Responsive Design & Developer Blog

[Infranight]

I just recently finished a responsive design for my newly founded developer blog, hopefully you guys can provide me with some opinions and criticisms.

http://www.changry.com/

My main concerns are the load time, ability to discover new posts, and usability.
Thanks!

[ralph.m]

I like the look and feel, so thumbs up on the design.

One gripe is that the site doesn't really give me any kind of introduction up front, so that I don't really know what I'm looking at when I visit the site. I'd encourage you to have a brief introduction on the home page, and ideally some tag line with the logo so that there's some indication on all pages what the site is for.

The other thing I'll point out is that I was confused by the home page. I couldn't tell if I was looking at a series of article briefs or one long article. I eventually decided it was one long article, but that wasn't clear. It was also not really clear how to view other articles. Obviously there's the sidebar, but still, clicking those items seemed to bring up just one article. I think it would make more sense to use the homepage for snippets of articles, and each section also to present snippets, so that you know where you are in the scheme of things.

On the home page, I scrolled to the bottom of the article and clicked the next article link. That was a bit confusing too, as there only seemed to be a fragment of an article offered up.

So it's the navigation / information architecture that I think you need to look at.

[austinsp]

I agree with the previous poster. I love the color scheme and idea, but if I just randomly popped on your page, I wouldn't have an idea what I'm looking at. Maybe if you found a way to put something under your logo explaining the subject. I do think it's a cool blog idea though! I'll have to bookmark it and watch its development.

[audiotx]

Congratulations on a pro job. The images are so clear. The layout pleasing.
The font for example on the word ADVERT, I wonder if it may be allowed to mimic the google font here?
Thank you for making it clear it is an advert, but I felt the font looked out of place, maybe because I am expecting the google font in that place
I endorse the comment re an intro phrase, but all in all a good site. You have raised the bar also

[snickn]

I really like it. Is there suppose to be a gap between Contact and Webmasters?

[ajrdesign]

Presenting mobile users with a search function is probably not the best idea. Typing on most mobile devices is tedious and if they are landing on your page for the first time they aren't going to know what to search for because they have no idea what your website is about! I'd look into a dropdown menu for mobile users.

Otherwise I think it's pretty decent! Good job.

[pantho007]

very nice design...clear,attrctive and colorful...
social sharing and facebook likebox is present....but no follow at twitter button...you have enough space to add this.
your frons are looking good
good job...congratulations

[giokr]

I think that your website design is very good and the content has high quality as well. Some minor possible changes are: remove the title advert before the advertisement, I think it is not necessary (it is not common to give a title to advertisements.) You can add follow at twitter button, its a good idea. Furthermore you can work at SEO of your website trying to receive organic traffic from google. And I wish to keep posting and continue the nice job. furthermore I will not agree more with the statement " I couldn't tell if I was looking at a series of article briefs or one long article. I eventually decided it was one long article, but that wasn't clear. It was also not really clear how to view other articles. Obviously there's the sidebar, but still, clicking those items seemed to bring up just one article". I think you should fix it.

[Lieto]

My main concerns are the load time, ability to discover new posts, and usability.

- images in the main content area are too big for what they do. I am not a great fan of 2 columns wireframe (which is what you get on 960px) cause content area looks too wide then
- basically you get to see only one article if you open it on sub 30 inch monitor which isnt that much
- hot off the press block on contrary could ve used some small preview images instead of plain text.
- it could use some featured article block on top and maybe "recents posts" or "most popular" would ve make it easier to discover as well.

Check some big news site to get the idea. Lots of small images, titles etc (like bbc.com). Even if you dont have that much content it would still be beneficial to make it look like you do.

[xkratosx]

On a small monitor here and not really noticing some of the problems mentioned above! In particular I love how the navigation bar will switch from the side of the page to the top depending on your screen resolution, it's a very nice touch, especially since I was worried about how it'd look on lower resolutions/small windows.

I absolutely love the layout and the design, think you totally nailed it. You said you're concerned about the load time? I really have no idea why, the entire page (including images) loaded even before I had a chance to click on the tab! So either your hosts, or your optimisation is working nicely.

The fonts used are (predictably) fantastic, and I really like the large images with text overlay at the start of each article.

The search bar is very nicely integrated in with the design, and allows you to quickly find posts, so in terms of finding posts, usability etc I'd say you've nailed it too. Great job!

[erdmask]

I do like the layout, colors and fonts. But I'm not sure 'bout the right sidebar... You sure you really need it? Maybe it would be bette to to movi info from it into the left sidebar and make the content bar wider?

[TheFox]

My first impression? I didn't know where to look. My eyes went from the center post graphic to your logo to the giant blue download button which seems to be an ad.

I didn't realize this was a blog right away, because your content runs together and is somewhat unreadable. I think it would be much cleaner if you broke up the posts into separate boxes. Also, while the headline text looks nice against the transparent bars overlaying your featured photos, it leaves the content beneath seemingly without a headline. And it puts a bit too much clutter over your photos. I would move your headline text from your photos to just above your content, in black.

For balance, I would shrink your logo a bit. It seems unnecessarily big.

The last thing I noticed is your intro text on your blog posts. It’s only slightly larger than the content of your post. The difference is almost too subtle. I would bump it up a couple sizes.

Your overall design is really good. I like it. And your latest post on fresh fonts was personally helpful to me. Thanks!