I’ve been elbow-deep in our anonymous stats logs, which I look at every now and then to see how visitors’ browsing habits are changing. What I’ve seen, and this should come as no surprise, is that mobile views are way, way up, and “desktop” views way, way down proportionally.
When I redesigned ToolGuyd’s layout about a year and a half ago, it was in response to Google’s policy change, where they said they would favorably rank mobile-friendly websites over those that aren’t.
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At the time, I had already been meaning to go more mobile-friendly, and my approach was to make ToolGuyd responsive, where things change size or move around depending on the viewing screen size.
Well, it’s time for some tweaking. With there being so much more mobile traffic these days, with nearly as many visitors using smartphones as desktop and laptop computers, I will be looking for ways to improve things.
Initially, my goal will be to improve accessibility to past content. On a desktop or laptop, you get a full top menu, and “recent posts” and “new comments” lists in the sidebar. On a mobile device, you get a hidden top menu, and the sidebar links are all the way at the bottom of the page, below the content and comments.
I don’t know about you, but I rarely scroll past an article when browsing on my smartphone.
On a desktop computer, I might open a load of tabs when visiting a new site. I sometimes do the same on my smartphone, but not really.
If there’s a layout change that you don’t like, such as if it makes reading more difficult for you, please let me know.
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If you’ve got a request, please let me know that too. It was a reader request that led me to auto-post headlines to our Facebook page, and another that led me to restore “next post” and “previous post” links on article pages.
Some changes you might not notice, such as the 3-letter abbreviation of month names anywhere you see a date. I might change this back, but what I’ve found is that this shortens the length of the date, author name, and comment count at the top of every article and on the homepage headline listings. So instead of this info being on two lines on my smartphone, it’s now just one line, saving space.
RSS Changes
I will be running an experiment, where I switch the RSS feed from “full content” to “excerpts only.” You’ll have to click on the headline to read it.
I avoided doing this for so long, as I also read a lot of content vis RSS, but I have found that 1) so many sites do this now that I don’t give it a second thought when I click a headline to read more, 2) many RSS feed readers allow for effortless transition and in-app or on-page display of full content, and 3) some ToolGuyd features don’t always work well via RSS, or sometimes at all, such as embedded YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter content.
RSS content strips out all styling that’s not in-line, which discards how I want things to be displayed.
I toggled the switchover right before publishing this post, and so if you read ToolGuyd via RSS, I ask you this – did you even notice?
Subscribers to our original RSS newsletter emails, which I changed over to our current platform 5 or 6 years ago, might be the most affected. (Sorry, guys!) That email service is no longer supported, and I have yet to find a workaround, but I’ll continue to keep it in mind.
I also removed the RSS link from the top of ToolGuyd pages. Most RSS readers can pull it out of a site address when you subscribe. That’s all I need when I subscribe to a new site via RSS – the main URL.
When you want to subscribe to a new site’s RSS feed, do you look for the RSS link?
Other Feedback
Please share your thoughts with us! How can we make your ToolGuyd browsing experience even better?
demure
I can notice the difference in the rss feeds, and I hope you change it back. I use TTRSS as my reader (a free open source googlereader replacement that a person can run on their own server). It does have a phone app like ablity to load the full page in place, I have to manually have it open in a new browser tab. I really dislike how many sites are crippeling their rss feeds… Context: less then a paragraph, or no pictures (other sites), and I have to manually open every post in a new tab, as I have no way of telling if I want to read that post from how small the RSS snipet is.
Mr. Creek
It is understandable that one must change, to keep up with changing times. Please, do not go the way of so many other informational web pages. For example TIA, can not read a sentence before I get spammed with pop ups to sign up for something, even though I already signed up, so I stopped reading their post and stopped visiting their web page. Another annoying thing is when a website post something like, “12 tools you need to own under 25 bucks” then makes you click through 13 times to see each one on the list whilst all their crappy adds load on each page chewing up all my mobile bandwidth. Also, the stupid banner ads, that one cannot scroll out of. So I’m forced to try to hit the microscopic ‘X’ to close it. Another, thing I cannot stand is, websites that will not load content unless I have cookies or Java script enabled. I love Toolguyd because it’s straight to the point, informative, easy to read and most of all no BS and your advertising is non intrusive. Toolguyd is number one for a reason, part of that reason is you avoid cheap gimmicks. Just my 3 nickels.
