealing with when you put some of this information in a sidebar -- you're making it easier to navigate for browsers who might otherwise veer away just that quickly.

And how could we ever have such a lengthy link in the sidebar anyway? Look how many characters long that link is.

You'd have to either abbreviate:

Curious Incident...

or format well. For instance, Q1 Fiction in big letters, then, directly beneath it, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon in itty-bitty print. If you use tables with border, you don't really have to worry about keeping the titles of lengths all on one line. You may even be able to represent the forums in the sidebar using icons rather than title, with the same sort of roll-over script that I described in my previous post, only this time showing the titles of the forum.

The main point is that all of our current books are already links.

That's true, but really, is there going to be anything on the sidebar that isn't already somewhere else on the site? The whole thing is about redundancy.

Why would this be helpful? Wouldn't this confuse people?

Doesn't seem to confuse people on my board, and I use the sidebar all the time.

Chris OConnor

I'm searching for examples of sidebars...

p082.ezboard.com/bworldofvarianceandbeyond

This one looks decent.

Chris OConnor

Ok, I'll move those items as you guys suggest. And I'll add a search booktalk link.

Check out this other page I am working on www.booktalk.org/bookorders.php

Chris OConnor

Check it out now. I've made the search box a "Google SiteSearch."

Chris OConnor

In preparation for the new sidebar I have expanded our forums from 750 pixels to 900 pixels wide. In fact all pages throughout the site are now wider. You'll notice some of the forums have some green borders that need to be deleted. Give me time to figure this one out. ::44

Oh, and this input area is now much wider. I thought it would be nice to have a larger area to type our messages.


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