Web Fiction Guide Forums | On the Web
Suggestions for readability?
I'm looking for suggestions on the readability of my story, Blood Moon at http://ereshkigala.blogspot.com/
I can read in most conditions and I am having trouble choosing a layout that inceases readability for other people. Help?
Responses
Posted 3 years ago
Novelr had an excellent two part series on improving readability here: http://www.novelr.com/2007/10/25/design-improving-readibility-without-lifting-a-pencil-part-1
I hope it helps. :)
Also, I clicked your link and I found it easy enough to read, though there seems to be an issue with the paragraphs.
Posted 3 years ago
I think a border around either the content or the sidebar might help. Right now my eye follows the end of the line to the sidebar content, which can be distracting.
Children of the First
Posted 3 years ago
At first glance the font drives me a bit nuts. Something a bit softer might help me read it. Other than that, I agree with the above comments.
Posted 3 years ago
I like the way you separated the text from the sidebar. The color difference and the borders make it nigh impossible to confuse the reader. I find it much more appealing now than before, but in the past I've only just skimmed through so I don't know for certain...
If I was to add my 2cents I would use a smaller font size because now there are just too few words in each sentence and it's a bit tiring to my eyes to skip down lines at such a pace. Also I would change the heading to either fit in a single line or having Bloodmoon in the first line and 'demon by night' in the second and not having it mixed like it is now, but this is just an aesthetic option.
My blog story
Posted 3 years ago
Maybe instead of making the font smaller (I like big fonts, they are easy on the eyes) you could make the content area wider and the sidebar thinner. It's a pretty hefty sidebar as it is. I dunno how much control over that you have in blogger, but then again, that's why I use wordpress.
Overall though, it looks much better.
Children of the First
Posted 3 years ago
Thanks for the info guys.
As for the sidebar and content area ratio, you CAN change them but you need to play with the code a bit to keep everything working. I tried changing the width of the content area but that warped all the margins, sidebars and colors.
Posted 3 years ago
about the border size:
I played around today a bit with the html editor and I've found a way to extend the border without warping the sidebar: (caution: it does warp the 'customize layout screen' but not to a degree that you cannot use it)
We are using almost identical layouts, so if you like the way mine was extended, I can sent you the code. (I mean this' blog's layout, not my main: http://whatliesunborn.blogspot.com/ )
My blog story
Posted 3 years ago
Nice. Just send me an e-mail with the code, hopefully it will work. Or, better yet, tell me what you did to widen the box; I don't want to completely change the code as changes clash with google analytics if it's already running.
BTW, something I noted on your blog; you're using the standard archives. Don't. Once the month changes, the older links are pushed into a drop-down menu and only the last month is visible. Plus, you can't move links around or post them in a different order.
What I did was just make a link sidebar, updated manually. The downside? You have to update it manually. The upside? You can put there any links you want, change the order of links, rename them, even divide the links into several different columns to separate chapters of different books and thus put everything you ever wrote there with no danger of mixing up posts. Plus, you can play a bit with the coloring/size of the characters, make it more appealing.
Posted 3 years ago
Yeah... about the archives, I just set up this site today, so I didn't have any time to play around. I use custom links for my main site and it IS better, but this one I just set it up to check if it will be easier for the readers... if it fails I'll just delete it.
About the borders: (If I remember all the changes):
Make a backup (obviously). Make certain that you have your widgets set as you wish (it becomes kinda hard to change them afterwards, and since I'm no techie I don't actually know what I screwed to make it that way^^)
In page structure: change the width of the outer wrapper to 900pixels (I think it was 740 originally). Change the width of main-wrap-1 to 645 pixels (I just added the same amount of pixels that I've added to the outer one). I've also added the same amount to .main.widget and .main.blog making them 628 and 644 respectively (For the widgets that you have atop of the posts to match the width of the post)
Then, just put */ /* at the url's (*/ url... /*) that are in: main-wrap-1, main-wrap-2, main, and header so as to make them comments. You'll actually lose the nice curvy corners of the main post page and the header but it's the only way that I've found (that didn't require of me to draw new curves) to remove the curves from 'splitting' your page to two halves (just visually).
Hope it works.
My blog story
Posted 3 years ago
forgot to mention that I did all those in (almost) the order that I posted them and just checked with preview page (not save). So, I actually don't know if something that I did wasn't necessary, it just worked. :D
My blog story
Posted 3 years ago
OK, thanks for the help everyone. The story seems much more readable now. If anyone has any more suggestions, feel free to share.
@shadowphoenix:
I tried the steps one by one. Yes, they're all needed because the curving edges are a fixed gif image, not something whose size you can alter.
Posted 3 years ago
one last thing: I've recently changed this: (the width)
#main {
$startSide;
padding:0;
width:665px;
}
it fixed the layout tag nicely (it just puts the side widgets below the main in the layout tablet instead of cramming them all together (don't actually know if you have any trouble there), but it is much more easy to rearrange the layout now)
My blog story
Posted 3 years ago
My own blog does this already but thanks anyway.
Posted 3 years ago
wow. much easier to read. it's looking really good belial!
heading looks a little odd tho. perhaps 'demon by night' could be italicized or made a bit smaller. also the font size (or is it the capitalization?) could maybe be adjusted to neaten it up a little.
but these are minor points and purely one view of what i would do.
but overall, it's looking great! :D
and seeing as we're both on blogger and i've also been playing around with widths and fonts and stuff, would you be so kind as to let me know what you think of my layout? would be much appreciated ;)
http://ridersofdarith.blogspot.com/
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