Stuart
I *might* bring a “when you leave it’ll pop over” newsletter signup during the peak holiday season, but probably not. Popovers are effective, but I dislike them too, unless they offer something good enough to get over it. I used “exit intent” and it seemed to work pretty well at not being very annoying.
Every now and then I might let a “clickable” headline through, but I try to avoid it.
And I also HATE “slideshows.” Show me all the content on one page unless there’s a very good reason not to.
BonPacific
Some small observations.
Depending on how your theme works, shortening the search box and dropping the menu toggle into the same line would save vertical space, which is my biggest pet peeve when browsing on mobile.
I like sticky or fixed headers on mobile, as long as it’s not too tall. So I can access the menu from any point in the page.
It might just be me, but I never use the “related posts” section, and would prefer if it were moved below the comments.
More useful for the desktop version of the site, but I would love to have a “scroll to top” button. The floating variety you see on a few sites, that shows up after you scroll x-distance down the page.
Stuart
It should be easy to move the top menu button and search on mobile, but it’s not. It’s still on my to-do list.
I don’t like floating menus and “scroll to top,” as I’ve seen them break things and cover up features and content that shouldn’t be covered.
I can’t check related posts metrics, but it’s something I do like. It’s on my to-do list to condense it somehow.
Russ
I follow you via Inoreader, a great RSS feed reader. First I want to say Thank You for providing RSS at all. Many newer sites don’t and I often decide not to follow them at that point. If it’s a great site and all they offer is an email newsletter then I can subscribe thru Inoreader and still follow them almost as if they were an RSS feed; it’s not as convenient but it works. Still, the best choice is true RSS with the whole article displayed but I can understand if only a snippet is offered and I’m willing to click thru to the website if necessary. Even if you offer the full article I sometimes click thru to the site if I want to see the comments or leave one of my own.
Stuart
Thank you!
Right now, it’s still a test. I need more feedback and data before I decide on anything definite.
daniel
Ditto that. I loved reading full toolguyd articles in Feedly. Sad to see it go.
D
Stuart
Feedly is what I use, and it’s been opening links in-page or in-app to where I usually don’t even notice anymore.
daniel
Youtube & vimeo videos, instagram and twitter — these things all work fine in many other feeds.
RSS has no opinion on inline styles one way or the other. Maybe a WP plugin is responsible? Feedly might take a swipe at certain things too. But again plenty of sites use inline styles in their feeds.
Feeds can contain your banner ads, too.
Daniel
(I love that you’re taking time to discuss these things with readers, whatever you end up deciding.)
Koko The Talking Ape
I think whatever change you make, it should feature that picture of your boy.
Cr8ondt
I use mobile and desktop almost equally, while on mobile generally I prefer just quick simple layouts to get info or updates to news in bite sized chunks, on desktop I find myself more relaxed an ready to click away an absorb more. This is not specific to Toolguyd but my general usage habits.
Overall if feel this site has operated well with my usage habits, and when I do notice a tweak here a difference there, it doesn’t seen to change my user experience.
Dmitry
Please, change RSS feed back to “full content”.
It’s much more convenient when you can read the whole article in your reader.
Brandon
I hope you change the RSS back to the full articles. I understand why website authors use the shortened version, but for me it’s a deal breaker for the feed. In that case, I would just visit your website occasionally when I think about it, rather than when I want to read the comments on an article I was interested in.
Stuart
Experiment ended, Full RSS Text restored. =)
demure
Thank you ^__^
teicher
I think Ars Technica uses a good layout that works on both desktop and mobile firefox.
Patrick H
Honestly it already reads pretty well on my phone. I occasionally use it on my computers but I’d say 90% of my visits are on my phone.