∞ A few more changes to The Loop

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On September 1 we relaunched The Loop with one of the biggest design changes in the site’s two-year history. Overall, the reception to the new design has been great, but there have been a few small issues that needed to be addressed.

The most important issue that readers provided was that the linked posts — those that the headline links out to another site — were not clearly marked. Because of this, it was difficult for users to know how to navigate the site.

That’s the first thing we tackled and here’s what we did:

1. The headlines that are linked posts are now underlined.

2. Headlines that are linked posts are now a smaller font size than posts that are full stories.

3. Linked posts will now have the infinity symbol after the post, clearly indicating that it is a linked post. The headline will link off to the other site and the infinity symbol will link to the permalink of the story.

These changes also carry through to the mobile site and the RSS feed.

Linked posts in the RSS feed will have an infinity symbol after the post that will take you to The Loop, while the headline will take you to the originating Web site.

The mobile site for the iPhone and iPad look, and act, exactly the same as the desktop site, so the user experience will be same no matter what device you use.

I have to take a minute and thank YJ Soon and his great DFLL plug-in for WordPress. I contacted YJ a couple of weeks ago about what I wanted to do with the linked posts and he coded everything that needed to be done.

Just a superb job on his part getting everything to work properly.


  • http://twitter.com/VGISoftware Daniel Swanson

    I’m currently bookmarked to the full site on my iPhone. How do I get the mobile version?

    • http://www.loopinsight.com Jim Dalrymple

      I just left the two sites the same. The Loop is so minimal it seemed to make sense.

      • http://twitter.com/VGISoftware Daniel Swanson

        Thanks, Jim. You’re right.

  • http://twitter.com/Moeskido Moeskido

    Better.

  • Anonymous

    For what it’s worth, I found the previous iteration better; I found the link icon and the editorial icon intuitive.

    What I DO miss is being able to comment on links. That is, when you provide a link and I’d like to comment here, among this community,  instead of among the community at the source of the link. Perhaps that is poor internet form?

    • Peter Cohen

      There’s a permalink icon (an infinite loop symbol) next to each story headline. That’ll take you to where you’re looking for to comment.

      • http://www.theuniversalsteve.com Anonymous

        I’m not seeing a permalink icon next to the headline in NetNewsWire 3.2.15. Are you sure that’s working?

        • http://www.loopinsight.com Jim Dalrymple

          Well, that’s interesting. I’ll look into that Steve.

          • Rube

            Adding the infinity symbol to the article in the _truncated_ feed isn’t the ideal solution, though. When viewing the truncated story in the feed, hitting return to open the associated URL should open the full story _here_, so I can finish reading it. Otherwise, there’s no way to get from the feed article to the rest of your content.

          • http://www.theuniversalsteve.com Anonymous

            Yeah, it must be because of the truncation. This one-sentence post shows the permalink icon.

          • http://www.theuniversalsteve.com Anonymous

            Looks like it’s working now.

      • Anonymous

        Ah, yes, I see it, thanks Peter.

  • http://twitter.com/LowTechAbuse Peter Gowen

    I’m likin’ it. Looks good.

  • DocRoss

    I like the changes in general, but as Ikalliance mentioned above, it took me a while to figure out that the small infinity icon is what took me to The Loop’s conversation about the link, and the main headline takes me away to the original.

    To be honest, the opposite behavior is what I would expect. If I click on the headline, I would expect to be taken to the content and conversation here at The Loop, whereas if I click on the infinity symbol, which looks for all the world like a link symbol, then I’d be redirected to the original article that you are excerpting. I think the behavior being opposite to that is what confused me, and seemingly, others.

    My 2¢

  • http://www.powerwatchers.com/ Dean Lewis

    Oh, the link icon does/ did that? Had no idea and also missed the Loop comments on the linked item. Sometimes I prefer sticking to just the Loop  and not going to the linkbait. :)

    I aso prefer the larger icons to the left of the content/title. Maybe it’s just my old eyes, or maybe I liked a little graphic touch…

    As for comments, I’d kind of like to see the number of comments on an item again. See which topics are active leads me to some interesting discussions. No knowing whether anything is sparking anyone’s interest at all makes the site a little less organic … a little too minimal … something. It doesn’t have to be a long line of social media up/down vote icons and a comment number or anything. Just something to indicate that this thing or the other is sparking a bit of discussion or snark.

    Overall, I like the look though. I think my quibbles are fairly minor. :)

    • Anonymous

      I think that’s what I liked about the previous: that the icons for link vs. editorial were very visible, more visible to my eye than the infinity icon. And I don’t like that the link headlines are in smaller type, though that is a differentiator.

      Dean is correct that this is all nitpicky, but “A nit unpicked is like a day without sunshine” as nobody ever said.

      This version is still a significant visual improvement to my eye over the pre-September Loop.

  • http://superdario.de Dario

    The RSS feed is broken since it is truncated.

    I am using Google Reader an it is appearing to me the same way as it is appearing to @SSteve:disqus. That way there is no way for me to browse to the permalink-page of a linked-post since the infinity symbol is cut off, or when it is not, does not appear as a link: