@CaptainJack
As you know, I am very close to this site, and when Marina did the re-design, I was even closer. Some of the questions that you are asking is a result of my input, so I will address those questions that you have.
The questions you pose are all valid, but for me they are very low on the priority scale of criticism. I am very anal when it comes to certain web things and Marina would have heard them by now, other than the critiques I have already made.
The recent two critiques I made (on the other Topic page)
1. Change pagination from the current 80 comments / page to 1000 comments / page.
2. Increase Visibility and Discovery of recent comments by showing more who commented, maybe in the last 24 hours. Maybe color code recent comments for a period.
I do not speak for Marina in my answers below, but, keep in mind, I am VERY close to this site because of what I observe, and not what Marina says, other than what she posts at the top of the page. Also, keep in mind, the objective of the site changes are to facilitate people to leave comments.
Q1: Why is "...Leave a Comment" text so very large?
A1:
How large is large? I see the text as about 2 smileys high, which is perfect.
If you see it larger, check your browser settings. What browser are you using?
Bob had an issue with fonts due to a NON-Defaulted setting in FF.
My FF settings are all set to DEFAULT, and this HotForWords site Rocks!!!
Trust me, people need to be invited to comment. It's a demographics thing, aside from a technology thing for those who do not comment often. Most people are technophobes, even though they are able to manage. How do you get people to do things? You ask them, and you gotta make it bold and in big letters. Leave the font size as is.
Q2: How come you don't have a button on your pages for "Site Map"?
A2:
First, Marina actually did have a link in the Main navigation menu section, but as you said, the navigation menu section was becoming too crowded. That link that she had is the link under the "All Words" menu called "Every post on the site".
I am the one that told her to move it to a Catch-All page, and that catch-all page is the "All Words" page. Everything you wanna know under one roof. No muss, no fuss.
Notice how Marina spelled "Site-Map". She spelled it; "Every post on the site".
That is awesome and I agree with her spelling. Trust me, it is not only a demographics thing, but keep in mind we have lots of foreign people here. How do I know what people are asking and why Marina does what she does? Because, I read EVERY comment.
Yes, I agree it would be nice to have a site map as the main navigaiton, but, from what I observe, most people don't use it. Most people are creatures of habit and only use what is presented to them, which is the Latest Video box. Most people don't explore the site and those that do, it is not a big deal to have the site index under "All Words".
Q3: What is your "Blog" button for?
A3:
I don't know the answer to this one Captain Jack, so I am not speaking for Marina, but I can speculate.
I had Marina actually completely remove that link from the navigation, and also had it placed under the "All Words" menu. Marina, then returned it to the main navigation. Here is my speculation. This site is visited by a variety of people, including advertisers. The Blog link is an abstracted showcase of Marina's work, which I think is a great way to present her work. It works for me.
Q4a: "...navigation bar is severely cluttered."
Q4b: Why is "Videos" not called Lessons?
Q4c: Why all the colors?
A4a: Clutter
The navigation bar used to be a lot more cluttered as the font was smaller.
I like that the 1st line of the navigation menus is large.
As I mentioned earlier, I had Marina take out the "Blog" link, but she put it back. I think it is fine as is. In order to remove links, Marina would have to create another catch-all page with sub-links. I am not opposed to that, but Marina has her motivation for showcasing the links as they currently are. It works for me.
A4b: Videos vs Lessons
The menu link that you see in the 1st line called VIDEOS used to be on the second navigation line. It used to look like this in the lower left navigation way before the design change.
1st line: Home ...
2nd line: "All Words" "Videos"
That "Videos" link is relatively new and was added before the design change.
The "All Words" link was originally called "Lessons" a long time ago.
Again, I am not speaking for Marina, and I can only speculate as follows.
The VIDEOS link is an abstracted showcase of all of the Videos. It is the same as the Blog link minus the non-video posts. The "All Words" link is a great index with sub-indexes and I use it all of the time. I think it is awesome.
A4c: Colors in links
I think it was a great idea to add the colors. First, it is fun and it also separates the links from each other being all white. I love the mixed text colors and the variety of other link colors. It works for me and shows a whimsical and fun side to this site. I love it.
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Word Press has a nice tag cloud plugin that makes it easy. This really depends though, on whether you could eliminate anything else... there's a lot there already.
