Spun theme (and other single column themes)
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I love the look of open blogs with beautiful typography and plenty of white space, and Spun theme is definitely one of the most attractive on Wortdpress.com.
Most blogs achieve this appearance by doing away with a sidebar, and putting ‘meta’ information at the bottom. This works well for subscribers, who are already familiar with the content and just want to read that post.
But it isn’t so good for new visitors ; they find it more difficult to find out what the blog is about, navigate around and – crucially – sign up to RSS or some other notification. Many won’t bother to search for the widgets that allow this, and they are lost to the blog. This is particularly so with the “hidden” widget area at the bottom in Spun theme.
But of course sidebars are messy and impair the open feel of such blog designs.
Another ‘problem’ with a single column blog is that with larger screens, they tend to blow out to 100+ characters per line. But readability experts tell us that about 75 is the maximum for good information retention (you wouldn’t think this was so important, but apparently it is).
So my suggestion, for what it’s worth, is to provide an option in such blogs to have a narrower text column and the sidebar space permanently set aside. It could be popout into empty space or else light grey until hovered over. That could be just as open and attractive but more usable for new visitors.
Just an idea I thought I would put out there. Thanks.
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As it’s unlikely Staff will change the underlying template and affect all blogs wearing the same theme already, this is just to let you know that you can switch to using a theme that is designed to display a sidebar on every page in the blog. There are 221 Two Column WordPress Themes http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/features/two-columns/
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Hi Timethief, thanks for replying. I wasn’t expecting a change to the theme, but was suggesting an addition, an option could be considered, so no-one’s existing blog is affected, but another option is available.
I have previewed a large number of two column themes, and it seems none of them have the delicate typography and open, minimalist feel of single column themes like Spun, Syntax and Clear News.
Another way to possibly achieve the result of an open minimalist style but with a few subscribe widget close to hand would be to add a small widget area at the bottom of a post, before the comments, if that was possible.
Anyway, I just thought feedback and suggestions might be useful. Thanks.
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