Five New Ways to View Blogger
Several hours ago Blogger released an update to the presentation and viewing engine behind its blogs. These Dynamic Views are in effect templates built by their engineers meant to push the platform forward embracing cutting edge design and technology. Each option presents an enabled blog in a much different way than traditional blogs. The style is definitely Google with a twist of Tumblr and Apple thrown into the mixer.
Is this Really a Step Forward?
I
find myself reviewing Dynamic Views and finding mostly
negatives from a design standpoint. At this time I have no real control
over these views. I can only infer through experimentation how Blogger
will treat my posts within each, then adjust presentation accordingly.
Some such as Flipcard and Mosaic
are only suited to Photo/Video blogs. This blog being neither presented
horrendously in both, yet I have no ability to disable the
inappropriate view options. As this moment, it's an all or nothing
proposition enabled by default settings. Older blogs may have some of the required settings disabled, check this post for more details.Here's a look at what Dynamic Views get you. There are Five options each with its own unique take on a blog. Unfortunately, only the sidebar view really works for much of what I do. See for yourself and I'll stop talking a minute.
I'm a programmer with limited design skills, this isn't the most beautiful blog by any means, however I still like the ability control what my blog looks like to visitors. In an accompanying release, Blogger states:
Please note that these views do not currently support many of the features your original blog may have, including displaying advertisements. For this reason we have provided the option for you to disable dynamic views in your Settings page. We intend to add these missing capabilities over the coming months as well as let you personalize these views, including providing an option to set a particular view as the default.Ok, I'll try to be Patient, but...
As of this release, Dynamic views include no customization options to blog authors. I cannot change colors of anything and only the default white with black text and blue highlights is available. Ads are not included for monetized sites, but even if they were your options to configure will surely be quite limited for some time. Views lack additional contact points such as Facebook and Twitter. I can only imagine how long it will be before widget and gadget control are given. Until the features are more mature, I'm left to manually disable Dynamic Views on my sites.
As a content author and developer I'm having a hard time envisioning these views as a feature I'll find useful. More I'm thinking of them as something to avoid. Even once the customization goes in, the nature of maintaining 5 additional points of entry to a blog seems quite daunting. I'm largely reliant and at the mercy of Blogger to make these views functionally acceptable options. I have enough headaches cross browser testing my primary template and haven't even got my feed in a condition I'm at all content with. Five additional layers of presentation may be a bit much for me to maintain and I do not want to relinquish so much control.
Acknowledging the Positives
I must concede I am not the target demographic for Dynamic Views. Were I interested in simple presentation of Photos and Videos to primarily friends and family, I'd certainly be more excited about this upgrade. The instant slide presentation of Flipcard is very nice and frankly light years beyond the experience many photo blogs provide. I'm sure photographers, fashion bloggers and the like are ecstatic for those features. Some day I may join them as the feature set grows. In fact I'm sure I will share their excitement with some future project.
Summary
Dynamic Views are an emerging effort by the engineers at Blogger to deliver modern presentation options to the platform. This release is far from complete and will certainly grow to maturity given time. Bloggers who focus on image and video rich content should be excited at the possibilities, while those like me with far less media focus or a social focus are somewhat disappointed. Someday I may find this release of use, just not today.
3 comments :
I had not thought about the inability to turn off specific views while keeping the others active. That, at least, should not be too hard to do and would be very useful.
I do like the views for the most part. I would like the customization to come soon, though, so I can add Google Analytics scripts to the views templates. Right now, visits to these views will not be reflected in my reports...
I hope Blogger will listen to all of these concerns and do something about it. I think they will, since they know there are still missing things.
Glad to see that you're questioning the value of dynamic views. I agree with all the points you've raised, and can add some more. (eg no widgets for now means no statistics in analytics for dynamic view viewers, no access to static page contents).
But IMHO the biggest problem is nothing to do with the design. It's the reliance on what's in the feed as a basis for what's displayed and searchable from the label selection and search-tool on the dynamic views. So forget about your older posts being looked at.
@Mary
You're absolutely right. There are many problems with omitted features right now. I'm just glad views seem geared more as a technology demonstration or early beta release for debugging. I can see Blogger making Views more integral over time, but they certainly need to incorporate many functions still.
Although, I'm not terribly concerned about the feed source. I've spent quite a bit of time the past few months experimenting with them. In my programming I've been able to pull all of the relevant information through feeds using alt=json in the url query string.
Another problem I see, this is related to your concerns, is the top down navigation of views. Blogs already function based on chronology, but the "infinite" scrolling which mimics say Twitter tends to lock a person in. I too am concerned about keeping older content relevant and accessible. Searches are useful, but I prefer a "Related Posts" design more. This is something blogger lacks already, but at least building your own is an option right now. Somewhat ironically, I generate mine from feeds and labels.
Views definitely have a long way to go.
James
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