This blog is approaching its .75th birthday. When I started it last August, I decided not to be a perfectionist with regard to the technical setup of the thing, for fear that I would tinker and tinker and never get around to blogging. But now that we’ve been at it for almost nine months, it’s probably time to circle back around and start making some technical improvements. In many ways you, the reader, know more about the improvements that this blog needs than I do. So I would love to hear from you. What do other blogs do that you’d like to see this one do?
How, for instance, is the RSS feed working for you? Do the comments work the way you would like for them to work? Do you get the notifications you want to get? I’ve had at least one person mention that they have tried to subscribe to this blog without success. Would you use a search feature? What about the organization of things?
So, please tell me what would improve the user experience for you–from a functionality and organizational perspective rather than a content perspective. (To put it another way, don’t say, “Write better.”) I’m all ears. I don’t know how many of your suggestions I can implement or how soon, but I’d love to have a good list to work from. Thanks in advance.
Dryad
Write better.:)
Actually, for the most part, everything works for me. The main problem is that everything I do on this website in particular takes almost ten seconds to load. And yes, I timed it.
BuckBuck the Nordic Wonderduck
A gift shop with Feechie sweatshirts.
BuckBuck the Nordic Wonderduck
Shirts I would most likely wear.
“I lived with Feechies, and all I got was this lousy T-shirt.”
“Doctor Hazel’s Youth and Beauty Tonic” (with vintage-looking illustration)
A phrenology map.
“Feechies. I ain’t skeert.”
Fellow Traveler
“I don’t have enough faith to be a Feechie atheist.”
Patrick
Everything works fine for me, but I agree with Dryad about the long load times, much longer than any of the other blogs I follow. I especially like the “Recent Comments” so when I check out a new post I can see if there is current activity on other posts. So if anyone says to remove it please don’t. Thank you for Blogging. Keep it awesome. 😉
Canaan Bound
Podcasts would be nice.
And I second what’s been said about load times. Kinda slow. A couple of times, I’ve submitted a comment that didn’t end up posted. Don’t know if that’s intentional on your part, JR, or just a glitch in the system.
Overall, I really like this place. It’s humble and unassuming. It suits me quite fine.
Jonathan Rogers
Slow loading…a pattern is emerging already. I’ll see what I can figure out about that.
Charles Atkinson
I don’t know if this is already an option on this blog and I just missed it, but one thing I have looked for is a way to subscribe to be notified of comments on a particular post. That would help me keep up with all the lively conversations in the comment section.
I also wonder if “recent comments” might switch places with “categories” on the sidebar.
But even if these minor changes don’t make the final cut, or it takes an hour to load, or the day comes when the Internet called it quits and finally breaks down and you have to sending it out by mail or carrier pigeon (in between defending your property from post-apocalyptic barbarian hordes), I will be a repeat reader.
Patrick
While posting today I noticed something else. I’ve never figured out how HTML tags work. Is there anyway to set it up so that we can just highlight and click a button to get things formatted in our comments the way we want them? Like a word processor? I’ve seen it in some other blogs for bold, italics, underlining… but I’m not sure which ones. Most seem to be the same as yours. I do like that we can make faces here 🙂 definitely a feature worth keeping.
Patrick
or maybe I’m delusional. Just jumped to several different blogs and they are all HTML. Sorry for the seemingly impossible suggestion.
sally apokedak
Ohhhh so now I understand the remark about the blog being slow. Duh!
I don’t know why you should be allowed to limit our critique. I think “write better” is an important suggestion if we want to make it.
All of my friends and family members would get feechie sweatshirts for Christmas if they were available, as long as you don’t make them at that really expensive internet cafe place. (http://www.cafepress.com)
I’m with Charles on the “submit to comments” button. Please.
And, yes, I would use a search button. I often go looking for quotes and I have to dig through several posts looking for what I want.
Loren
I think the slow-loading problem might be fixed now. As I’ve been playing around on here this evening everything is reloading within a second. Much improved!
Jonathan Rogers
Loren, your optimism is gratifying, but I haven’t yet taken any steps to fix the slow loading. Maybe you got lucky.