www.thinkprogress.org – ThinkProgress.org: the blog that we helped pimp!

www.americanprogress.org – The Center for American Progress: the organization that runs ThinkProgress.org

www.spotback.com – Spotback.com: Installs rating button that allows users to rate posts and then create a list of the most popular

www.theplugg.com – The Plugg: Example of a site that uses the Spotback tool

www.usatoday.com – USA Today: Uses a small palette of colors to organize wide categories of information

www.lifehacker.com – Life Hacker: Example of a blog that effectively uses the related posts feature

www.mediamatters.com – Media Matters: Uses the third column for teasing multimedia content

Faiz, editor of ThinkProgress, shared two main problems he wanted resolved on ThinkProgress:

1. The blog’s best content is being buried by newer, perhaps not as valuable posts. If a reader misses a day, they had to scroll all the way to the bottom of the page to read what they missed.
2. Visually, the blog has a lot of gray, nothing really pops out at the reader. Faiz wants the ThinkFast posts, quick nuggets of information that don’t require much commentary, to jump out more from the rest of the content. A significant portion of ThinkProgress’s traffic comes from links to this type of post.

Pimpsters came up with many, many ideas for Faiz to solve both of these problems. Here’s some of the highlights:

• Functionality must guide everything else when it comes to a redesign. Don’t redesign just to change the site’s design. It must be purposeful, with the end result being a step forward from the previous version.

• Switching ThinkProgress to a three column layout would allow more flexibility in the placement of content. For example, Faiz could place teasers to ThinkFast posts and multimedia content into the top of this third column, giving them more prominence on the page. Additionally, this layout would allow ThinkProgress to implement the Spotback.com widget, which allows users to rate their favorite posts and lists the highest rated in one place – the top of the third column.

• Since most of ThinkProgress’s visitors arrive through links on other sites, displaying related stories might keep visitors on the site for longer, browsing more content.

• The site’s color scheme needs to be more prominent. ThinkProgress uses different colors to differentiate the different categories for posts. Presently, however, pimpsters found the scheme to be somewhat confusing. Making the color legend more obvious, like USA Today, would make the categorization easier to use and understand.

• Speaking of color, there was fantastic discussion on whether the use of many colors helps readers subconsciously categorize the posts or make the blog look too “cartoony.” The jury is still out.

• Track how people use the site. Analyze where people come from, what they look at, and what do they click on. This can help you make decisions on both the visual and functional aspects of the blog.

• Use headlines more effectively. Optimize them for search. If it’s a ThinkFast headline, put that in the text.

• ThinkFast boxes, which are currently a gradient white-to-gray, need to pop out more on the page. Making them a dotted line surrounding them will help them breathe and better differentiate from the main content.

• Talk to the die-hard users. Take their thoughts into consideration, but don’t let them necessarily dictate your decisions.

Thanks again to everyone who came out, and we hope to see you next month for our discussion on Open Government Web Tools! Make sure to RSVP or sign up here!