@antonio
well…well said. The ‘structure’ maybe is quiet maybe is balanced but it existed for so long on differents names (or no name at all) and there is no need of a new one.

For clarification regarding horizontal segmentation of content, I didn’t mean to suggest a wide layout that would necessitate horizontal scrolling. As you said yourself, that’s a big no-no.

What I was suggesting to Antonio was to reduce the number of disjointed columns at any given time in the browser’s viewport by substituting full-width horizontal sections (less than 960 px total width). Regarding readability, there’s no need to take up the complete width, so proper line length shouldn’t be an issue if the grid is properly set up. A little difficult to describe without visuals, so I’ll just link to Andy Rutledge’s article because he’s more eloquent than I am : http://www.andyrutledge.com/quiet-structure.php

The dropdown menu is required in every information dense web application, no matter how much we hate it (or not. Me not). I use it every time there is a need of the user choice in a appropriate context. It is a good example of function dictates the use. A dropdown is very often a limit (see Amazon) so it is used in these cases where there is a need of vertical segmentation.

I’m not convinced by the web as a horizontal presentational media. Tests all around the world show users are more distrurbed by horizontal scrolling than by vertical scrolling and HCI rules tends to prefers the vertical columns pattern.
In the CSS3 specifications you can see more and more columns
http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/CSS3_Columns

@Antonio
I agree with Dickson Fong on a footer (horz space) where in a vertical grid you can list your inspirations link, Colophon and Goodies.
From what i said above you can get my opinion about the dropdown link list. I would prefer the footer above mentioned and a dedicated page linked from there.

I agree with David Airey that it would be nice to have related posts displayed on your single.php pages, and perhaps have the most popular posts listed on the main blog page.

But I’m not sure if adding an additional page for archive links or recent material would be the best approach. Although it would help the content breathe by getting rid of the visual noise, this would come at the expense of reducing visibility and exposure to other parts of your blog. Considering the type of material that you post, I suspect that your readers want to be able to jump around from post to post and would rather not click on a special archive page to do so—this would just interrupt their work flow.

Maybe a better solution would be to place the archive/recent/related links in a horizontal sidebar instead of a vertical sidebar. I think the problem with vertical sidebars is that they create multiple columns of information within the browser’s viewport. This in itself isn’t a bad thing, but when content is generated dynamically, we don’t have control over the column heights. I think this breaks down the effectiveness of a grid layout because it introduces unpredictable irregularities. For example, the thin horizontal rules in your current sidebar don’t line up with the horizontal rules in your main content column. Some of the mismatched lines look fine, but some are within proximities of each other that cause a bit of tension, making it look a little uncomfortable.

So maybe you can look into organizing your information into horizontal segments…? The computer is a horizontal presentation environment, so I think such a layout would allow the content to breathe without restricting visitors’ access to the information that they want.

I’m personally not a fan of dropdown menus—makes people have to work for the content because they can’t see everything at once. Actually, a while back ago, I was doing research on web user interfaces, and every person that I observed and interviewed absolutely hated dropdowns.

Just food for thought.

I’m looking for a plugin that can display all my links in a dropdown menu. That would solve some space issues for me and I can even bring the dropdown up to the top. But I can’t seem to find a plugin that does that.

The current theme is in my opinion a good theme. Maybe i would push up the content a little bit, move the search box on right top and give the recent posts column a more raised position.
In short, more above the fold content.

The conditional tags examples are on codex http://codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags

@David - That could be another way to handle the links page. I’ll have to mess around with some options to see what works best. Thanks.

WordPress conditional tags (I use them for different header images for different posts on iLT); shout if you need code examples.

1. line-height: 1.5em is easier on the eyes;
2. Not sure about the mixture of thick and thin dividers in the sidebar (one or the other, perhaps?):
3. Need a space after “Tags:” as in “Tags: blog….”

Oh, that’s three things.

However, I’m nitpicking. Great job, Antonio.

How do you control the visibility of the sidebar widgets on certain pages? I have no clue on how to do that.

It all starts with having the correct template pages. For instance, if you go to edit your index.php file, you should see a piece of code saying something like ‘get_sidebar.php’. You need to create a new template page. Call it ‘sidebar2.php’ for instance. Then edit the index.php file to include ‘get_sidebar2.php’.

I’ve not actually tried it on my own blogs, but for my graphic design portfolio, the aim is to possibly show some testimonials in the sidebar, rather than ‘popular articles’ and ‘recent articles’.

You make a valid point about moving your links into a single page. On the one hand, there’s less info to distract the readers’ attention from your content, but on the other, they miss your recommendations.

You could always add your resources page not as a text link, but as an image link. Create a custom image to draw the eye towards ‘further resources’. What do you reckon?

How do you control the visibility of the sidebar widgets on certain pages? I have no clue on how to do that.

I like adding my links and other info into a single page. I’m going to try that out. The thing with that is all that content gets hidden and most people will miss it and some of it is useful like the links list.

As for the archives, I have no idea if anyone uses it. I use it from time to time but I do see your point and it’s a very valid one.

HA, I just noticed the copyright today.

For instance, on your homepage, you could show popular articles near the top, whereas on individual blog posts, you could add ‘related articles’ at the top, so people arriving via a particular topic will automically see similar content.

A way to remove some of your sidebar content is to add an additional static page. Call it ‘resources’ perhaps. In there you could place your ‘goodies’, ‘friends’, ‘inspiration’ etc.

Here’s something else to think about: does anyone actually use your ‘archives’ section? In all my time blogging, I’ve never searched a site by month. Especially when the categories are also listed (as yours are). I know you have the archives in a drop-down, which is great, but do you know if it’s ever used? I’d be interested in the answer.

Maybe update your copyright notice at the foot of each page to include the current year (it only shows 2007), and remove the ‘log in’ link in your site navigation. I’m not sure how needed it is.

Hopefully that helps out slightly.

guess i just dont like the typical blog-look too much…

@David Airey - I’m definitely going to look for ways to add some colors. I also read your recent post about making new readers feel at home and I want to add a Popular Articles widget. The thing is I have so many items in the sidebar already and adding another one will just make it more cluttered.

@Marcus - I have to look into skinning my feed. It’s through Feedburner and I’m not sure how much control I have over it. What do you mean by the meta-info clutter? Are you referring to the main navigation?