The Black Informant | African American Commentary, News and Community Building

It’s looking good.

Much better!

Great site(s), brother. This format is easy on the eye. I love the Black Informant concept–and you’re creating a tremendous network!

More professional but it doesn’t have the unique identity your previous site had. Asthetically, it’s too generic. The coloring too government issue. Also, you have no logo, no brand, no sense of blackness.

Menu too linear. Surely, you can do something more orginal with the menu. Your menu selections also seem disconnected. Maybe you’r trying too cover too much ground. Rather than many different categories I’d rather see a focus on theme of the content. What I mean is that you would present one trunk that that naturallly brainches into other areas rather than menu choices that are not connected to each other.

For example, Salon magazine has many different departments, but the overall theme is threaded throughout each of them. No matter which section you go to, the voice seems the same.

It may also be that you offer too many choices. Also, as I say above, there seems to be no common thread between these choices. I get the sense that I could never possibly read everything there is to read here, and I don’t like that. I’d rather you read everything and distill what’s important for me. I’d also rather see teasers for each department on the main page. This would save me time. You’ve got 12 menu selection. I don’t want to go through all of them only to find none of them have anything I want to read.

So, I suppose I’m saying your site is bloated. For some reason you’re going for a superstore. That’s a mistake. Readers want a narrow slice of things done well, not the whole pie.

It’s impossible to cover all the news, but you’re new site seems to be trying to do that.

You need to focus.

ricland

And why doesn’t this comment editor have “preview”?

ricland,

As always thank you very much for taking the time to comment.

The focus of this site is in fact going to change from how its been in the past. I’ll get more into that in a few days or so.

I am still considering a couple of other themes before I settle on one that I like. In the meantime, I have just upgraded this site to WordPress 2.0 and learning all of the new features.

This particular template looks much better in Firefox than IE (the category blocks are not spaced).

Thanks again ricland for your input.

Take care!

Hey, this is a bit easier on the eyes than what you had up yesterday.

Still tinkering I see. (the template changed while I was post the above comment.) Well, whatever works for you. I’ll still read your stuff.

this looks really smooth and efficient. caught me off guard, though. i do kinda miss the smorgasbord approach to the info, though.

I liked the colors of the old format but this arrangement is much easier to follow.

I’m torn. I fell in love with the ethnic look of the old site. The colors black, burgundy, etc. really made the it feel like a site designed for me. However, the column design (newspaper format) on the site did make it a little difficult to read because I sometimes missed good stuff that was lingering at the bottom of the page.

With this new site, I agree with ricland that it does have a more professional look- but with that, you lose the ethnicity. I disagree with ricland, in that I like the superstore approach. Believe me, I can’t trust BET to give me a balanced look at the issues. I believe in time, as your site grows, you may be able to pull of the superstore- if executed properly.

Overall, I think I miss the “color” of the site. The personality, the spice. Some of your content can be a little edgy, or controversial sometimes, and the new format does not speak to that end.

Peace, and it’s great to see a brother at least trying to put some quality stuff out there-

Wish you the best bruh-

Hey Duane – wait until you get old like me! Then most of what matters is: can I read it?!

The new format is much easier on the eyes than the old. I love it! And sorry I am a little late to the party …