Painting From Life vs. From Photos
Lisa Call is the head site admin on Art & Perception (A&P). She does a great job. She has a full time job as an artist and mother, and another full time job in the computer industry. When she is not doing these labors, she writes great blog posts.
Every extra detail on the site means extra work for Lisa. Every sidebar feature is a point of contention, a potential source of conflict.
I say, strip this site down to the bare minimum for functionality.
We all have our own blogs for bells and whistles. Let’s keep A&P a conversation:
- not a link list
- not an exercise in post categorization
- not a “greatest hits” album for pet posts
. . .
What about our audience?
There has been some discussion about how to make the site good for readers who don’t participate.
Let me point out: to please a wide audience is a serious undertaking. It requires research on user preferences, in this case from users who don’t join in the debate online. This is WORK.
Should we try to please readers? I say, as long as this is a non-commercial conversation site, we optimize it for ourselves — those of us who use it every day and participate.
If we want to make it good for a wide readership, we should go commercial and give ourselves a real financial incentive for trying to please, and all the research and labor this will require to do properly.
Otherwise, we fall between two stools.
Case study:
Look at the side bar. Above the fold we have this (at this time of writing)
Subscribe
- RSS Feed
- Comments RSS Feed
- Receive new posts via email
This is a huge waste of prime real estate. Most of it is duplicated in the meta section. It is only there for non-participants, by definition (that’s what RSS and post via email means). You might say, “Well, I just ignore that”. A new reader might not ignore it, and might be distracted from the content.
Remember, every item on a web page reduces the significance of every other item. By having extra stuff, we reduce the effectiveness of the important stuff.
. . .
I also think we should get rid of the About Art & Perception section on the side bar. What is the use of this? It served a purpose at the beginning. But now the site has a life of its own. If you want to learn about the site, the best way is to read the posts and comments. The About Art & Perception section is, ironically, a distraction from the site itself.
The “Contributors” page is the only page that should remain on the sidebar. It serves an essential function for contributors, who need to see who is going to post when. But as this is of use for posting only, it should go somewhere below the Recent Comments, perhaps by Meta. Recent Comments are the soul of this site.
The search should be replaced with a Google search. It is not necessary to say “search” and also have a search button. This is redundant and looks silly. I say, trash the button.
As to the idea of a profile page for each contributor, I say, forget it. We have our own blogs to explain ourselves. If we do a poor job of it individually, that is our own problem. A profile page for each contributor on A&P is a perfect example of a way to waste a lot of time. Who will it benefit? Only people who are not sufficiently interested in the site to get to know the contributors by visiting their blogs. Why do we want to put in a big effort for those people? Life is short.
. . .
CONCLUSION
We should optimize the site for ourselves. There should be nothing on the site that we do not use regularly. This is an effective design principle. Without a principle for design, we can easily get tricked into playing a grown-up version of video-games: endless website design.
Karl,
I’m glad you wrote this. It’s about time you stepped up.
Thank you.
I’m all for minimalism. I like the way it highlights the art.
I think it is better to be useful than it is to be cool.
Minimalism make Art & Perception distinctive.
I’d take it one step further even.
If a feature is not used almost all the time by almost everyone, it can go.
The fewer the features, the faster the design and easier it is to use.
Karl, you suggested that the way to keep alive certain old excellent posts was to link to the old posts in new posts. That is a perfect example of a functioning minimalism. Brilliant. Elegant. Useful, and actually, very cool.
I don’t mind getting outvoted on a feature request.
Let there actually be a vote however, not a session that opens, closes, and is decided at the convenience of a few participants.
So. The poll has served its purpose. It can go. It can be used later when needed on posts.
The search is virtually useless at this time. Try it. Enter some words you know were in recent posts and see what it comes up with.
The categories are a waste of bandwidth.
The rss feed stuff is redundant. At the bottom is fine. A visitor will use that but once.
The About stuff? Trash it.
A profile page for each contributor? Ycch. I have my own blog to go on and on about how lovely I am. So does every one.
Karl, you don’t like the idea of a blogroll, but I want a small one with the contributors on it. As a contributor, I want advertising on the main page. Not a sub page, not in a link to another page, right on the main page, and no, the link in my name is not enough.
I’ve put work into this site, and I want a kickback. In exchange, I promise to continue to post the best stuff I can. My link can be taken down if I fail to post as promised.
