Makeover time (31 Jan, 2018)

[aardvark_admin]

This column is archived at: https://aardvark.co.nz/daily/2018/0131.shtml

I'm handing the future look and feel of Aardvark over to you guys. Tell me what's important, what's not and what changes you'd like to see.

I would like the theme for the new Aardvark to be "pragmatic minimalism", with a focus on the content, not the container. To that end, I'm thinking fast, low-overhead, device-agnostic and perhaps a 50-50 split between the written word and the spoken word (podcast).

Tell me what you think or simply come up with your own ideas and suggestions.

The floor is yours.

[goosemoose]

Not fussed about podcasts to be honest. Never listen to them. Much quicker to read. This maybe a bit of a PITA but getting readers to submit news articles. Maybe only allow one or 2 per user per day. Users that are registered obviously Maybe theres a way to automate it a bit.

If you're going to go a bit retro what about those old school flashing fonts

[Hiro Protagonist]

If you're going to go a bit retro what about those old school flashing fonts

Or how about one of those cool javascript scrolling 'tickers' as the bottom of the page?

[joeseph]

The current format is fine - having to click a link to view the second page doesn't bother me at all, especially if the content on the first page is interesting.
Can't say I'd be a fan of podcasts.

[GSVNoFixedAbode]

Personally I'd love to see the curated news items back - always enjoyed that. Podcasts I've never really got interested in, but a weekly omnibus sounds good.
Oh, and a refresh of links may be on the cards: when did UAVaerospace domain name last get re-registered?

[RuralGeek]

not fussed on podcasts.
a simple wordpress site + wptouch theme to give mobile device support would be a good starting point for a fresh look

[phord]

Making a responsive website requires effort to work well for both desktop & mobile.
It might be easier to use a separate domain for mobile, e.g. m.aardvark.co.nz

With a responsive site, the user is often confronted with much swiping & tapping before they even see the content.
Then on a wide desktop screen, the paragraphs become too horizontally long.
I've ranted about this before:
http://forums.aardvark.co.nz/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1113&hilit=+responsive#p10629
http://forums.aardvark.co.nz/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=481&hilit=+responsive#p4443

I do read Aardvark on a mobile sometimes. I found that the Opera mobile browser was good because you can double tap on the content column & it fills the screen width. It zooms the text a little & locks it for scrolling.

[hagfish]

Ooh - face-lift time! A podcast is an interesting idea. I listen to RadioNZ's This Way Up via iTunes - perhaps your podcast could use a similar format.

My suggestions for the site would be to remove the 'read more' feature, and go with a responsive design that can fit different reading devices. You could sit down and learn jquery, react, flexbox, svg etc etc but you'd only have to re-learn all the new buzz-techniques in another five years. WordPress templates take care of all that heavy lifting.

[BruceNZ]

My 2c:

- Podcast: no thanks.
- News index: not fussed.
- Email or omnibus: no thanks.
- FB: no!

Quite happy with the current format TBH, I do very little browsing or reading on a mobile device as I like a decent amount of screen to work with.

[latewings]

Ditto what BruceNZ mentioned. The only mod would be that the entire article be on page 1 rather than requiring two clicks to get the full monty.

But that's so minor I'd not care if it was fixed or not.