One of the main criticisms levelled at the original ICT in Education website was that it was hard to find things. Come to think of it, that was the only criticism for a long time, before the site became more and more unwieldy through my attempts to make articles easier to locate. I’m trying to not repeat the mistakes on this website, so every so often I take another long, hard look at it and ask: how might searching/finding be made even easier? And so it was that over the weekend I did some revamping and moving things about, and this article describes the results.
Hopefully you don't have to look TOO hard for articles!
The Article Finder menu
This new menu appears at the top of the page, and includes several items:
Archives
This contains a link to the original website. I’m gradually transferring articles across to this one. However, not all articles are transferable, in that they were of their time, and it wouldn’t make sense to move them.
Articles in alphabetical order
This lists every article on the website, so it’s an ever-expanding list. Only useful if you have a pretty good idea of the title of the article.
Articles in reverse date order
This, too, lists all the articles on the site, starting with the most recent one. So if you look quickly, you’ll see this one! Sorry if that’s too self-referential.
Articles by tag
This is a good way of finding series in particular, like the 25 Ways to Make Yourself Unpopular posts. At the bottom of the individual article summaries on the front page, and also at the bottom of the articles themselves, are the tags for that article. You can also find similar articles by clicking on those tags.
Articles by category
If you’re only interested in, say, articles about Web 2.0, clicking on that category will oblige you by serving up only articles about Web 2.0.
Articles by month of publication
Handy if you recall, let’s say, that you read something you liked (or hated!) back in January 2010.
Articles by week of publication
A more finely-tuned version of the above.
Tag cloud
Articles by tag again, but this time based on their popularity. Only the top twenty tags are drawn on, and the number of articles associated with each tag is indicated. The relative popularity of each tag is indicated by its size.
Search this site
This is an option near the top of the left-hand sidebar. It seems fairly efficient, but I’m thinking of replacing it with a Google search engine. Any thoughts on that?
Last 100 articles
This list on the left hand sidebar shows the last 100 articles in reverse date order. I’m thinking of changing this to a lower number. What do you think?
Conclusion
At the moment, I can’t think how I could make the articles even more findable, apart from perhaps changing the search engine. I’m also trying to keep the site clean-looking, hence the nested menus at the top. Let me know what you think please, either through the contact form linked to at the start of this sentence, or via the comments box below. Thank you.