Wednesday, July 22, 2009

Article Page Changes

As a part of our ongoing push to improve the visitor experience of Associated Content, we’ll be testing out a new article page layout starting later this week.

Here’s a preview of what the new layout will look like (click the image to enlarge):


You’ll notice two major changes:

First, we’re moving the top set of related content links into the article body, on top of the primary ad. Why? It’s a cleaner look that provides more encouragement for site visitors to continue exploring the AC library.

Second, we’re creating a space to highlight the article author at the bottom of each piece. Why? Our Contributors want to be seen, and our visitors want to know where the information they’re reading is coming from.

We’re expecting to launch these changes by the end of the week, so stay tuned...

In the meantime, be sure to update your bio and the rest of your AC profile. Very soon, it’ll be a lot more visible!

10 comments:

Christine Cadena said...

Wow! These are great enhancements! Thanks for letting us know!

Lyn Lomasi said...

Awesome news! From the preview picture, the new article page layout looks to be a positive change. I like that the author bios will be more prominent. I also like that the related info was added to the left.

Lisa Carey said...

I really like the bio at the bottom.

M.G. Hardiman said...

Exciting developments, Darnell. Be interesting to see full tilt. Thanks for sharing.

R. Elizabeth C. Kitchen said...

I love the fact that the Contributors are being highlighted.

Fabletoo said...

Looks nice in the mock up, but in reality looks horrible. Everything is squashed together and now it's even more difficult to find the actual article. :(

It was better before with the searched articles on the right up at the top, and with Related content somewhere other than above the ad. Looks weird.

Darnell Witt said...

Thanks for the feedback. We'll be tracking the data closely to see if the new layout succeeds in driving additional traffic through the library.

jcorn said...

Appreciate the preview. Like Elizabeth, I like the fact that Contributors are being highlighted. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

The new layout is good, however the ads keep appearing over the top of the writing all the time. I find it covers most of the last few paragraphs on each page - which is great for the advertiser, but not so great if you want to actually read the content. Could this be corrected?

Thanks

Darnell Witt said...

Anonymous: unfortunatley, there are several display issues on AC for people using Internet Explorer 6. Like Google, Digg and many other companies, AC has stopped supporting IE6 because it's a problematic browser that causes many display issues around the web.