I’ve begun checking out the behind the works stuff at the CC site at last. Should have a long time ago, but…have I mentioned I’m a bit obsessive? I’m on the hunt for good manipulation extensions. If anyone has suggestions, I’m all ears. It natively uses (yuck) the basic TinyMCE word processor which SUCKS when it comes to image manipulation and other forms of page setup…like tables and such.
Anyway, I’m in there massaging some of Carolyn’s hard work into submission and we’ll see if we can’t get that navigation cleaned up a bit. I know some of you have found it confusing…frankly, so have I. I love what Lynn’s set up visually, but the structure has had me kinda confused. I wasn’t sure how easy/hard it would be to adjust it while she was figuring out the Joomla thing, but looking at it, I think it s/b doable now.
I’m thinking we should have the Closed Circle logo segueing into the main index page with the three names and CATALOG right dead center of the logo. (no PPF on that page) My thinking is, for those coming in from an ad who are unfamiliar with CC, it will ground them in the company and let them know just who’s involved.
The names would take you to the “past present future” for each of us individually, where we could discuss our backlist, with a link to our websites, our current new releases, with a link to our blog and what we’re working on for future release, with a link to…us on our knees begging y’all to keep us in business? 
:D:D:D The Catalog would take you right to… our catalog! That would be a simple list of books with thumbnails, a teaser and purchase buttons. With links to individual pages with excerpts and such. The catalog would have all the books available, in order of publication, plus a link (however that works) to Cafe Press goodies. As we get more books, we might have to structure it differently…maybe a backlist and current releases, or something, but this would get us started.
Anyway…does that sound like a viable structure? would love your feedback before I ask Lynn to restructure.
Back to Joomla!
Ja ne!
This one of those times where words will not suffice. Go to Closed Circle, use the windows snippet tool for a quicky screen shot and show what you mean. Mark it up, Make a slide show– you push this text button link..(next slide) …it goes here.
Its like a mini storyboard. These are visual questions, need visuals to look at….
yipes! Way too much work.
Check my gallery page here. I’ve uploaded a flowchart of what I think I see see I read your proposal.
Basically, yeah. Thanks for putting that together.
Only real difference is, as much as possible I want to keep the catalog page all three of us…cross-pollination, doncha know?
So from the main page, the catalog link would take you to a single page that would contain all the CC offerings. From that, the next layer would be individual pages for each book that would contain a large cover pic, excerpts, author comments…that sort of thing.
I do know what you mean, but if you want links from your individual pages to your own books, you’ll need to group these book offerings by author. Which almost means making a catalog for each of you–only accessible through your own link on your own page–and then a complete ‘mixed up’ catalog, accessible from the main home page. See what I am thinking here?
Another option would be to keep your ‘mixed up’ catalog but incorporate the links to your books on your own pages–scattered through out your past*present*future pages. Chronological, with excerpts from your books built in as you describe your Curriculum Vitae.
I’m just thinking to myself as a potential buyer–maybe I don’t know what I want to buy. I’m not sure of everything you’ve written. What’s the most logical way for me to get that info, since I am essentially browsing?
Well, let’s say I’ve only read one of your books, and I’ve never actually read the inside of the cover, so I don’t realize that the book I’ve just finished is in a series. (This happened to me with Invader, actually.)
So, maybe I do a search on you as an author, by name–and let’s hope that your bio page on Closed Circle comes up first or second in a search result.
When I get to your bio page, as I am reading about you, wouldn’t be nice to find out right there, without going a step further into the site, that this was the middle book in a series? And right there are the links to buy the other ones, along with info about the series and even an excerpt to read if I wish.
And since its chronologically presented, I might be amazed to discover what a breadth of writing you’ve produced. It wasn’t your first series. Oh, joy!
In any case–reflow chart this. Its the only way to keep track of incoming and outgoing links. You don’t want orphaned pages.
Appreciate the input.
This was just a general restructure, not a detail. I frankly don’t envision much of a “bio” page at all. I see a discussion of the books, and a very limited one at that. I’m trying to maintain Lynn’s PPF concept, but I want it to be about the books, not me. Backlist, current, and actively working on.
Therefore, links will go back and forth between PPF page(s) and the Catalog. I’m afraid, from what I’ve seen of what Lynn’s set up, that sales can only happen through the catalog page, otherwise, I’d have purchase buttons all over the place! :D Probably still will, if we can make them link to the shopping cart. I just don’t know until I can talk with Lynn about the limitations of the shopping cart extension she’s put on.