That’s the deal. Less is a deal breaker. I’ll keep my end. That’s fair.
If others don’t ask for the same, well, they should. There’s no such thing as a free lunch.
I’m all for minimalism – but I think we need a proper vote because I’m now spending most of my time implementing things that a few ask for and then others reject. We need to pick something and just stick with it. I really don’t care what it is as long as it is stable and Rex and I can stop tweaking things and get back to thinking about art.
My list for the sidebar:
–Search
–Recent Comments
–Recent Posts
–List of links to the contributors websites
–Date Archives (only effective way of truly navigating the entire site – this is a must – the old A&P didn’t have this and it made it extremely difficult to use)
–About A&P
–Meta (includes the subscribe info)
Lisa, that sounds great.
If the sidebar list of links to contributors also mentions the posting days of the week, then the “contributors” page becomes unnecessary. This combines what Rex wants with essential functionality. This is more stuff in the side bar, but one less item overall (i.e., no “contributors” page). Thus, it agrees with Rex and could also be considered minimal functionality.
Lisa, the whole point of my comment is to get you and Rex off of the need for so much tinkering.
Lisa, if your list is an ordered list, it seems good to me. I effectively removed categories form zipser.nl with a few comment markers. I also put in Google search. I have noticed Googlebots on A&P each day, so the Google search might work here now, if you think it is worthwhile.
Rex, Google knows about blogrolls, and knows that they have little content value. The links you make within your posts are far more valuable than sidebar links, I believe. So posting, cross-linking to your site with relevant context words will give you more a payoff than any blogroll could. Your comments on the side bar are infinitely more valuable as advertisement for you than a blogroll also. I agree with your proposal about contributors anyway. Why not list them on the front page? This makes it easier for us to keep track of posting days.
Rex,
I reread your comment. I sort of missed the tone the first time through. You write as though this is not your site as much as everyone else’s. Rex, you have made a huge contribution. I would vote to link to you forever even if you quit posting now. Somebody put a link to Rex in the sidebar, ASAP. I can’t do it myself anymore, I’m not an administrator.
Best,
Karl
Karl,
The problem with post and content links is that their value–both in directing people to other sites and making your own more linkworthy (i.e. I’ll link to you if you link to me)–is short-lived, because people tend not to read older posts. Although, sure, you can just keep reiterating a link.
Permanent sidebar links are good way of indicating sites that are of long-term, as opposed to transitory value. If somebody says or does something specific of value, they should get a post link. If they keep saying things of value on a consistent basis, they deserve a more lasting (and visible) recognition.
I’m not clear on how these things work in general, but I know that putting up a blogroll (ugh) on The Thinking Eye has helped draw attention to my site. It is also useful as a guide to which blogs I will read regularly. Trust me, these things are useful for everybody involved.
How popular is Art & Perception anyway?
Here are some random numbers for comparison from Technorati – one rank of “popularity” of blogs:
A&P:
* Rank: 483,495 (8 links from 7 blogs)
* Updated: 4 days ago
Old A&P (now Karl’s blog – http://www.zipser.nl):
* Rank: 79,592 (166 links from 40 blogs)
* Updated: 7 days ago
Arthur’s Blog (thethinkingi.blogspot.com)
* Rank: 159,781 (36 links from 21 blogs)
* Updated: 1 day ago
My blog (blog.lisacall.com):
* Rank: 58,021 (85 links from 54 blogs)
* Updated: 11 days ago
Just passing on the numbers no value judgement what this means.
Back in the day when Google became ascendant, all the tech kiddies were going, “How DID they do it?”
Answer: Google rates a site by the number of links pointing to it. It IS how Google works. This became THE successful search ranking model. It has been widely copied. All the other search engines started to at least incorporate link pointers into their code in order to catch up or compete with Google.
Arthur adds that featuring a site in the sidebar also confers a value judgment, and I agree.
I have just now added all the contributors to A&P to the blogroll on my site. Let’s put ourselves up front. Let’s all help each other out. Let us push each other up in rank.
When working in a genre, an artist is wise to first come to an understanding of what is expected from a given genre. A mystery book has a mystery, a string quartet has four strings, and a blog has a blogroll. Call it “Contributers” perhaps instead of a blogroll though, probably. Like Lisa said, “Blogroll” is an ugly word. (But so is “Blog,” for that matter.)
