Forum Boss
Administrator
Folks,
The new site launch has gone well. No big issues. However, we've learned that the articles page is slow to load on some connections. The simple reason is that there are so many articles. The server has to find 400 articles, post time-sort them, then display Title/Summary/icon. That's a lot of processing.
We are looking at different ways to SPEED UP the display of the articles page. I would like reader input -- to get your preferences on how the page could best be organized. We want it to display fast, make it easy to find categories, and show as many articles as possible.
Articles Page: http://www.accurateshooter.com/articles/
The Way It is Now
When you click on the articles page, the server give you a list of the 10 most popular articles, followed by a list (newest descending to oldest) of ALL the articles -- nearly 400 and growing.
Current Articles Page View -- Showing just 1/10th of all articles
Alternative One
All 16 article categories would be displayed with a title bar. For each category, only the 10 most recent articles would show. On the Title bar it would say something like "GEAR REVIEW: 88 Articles Total" with a button for "Show ALL Articles".
PRO: Quick nav to categories, page would display 2 to 3 times faster
CON: People would only see 10 articles per category when there might be 20-140 articles in the category. Some people would ignore the "SHOW ALL" and never see more than 10 stories.
Alternative Two
A second alternative is to display the 20-30 most recent articles, then simple links for each category. So you could click on a link for "Reloading" for example and that would display a list of Reloading articles.
PRO: Quick Nav to Categories. Page would display super-fast
CON: People would not immediately recognize how many articles there are. I suspect a lot of people would ignore the category links altogether. If they didn't see something of interest in the "newest 20" list, they would leave the page.
Alternative Three
We could display just title bars for all 16 categories, and then ALL the articles in the category would display if you clicked on the title bar. There may be a little waiting involved.
Pro: Page would initially load really fast
Con: People would not initially see any articles other than the 10 most popular (at top of page).
----
I'm certain, with your input, we can come up with the best solution. Working on user interface is difficult because some people are comfortable using a variety of nav tools (such as search fields and pull-down menus), while other people need something really, really simple.
The new site launch has gone well. No big issues. However, we've learned that the articles page is slow to load on some connections. The simple reason is that there are so many articles. The server has to find 400 articles, post time-sort them, then display Title/Summary/icon. That's a lot of processing.
We are looking at different ways to SPEED UP the display of the articles page. I would like reader input -- to get your preferences on how the page could best be organized. We want it to display fast, make it easy to find categories, and show as many articles as possible.
Articles Page: http://www.accurateshooter.com/articles/
The Way It is Now
When you click on the articles page, the server give you a list of the 10 most popular articles, followed by a list (newest descending to oldest) of ALL the articles -- nearly 400 and growing.
Current Articles Page View -- Showing just 1/10th of all articles
Alternative One
All 16 article categories would be displayed with a title bar. For each category, only the 10 most recent articles would show. On the Title bar it would say something like "GEAR REVIEW: 88 Articles Total" with a button for "Show ALL Articles".
PRO: Quick nav to categories, page would display 2 to 3 times faster
CON: People would only see 10 articles per category when there might be 20-140 articles in the category. Some people would ignore the "SHOW ALL" and never see more than 10 stories.
Alternative Two
A second alternative is to display the 20-30 most recent articles, then simple links for each category. So you could click on a link for "Reloading" for example and that would display a list of Reloading articles.
PRO: Quick Nav to Categories. Page would display super-fast
CON: People would not immediately recognize how many articles there are. I suspect a lot of people would ignore the category links altogether. If they didn't see something of interest in the "newest 20" list, they would leave the page.
Alternative Three
We could display just title bars for all 16 categories, and then ALL the articles in the category would display if you clicked on the title bar. There may be a little waiting involved.
Pro: Page would initially load really fast
Con: People would not initially see any articles other than the 10 most popular (at top of page).
----
I'm certain, with your input, we can come up with the best solution. Working on user interface is difficult because some people are comfortable using a variety of nav tools (such as search fields and pull-down menus), while other people need something really, really simple.