Speaking of broken links, I just realized the other daty that since I transferred my website to janefancher.com, some of the links went wonky. Grrrr…yet one more thing to fix.
Maybe in my next life…
Jane, it’s always good to apply the KISS methodology to a web site structure. I was visiting the cc site today and managed to go around in circles a bit with the variety of links there, even tho’ it wasn’t my first visit. if the first page isn’t going to be the page with y’alls names and the catalog link, i would only have one link – that goes to that page – from the initial index page.
D
Absolutely.
I’d have the first two pages the same as Lynn now has them, but the second would have just our names and catalog on it. Those would link pretty much as Katoji’s flowchart shows.
As I said, I’m just now getting into the CC online presence. I’ve had way too much else to figure out/do since we got into this whole business.
My suggested structure was my initial solution for the problems I had when I tried to navigate. I just hadn’t had time to sit down and think of an option since Lynn first put it up.
I understoof Kato’s flowchart better than I understood the words (Jane’s description). Yes, it seems more clear this way. The original set-up was too confusing even when I knew what I was trying to find. Breadcrumbs. I always need breadcrumbs.
I kept waiting for Lynn to give me some content on the pages so I could figure out what her concept was for the past/present/future thing, but we all know the troubles she’s had this summer, so that never happened. So….I’m just taking what I’ve been dealt and trying to make something viable in my own head while maintaining as much as I can of her initial concept. This is, afterall, a collaboration of three highly creative people, all with their own notions. We did some deligating last spring and are trying to move forward without stepping on each other’s virtual toes! :D
Well, I think the central concept is—when you go to Closed Circle, you want books. Not us. Books. You want pix of the covers and information about price, format, and what the books are connected to.
There’ll be links to the blog and websites for what those sites do best, but mostly at Closed Circle, for information, you want to know what’s available now and what may be coming soon and how it relates to series, and other books.
That’s why we want to put the catalog front and center.
Each book or set in the catalog will be clickable and have informational stuff, plus an excerpt if applicable.
The main thing we want is to make shopping and checkout easy.
Like: BOOK (cover pic) who wrote it, what edition (new, etc), what series, related books, and what format. (connected to:>>>LARGE pic, more info, if applicable, excerpt, if applicable)
Remember it’s not going to be a catalog of 300 confusing offerings. We’re going to have just a few at first: the catalog will get longer over time. But it’s going to take time.
Try looking at my next little flow chart. Its so streamlined and simple, just visually it seems easy to follow and get what you are looking for…but it does violate your first concept because it is organized by author.
Let me just add though CJ, I did start out with Invader and I simply could never find a complete listing of the Foreigner series. I could never figure out where I was in that set of books because the info out there was hard to find. Amazon doesn’t always have them all in stock and they never list them in order. I was shocked when I finally discovered how many books there were.
And I started out by searching for your name. We are only talking about 6 months ago….
the order of series would definitely be on the site. That’s part of the “CJ Past” section of the page. Actually, that second flowchart is not substantively different, other than putting PPF all on the same page, which is one of the options I have in my notes to discuss with Lynn. (The way the first chart did the catalog was not what I had in mind.) Some of that depends, frankly, on what I can get to make Joomla a lot more cooperative. I’ve gotten lazy in my old age and refuse to write the HTML code manually. I want an addition to TinyMCE that’s like TinyMCEadvanced for WP. Right now, to do it all on one page with the bookmarks I’d want to move you around, I’d have to write way too much from scratch.
And as I said before, if the shopping extension will allow it, I’m going to have “buy” buttons all over the place. Ditto, the links to any book-specific page. I’m not assuming the browser/buyer will approach from any given direction, and I want a visually simple page, with lots of info available, which means links, not all the info on one page. What I don’t want are links that send you suddenly out of the CC page. Those (i.e. links to home pages and blogs) will be OBVIOUS.
**six months ago?**
Okay, not quite, Let’s say–a year at least.
Oh…I just realized what people might be thinking. I DO NOT want the name-links on the CC index page to lead to our webpages, the way they do now, but rather to a sub page within the CC site that would be discussions of the books, not us.
My suggest would be to scrap both entry pages. They contain no information at all and don’t hint at what’s going on here. They look pretty, but ultimately they are useless and just draw away from the purpose of Closed Circle, additionally, they don’t explain what they link to.
