Edublogs.org home page makeover review.

I had a draft note to myself to review edublogs.org and give my thoughts on their home page.  The note I had left myself was “I like the video quick tour, above the fold is better then below but the design feels crowded.”

Since I wrote that note, edublogs.org has had a home page makeover.  And I must say, the new design is much better then the previous design.  Reading from the top left you are immediately hit with a tagline that leaves no doubt as to what the site is about. “Blogging for teachers and students, made easy”.  So a user immediately understands the overall vision for the web site.  If this is something they are interested in, they can then read on and are then hit with the benefits of joining now.  I really like this flow.  The positioning of this information in the upper left of the site leaves no doubt to the user as to what this web site is all about.Unfortunately the video quick tour that I really liked looks like it’s been moved off the front page.  There is now a “Video Tutorials” link along the top menu of the page, which a new user might not immediately see.  I wouldn’t have moved the video from the front page.  Everyone loves videos and you can use it as a tool to answer many of the questions that new users normally ask.  At a minimum under “Sign Up Here” I would put another link that says “Watch the 5 minute welcome video!”  to push people to the introduction video. There is a static testimonial in the upper right of the header.   I think this might be cooler as an animated gif or something that would allow you to show the user a few testimonials instead of just one. Above the fold all information and links are related to signing up on the site and getting your own blog.  The only change I might make is moving the tag cloud above the fold somewhere.  The only place I can think to put it is above the login/news boxes on the right.  That might help draw in people that are thinking of signing up but not sure what they would write or talk about.  Then they see the tag cloud, click a tag and hopefully find a few articles on things that interest them.  I would probably also move the login box to the upper right somewhere, possibly directly under the “Currently powering 164,733 blogs” text.  I don’t think a login box needs to take up as much space as it currently does but that’s just my opinion.  I like my login boxes small and easy to spot.Overall, the Edublogs.org makeover is quite a step above the previous design.  And with “164,733 blogs” and counting this site is truly a huge success.