As far as my tone in my comment, yes, I felt left out. After all the work I did, staying up till three in the morning the night before, and then to come in after a very hard day’s work just to see all that pissy whining, the discussion over, and what appeared to be an arbitrary and cavalier redesign I was going, “To hell with this.”
Well, Lisa wrote me a very nice email and explained what was going on. Thank you Lisa.
I repeat, I don’t mind getting outvoted, so long as a vote actually occurs. We have, by my count, twelve contributors. No motion can carry without seven yes votes. All else is arbitrary. In cowboy talk, I would put it less politely. :)
I agree – links are good – links in the side bar are really good. Links anywhere are good. Blogrolls (named anything) are good. I agree with Rex – I put a ton of work on this I want a link to my site on the front page.
Let’s vote already before Rex makes us wear western hats!
Both recent comment plugins are now appearing on the site – decide which one you like best and we’ll vote later. (I’m going to fix the formatting of that one on top later today).
Paul don’t mean to be ignoring your thought provoking post. I’m thinking about your ideas while I’m dealing with problems at work.
Hi Lisa,
When I fixed the formatting in the recent comments on my blog, I had to style the .sidebar h4 class, so it’s an h4 somewhere that needs to be made like the other. It would not be fair to vote until the styles have been refined. We don’t get a fair assessment without the headings formatted. Furthermore, even if it’s voted to not have excerpts, the new version does organize things by post, bumping a post to the top of the list when a new comment is made. So there are several possibilities to be tested before we all make the final call.
Also, I do not get any excerpts when I hover over the old recent comments, just a repeat of the text, and sometimes just a date, nor does a click take me to the comment, just the top of the page. That make their use tedious and slow for me. But the on new version, a click on the comment takes me right to the comment. That is a really efficient feature. You are getting different behavior on the original recent comments?
I too want to comment on Paul’s post, but I am chasing the light again.
Cheers
I fixed the formatting for the top recent comments – definitely looks better now.
I changed the h4 to an li in the plugin itself because that is what it needed to be to work for us. There is a back up of the old way in the freepress directory.
I could fix it to add the hovers (and I think the post titles should be links to the posts themselves) but it would take a while (a couple hours I think) because I don’t know the WP APIs well enough to know where the info easily comes from while in the plugins – and I suppose it probably depends on the sql query if they even pulled it in and I’m just not going there at the moment.
So it is what is for now. If it gets voted in then I’ll think about putting in that work but I’d have to be desperate for things to do.
Rex – in the original one there are 2 links for each of the recent comments – the authors name is different than then post name – different hovers and different links. The behavior you describe is what it does for the post title – try to author name instead.
So lets live with them both for a bit and then Rex are you going to create a post with a bunch of polls?
I think I might actually go to my studio and make some art…. No – it can’t be.
Lisa, I see what the hovers do now. Excellent! That makes me guilty of not following my own advice; i.e,, do not pass judgement without full testing.
How is it set for how long the mouse must be over an object before the tooltip text is displayed? I knew how to change that once, but now I’ve forgotten. I don’t like the lag, naturally. I hate to wait for computers.
So there are then two substantive differences in the two methods, one organizes by posts pushing the whole list up in the queue when a new comment is made and the other goes strictly by recentness and does not group by post.
It’s good to have the two to compare right near each other. THe fact that the original does not take one directly to the comment is a bug. Fixing that would make the original much faster to use.
As far as the blogroll, Thank you Karl for coming my way on that.
Is there anyone who doesn’t want their name or site on the blogroll/contributors?
Going once…
?
And proposition II.
Let it be only contributors on the list. That is in keeping with the minimal theme and will serve to make the list members more important or valued.
Which you are, of course.
And yes, perhaps a series of polls on a post would be just the thing.
Lisa again, did the background color IE bug get fixed? Don’t want to hurt anyone’s eyes this time around.
Rex, I agree.
Rex,
Let it be only contributors on the list. That is in keeping with the minimal theme and will serve to make the list members more important or valued.
I don’t agree. Contributors should go at the top, but I think that a handful of other links would be useful for some of the reasons that I’ve already discussed. A linked list of contributors in the sidebar isn’t a real blogroll. There are broadly relevant sites which are not authored by A & P contributors (Ed Winkleman’s comes immediately to mind). We need to look towards expanding our little world.
As for minimalism, I think its a silly concept to be waving a flag for here. How about “whatever works”?
I have just now added all the contributors to A&P to the blogroll on my site. Let’s put ourselves up front. Let’s all help each other out. Let us push each other up in rank.