Start with the index page, which should contain really short blurbs to your current books, future books, important news (site broke, site works, upcoming planned downtime due to maintenance) and sales or promotions, if applicable.
There shouldn’t be a need for past, present, future sections, the search with it’s sorting categories should take care of that, same goes for author. Sort should also be able to sort by series and issues, Amazon or it’s database supplier isn’t consistent in the naming of the books, hence the difficulty with finding out which books belong where to which series. (Sort by author, sort by publishing date, sort by series, etc.)
One or more pages telling you how buying works, including payment and a short something about offered formats and co.
One to four “About you” pages giving an short overview about the history and intention behind Closed Circle and a page about the authors with link to their main pages and/or blogs.
Don’t construct the pages at midnight, it’s bad for spelling and grammar. ;)
(*goes to headdesk somewhere*)
Heh heh…we do it when we have time.
Don’t be too hard on us yet. :D Remember…what’s up there right now is just layout, not even a rough draft. I think if we’d known it was going to take us this long to get live, we probably would have waited the make it visible.
Those entry pages will have more info, just not a lot. They’re…triage.
I was going to point this out, but Sabina beat me to it. I’ve never really understood the purpose of the Past, Present, Future part. Even if the book is a hardcopy backlist, it’s available at CC (right?), so that leaves out Past and Present. I like the idea that you’ll be listing what you’re currently working on (and hopefully when it should be available) but that’s kinda a small part, so I can’t see that Future should be that prominent either.
I love your concept, Jane. It’s simple and easy, and adding all the “Buy” buttons will entice people to click them ^^. From what I understand, though, much of the current layout is thanks to the limitations of Joomla! itself almost more than Lynn’s design. I spent a little time with Joomla! to see what I could come up with a while back and quickly discovered just how painful that software can be,
While I have you here… do you have a marketing strategy yet?
Okay, I’ve just scanned the previous comments, so excuse any redundancy. Keep in mind any criticisms are of the design, not you. And I’m mainly reacting to:
http://www.janefancher.com/TheCaptainAndLime/wp-content/gallery/ccpage/cc2a.png
First, I have to agree that entry pages are pretty much wasted space and effort for you and wasted time for the user.
Second, the real opening page has, what?, something like a dozen pages hanging off it? That’s a lot, even though you’ve organized them well into sets of two or three. More importantly, I think it’s more than you need.
Third, the “Past, Present, Future.” The caption (links?) at the bottom clarifies not a thing. Backlist: well, would that be past, when it was written; or present, when I can buy it? I could also make a somewhat specious case for future, when I will own it. Lots of labels; not much semantics. So, I feel, tell me what I’m really choosing amongst.
To make a constructive suggestion, I’d suggest dropping the PPP, which will clean up the circles, nicely. I’d put the important stuff to the upper left (E-Books…) and the less important stuff, like essays to the upper right (though I truly enjoy the essays, they won’t make money unless you add Google ads to them or some such). It’s not clear (and won’t be without too much explanation for this page) what clicking on the authors’ names should do. Options:
1. Nothing.
2. Light up the name and those menu items where that author has content for a few seconds to show where her content is. Do NOT filter the site. (The user may have problems turning the filter off, and modal interfaces–using modes–are usually considered bad.)
3. Drop into a–pardon the expression–plain Jane list of Books to buy, essays to read, blogs to go to. Yes, for CJ this will be quite long. It’s also going to put information in two places, which will be an updating issue.
Unless things get simplified a bunch, you’re going to need a site map.
I’m terribly sorry! I approved this comment like…three times before it finally posted!
Appreciate the input. There’s actually only four links off that index page and if we can dump the leadin page, I’m hoping Lynn will be amenable. I’ve actually got a different index page which combines the first two and still only has four links off it.
Thanks again for all the thought you and everyone else has put into this!
No Problem. Thanks for listening. Asking for criticism isn’t easy. Listening to it open-mindedly is even harder.
Um: I thought our gravitars migrated. No?
I thought they did, too. I’ve got this plugin that allows users to upload images, including their avatars, and gives them a “private” (meaning registered users only) page to post comments on. According to its settings, if a user has no images loaded, it’s supposed to default to a gravitar if there is one, and my image (the captain) if there is no image loaded and no gravitar. Obviously…it’s not working right. Anyway…instructions for loading images is on the pub page. Sorry for the added work. Sigh…