We received generally positive reviews regarding last month’s launch of the OIT Newsletter in WordPress. By monitoring Google Analytics, however, we noticed that some of our readers may have been confused by how to navigate the new interface. A blog format is much more interactive than our older HTML-format style newsletter.
As a result, we have created this 3-minute video to give you a little guidance regarding the new features available in the new format. These features should greatly improve readability.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BZVyWEHzjvE
Currently, 50 OIT employees have signed up to be contributors. As a contributor, you can post articles at any time you wish. To get signed up, simply do the following three-step process:
- Click this link: https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/login
- Email me that you have completed task #1.
- Click a subsequent link that you will receive in email that you have been added to the OIT Newsletter site.
Each of your articles will be edited by the MarComm Team and approved by you before publishing on a weekly schedule, thereby maintaining the editorial collaboration you have come to expect.
Don’t delay! Sign up now!
Very helpful Wade! The changes make the Newsletter a much more dynamic place.
Hi Wade,
I’m a big fan of the newsletter, and I enjoy WordPress as a blogging platform. But I wanted to share a couple of my observations about our Newsletter implementation in WordPress.
First, unlike the HTML version which had a “site” for everything relevant to that month’s issue, these articles bleed together (time-wise), and I have found myself on a couple of occasions now RE-reading a blog/newsletter item that was previously posted and that I’ve already read. Also, since the article titles don’t seem to keep the “HTML visited already” color change, I don’t have that visual queue that I’ve already read it. (Maybe that’s tunable in our WordPress theme??) Suggestion: could you put a ” visual break blog entry” in between the newsletter “releases” that delineates the prior “issue” from the current “issue”. Sort of defeats the purpose of a blog I know, but just e-thinking out loud here. Also, I get that we want the newsletter to be current and ad-hoc with entries, as opposed to just monthly, but just passing along my observation.
Second, some of the websites that I visit have the ellipsis at the end of the stubbed article be a link to read more, instead of going back up and clicking on the article’s title. It’s a little thing, but I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried clicking on a non-clickable ellipsis already in our newsletter. Something that Google Analytics probably won’t pass along…. 🙂 So, anyway, I just thought I’d suggest that maybe we cold do something differently with our ellipses. I have an friend who runs a WordPress blog that received $100,000 grant because he […]
On the Positive notes side of my comments – I’m enjoying the nav links on the right hand side, as well as the category header buttons and the tag links.
Kudos Wade! Keep up the great work.
(P.S. – sorry for the ellipse funny above. It’s my late April Fools for you…)
Mike
Great commentary, Mike! We will look into the issues you raised.
One of the visual cues we are hoping to achieve is that each week 6 articles publish and the front page only shows 6. Therefore, anything on the front page is the current week’s selection. If you want to see older posts, just click the “Older posts” link or use the categories or tags for navigation.