I’m not going to do this, and I don’t recommend that anybody else do so. The links are here, soon to be on a blogroll (or so I hear). We don’t need to give each other’s sites additional recognition unless, of course, we find a site to be of extraordinary value. Of course, Rex, you can do whatever you want on your blog. But the approach seems vulgar to me.
We don’t need to give each other’s sites additional recognition unless, of course, we find a site to be of extraordinary value.
I agree. If A&P just seems to be a group self-promotion vehicle it’s going to lose any credibility as a place for real discussion. We all (I think) have our own websites, which is the proper place for promoting our work. If a visitor to A&P wants to find out more about someone who’s posted or commented it’s pretty easy already for them to find our websites.
I have a suggestion. This site seems to do it’s best if we aren’t discussing how to build the sidebar.
I would like permission to create a sidebar that I feel is reasonable and we just go with it.
At the present myself and Rex are the only admins left and Rex has expressed a desire to bow out of the admin job now that we have things going fairly well.
So I’m putting up a poll in the sidebar in a few minutes asking that I just do what I think is best so we can get back to talking about art? I promise not to do anything controversial without running past everyone for a vote but I think I have a pretty good idea of the feelings everyone has about links/sidebars/etc based on the feedback here and in other places.
David,
We all (I think) have our own websites, which is the proper place for promoting our work
I realize its tedious to read through all these comments (I have no intention of doing so myself). But don’t imply that the above is my position. Don’t take my words out of context like that. I favor sidebar links to the sites of all contributors (and additional sites, too, but this seems unpopular).
Lisa,
We can drop everything now, but these issues are just going to come back again in the future. They’re too important. As tedious as it is (especially for you, of course), it seems like the best thing to do is get this settled as quickly as possible. Then/i> we can discuss art without distractions. Why don’t we just vote on all of the pertinent sidebar issues?
Arthur the majority of these discussions are about things admins generally set up and they are irrelevant – who cares which recent comments plugin we use. The order of the stuff in the sidebar – whatever.
Had Karl just created a new look and feel for the blog noone would have said anything – it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme.
But it is certainly causing a lot of contention because somehow ‘design by committee’ was attempted. (Show me an admin that could put up with such things and not go insane).
This is a website – a simple tool for communication – it is the content that we need to focus on and not the fonts.
These issues need dropped – delegated to an admin – and then we need to get on. I don’t care if the admin is me or not but if it is I’m done taking votes on the admin stuff. I don’t have the time for such things because it doesn’t matter to the conversation. I seriously doubt the presence or absence of a link in the sidebar is going to have a profound effect on this group – yet the way it was discussed you’d think we were talking about world peace.
If it’s not me than all the better because I can get back to just reading the posts and enjoying them instead of worrying about what format the recent comments should be in.
So I will be putting up a poll that only registered users can vote on – either make me admin and trust I will make good choices – or Rex will soon be the only admin (Karl and Colin already dropped back to being only authors).
My life is falling apart around me over this blog (I kid you not on this – I got some very bad news today that was a result of me working on this blog) and I give it exactly 24 hours to get straightened out or I will become just an author also.
I’m with Lisa. This discussion is over.
Arthur, you do what you want. I have your blog in my blogroll because it’s excellent. What you do with yours is your business. David, I love your website, and I’m promoting it.
And if I’m posting, my name’s going in a permanent prominent place. Moreover, it’s not competing with non contributors.
I fought for you guys too.
Arthur, sorry if you felt I took your words out of context. I didn’t mean to. Quoting an excerpt is the only way I can think of to make it clear what I’m responding to.
Lisa,
Of course I’m troubled by what you wrote above, about your difficulties arising from your work here. I am sorry to hear about this.
Art & Perception, this site, is not a game. This site will, I believe, be influential for many artists. It has already changed my whole view of the art world and my own work. I know that other people have been similarly influenced by our group effort. And we are only at the beginning.
Hearing about your misfortune makes me feel even more committed to making this site something great. I’ll do whatever is necessary, as Author or Admin as required.
Lisa, I’m sorry if I’ve been wasting your time. I joined in here because other people seemed to be interested and passionate. You’re doing an excellent job overall. I trust you to make reasonable decisions about the sidebar. The one thing that I think is really important is the blogroll issue. But even that can wait, of course, if your paying work is on the line. Again, sorry.