LONGMONT, Colo. (BRAIN) — Last week we made a few changes to the BRAIN website that folks have asked us about. Now that we've had a week or so to work with the changes, we’d like to explain what we did.
The most obvious change is the addition of a “Top Stories” designation. In the past we’ve used a simple reverse chronological format for most stories on the homepage. That is, the newest story sits on top, and older stories get shoved down the page and eventually off the page. Sometimes when we are posting a lot of articles, some important stories disappear from the homepage before everyone has had a chance to notice them. Now BRAIN editors can designate those big stories as Top Stories and they stay at the top of the page while newer stories fill in below, under the “Latest News” heading.
What this might mean for our loyal readers’ web-surfing practices: We know that many of you check the homepage several times a day to see what’s new. Now, if you just glance at the very top of the page, you might think we haven’t updated for longer than usual. But don’t worry, the lights are still on at BRAIN. Sometimes you just might need to glance down the page a bit to see the newest stories.
Occasionally, although it's hard to imagine, there aren't any big stories happening (or, we prefer to think, all the stories are equally earth shaking), so we won't use the "Top Stories" designation and things will revert to the good old ways.
Another obvious change: we’ve taken down the stock ticker and stock chart on the homepage. It was error prone and often out of date or inaccurate and we probably let it linger on longer than we should have. We’ll bring it back if there is interest and we can figure out how to make the feature more reliable.
We’ve also rearranged the links at the top of the homepage in what we think is a more logical manner, and removed the drop-down items from the navigation (Because: Really? Drop-down items?). We also added links to our advertising information and newsletter sign-up to the top of the homepage.
On our Classifieds page (one of the most-visited pages on the site, by the way), we have separated industry/supplier side job postings from retail job postings, and made a few other changes that make it easier to place classified ads and to navigate through them.
If you have any comments, suggestions or questions about the changes, leave a comment below or contact the web editor, Stephen Frothingham, at sfrothingham@bicycleretailer.com.
