Designing Article Pages
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Transcript of Designing Article Pages
18 June 2009College Web Design Camp 2009: Session 4
Designing Article PagesJake Pauljakepaul.com
OverviewGoals of Article PagesWhat design concepts will be useful? What do you want an article page to do?
Design ImplementationHow do we make this happen on the web? What CSS rules should we use?
Other ConsiderationsHow should we optimize for search, handle comments, and facilitate printing?
HierarchyAn arrangement or classification of things according to relative importance.
Good hierarchy
Bad hierarchy
WhitespaceThe space between elements in a composition. Also called “negative space,” but not because it’s bad.
Macro/micro whitespace
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whitespace/
Passive whitespace
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whitespace/
Active whitespace
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whitespace/
Design is not mathNumbers will only get you so far. What looks good is a subjective judgement, and in design you have to trust yourself to make it.
But some constraints are good
Creative briefThe real purpose of article pages is reading. So make them easy to read.
The most significant changes you can make involve minimizing distractions.
Too many distractions
Minimizing distractionsPut everything that’s not the primary text up top or at the very end
The middle of the page should be exclusively article text
Avoid paginating articles
Enough distractions
Default stylesExact numbers will be unique to each design, but strong default styles help
Put margins on header and paragraph elements, not on divs
Adding passive whitespace
Adding active whitespace
Adding hierarchy
Minimize distractionsPut related media at the top of the page with the headline and photo
Put related reading links and everything else at the bottom of the pageBut, if you have multiple photos, spread them out throughout the article
Other considerationsArticle pages show up in searches a lot because they have fairly static content
Search optimizingUse dynamic metadata
Search optimizingDisplay the article title in the page title
Search optimizingDirect readers who arrive on your site via search with a brief note in the footer
CommentsPlace comments below whatever related article links
It might be useful to paginate comments to avoid having really long pages (nytimes.com)
PrintingDon’t put a print link on your article page
This is not at all definitivehttp://bit.ly/thinkingwithtype
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/indefenseofreaders
http://www.wilsonminer.com/posts/2008/oct/20/relative-readability/
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/whitespace/
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/journal/comments/five_simple_steps_to_bette
r_typography/
http://www.markboulton.co.uk/arti
cles/detail/five_simple_steps_to_designing_grid_systems/
http://www.subtraction.com/2007/03/18/oh-yeeaahh
Thanks for listening
Grid Systems
http://www.960.gs
http://www.blueprintcss.org/
Advertising
An example of keeping it simpleFusion Ads
The old Daily Penn
The new Daily Penn
Editorial Abstracts
Use a couple sentences to pull the readerinto the story
Social buttons and different approaches
The Daily penn
GeodataWhat article types would it be useful for?
•Restaurant reviews•Sports events and tournaments•Articles from students studying abroad
Find more information at:http://www.copress.org/category/blog