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I've Googled this question to death and can't find any real discussion on it. There was a couple lapse in my design work and I probably missed all the discussion.
As the Genesis Child Themes evolve, the content areas seem to get larger and larger and the fonts on the front pages are huge. What is driving this trend? Do I notice this because my own monitors are not set to high enough resolution? When I get into a clients office it gets worse. I make sure I have my laptop to show off their new site, if I am simply tweaking a Child Theme fairly straight from the box.
The mobile versions always look killer.
It just seems like more of the site's content is sitting "below the fold" than ever before. Centric being a great example. Am I just getting old? What is happening with this design thought-process?
I'm including link, though it really isn't necessary.
http://jeniferbrening.com/I don't know that there's one single "consensus" following a single path 🙂
But I know that readability on multiple devices without having to maintain multiple sites (like the old way of doing m.domain.com or using plugins that create "mobile versions" of your site) makes the designer's work a bit simpler, as well as greater ease of use for accessibility concerns (people with visual or manual disabilities) is one reason. And greater resolution on larger moniotrs and retina display devices is another.
That said, I think Centric is a unique case... as are Epik and a few others. But you can also make some of those areas a bit smaller (I've had to reduce the front page widget area padding on Epik before, and I'm sure I'll end up doing it again).
WordPress / Genesis Site Design & Troubleshooting: A Touch of Summer | @SummerWebDesign
Slice of SciFi | Writers, After DarkIt just seems like more of the site’s content is sitting “below the fold” than ever before. Centric being a great example. Am I just getting old? What is happening with this design thought-process?
Centric, along with Parallax Pro, Epik, and a host of others are following a trend towards so-called "one-page" designs. The front page is the whole enchilada and much naturally and by design falls somewhere down the page.
Why? (Just my opinion...) Partly just because you can - it's an alternative, it's different - and partly because you can use it to control the reader as you tell your story, drawing them deeper into whatever the call-to-action is. It's not always well-used ("just because you can"), and sometimes overdone, just like many other things.
http://gardenstudio.com.br/
This example highlights the use of animations, delivers a shiny portfolio and asks for the order.http://www.world-of-swiss.com/en
This example is 'impressive', vertigo inducing and has terrible navigation. ("Airsickness bags are located in the back of the seat in front of you.") Also designed specifically not to work on tablets or phones. But somebody thought it was a good idea and put up good money for it.As long as they remain readable, I'm OK with site widths growing versus previous eras that had very narrow designs with tiny type. But I wish more forums, bulletin boards and the like would make the jump to fixed-width, designs like this forum. I'm tired of using Stylebot to correct sites where paragraphs are all 15 inches wide with 12px Verdana at best.
http://forums.redflagdeals.comSome more one-pagers for Genesis:
http://genesisthemes.ca/theme_feature/one-pager/(links in code blocks to prevent being spambotted)
Choose your next site design from over 350 Genesis themes.
[ Follow me: Twitter ] [ Follow Themes: Twitter ] [ My Favourite Webhost ]Tom,
I guess I harbor subconscious prejudice towards to one-pagers. To me, they harken a bit back to the 90s when pages were this looong stream of never-ending content, yet done now with grace and elegance and some parallax thrown in. Or some affiliate marketers page that is 22 feet long ending with a ClickBank product whose price ends in 97. (no offense, anyone.)
I am also wondering about SEO, with Google concerned about how much content is below the fold. I know their main concern is ad blocks pushing the content down, but still. There is a lot of scrolling going on.
It seems a shame, at times, to waste huge real estate on a large monitor by using 60+ px fonts and weight: 500, etc and 900 x 700 images on the front page. I agree it looks awesome, but I personally get tired of it when I encounter it in the wild when I am searching for something.
So far, clients seem to love it who want beauty and whiz-bang.
Anyway, I'm just curious if I missed this great discussion and am once again late to the party.
Eric
Anyway, I’m just curious if I missed this great discussion and am once again late to the party.
Late? Nope. I think you're on top of it. 🙂
I think full-width home pages are a welcome option, but they're not where I want to go every time I visit -- nor see all of the animations and fly-ins and mind-bending branding (or anything ending in .97 -- or a 22 foot long page and no nav options).
I would be curious to learn about actual SEO results for sites that made this kind of change.
Choose your next site design from over 350 Genesis themes.
[ Follow me: Twitter ] [ Follow Themes: Twitter ] [ My Favourite Webhost ]If we followed the letter of the law as set by Google, sites with large hero images should technically be punished by its Top Heavy algorithm. However, Google seems not to have gone through with this of late – largely because that layout is best practice from a conversion perspective for sites that are selling a single product or service do convert better with that sort of layout.
(P.S. It's also a great approach for internal pages on product/service sites).
However, there are some caveats to that. They are not converting because of the image. They are converting because of the messaging. The H1 should speak immediately to the visitor "Save time with..." "Get more leads with..." etc, followed by a subheader that expands on the first point.
The best converting ones are those with specific calls to action – "Start your free trial today" or "Find out more" (which scrolls down the page to other content).
Remember, it's not about having a pretty image. The image that should make it attractive and captivating, but it needs to strengthen and reinforce the H1 and call to action.
I'm a strong believer that Google is dead wrong on its minimum character and word limits on pages. Yes, many websites do need to have strong content. However, sites that are aimed at selling a service should not be punished by this.
Next time you're out and about, look at posters and billboards. They don't have tons of text on them for one specific reason – it was realised back in the 50s that overloading people with text doesn't work. That's why 50 years later, billboards and advertisements are more devoid of text than ever. It's all about getting the message and call to action across in as little time as possible – largely because we have so many distractions, you have less time to get it across.
Also, with regards to the font sizes increasing, this is a very good thing. The absolute minimum a site's font should be is 16px – ideally 18px. I can read things fine, but having worked in the media and been a group editor for a magazine and website division before getting into SEO and web design, I understand the importance of using a readable font and font-size.
I think a large part of the move is because of mobile devices and, perhaps concurrently, shortening attention spans. People want to glean what they need to know from a site's homepage, and the traffic that will then click through to other pages drops off significantly - hence the move towards one-page sites. I think, too, the move towards larger pictures, larger (but also shorter) text is because many users are put off by text-heavy sites.
Ben, I am with you on the 16 - 18 px in the body. It's the 60 px, weight:700 headings that kill me. I end up shrinking all the headings and titles. At least a bit.
A great case of annoying, huge fonts on the titles on the article pages on Foxnews.com.
I know everything ultimately depends on the site and it's audience. I haven't built a single product/single service site in a good while with a soul grinding call to action. They're restaurants, entertainers, B to B sites, etc.
I would be curious to learn about actual SEO results for sites that made this kind of change.
Tom,
The SEO questions may take a while longer to answer. I don't think Google's algorithm is dumb enough to confuse ad blocks pushing content below the fold with relevant images doing the deed. As always, smart guys will test, test, test to be sure.
I just read Yoast ranting against sliders for pushing content down and it's effect on SEO. I personally like well thought out sliders and use them a lot.
Overall, I do like the direction site design is heading, especially on mobile. I just need to knuckle down and do more themes that are totally from scratch instead of heavily modified.
Thanks for the great discussion, Tom, summer, Ben, and uwitness.
Personally, I think StudioPress completely nails it on their choice of large body fonts. These fonts are user friendly - easy to read. Compare that with many other themes that use 13px fonts that are very difficult for users to read or the dreaded "text shadow" effect which is form over function.
scroll
click
and now it is 3 seconds to convey your message, not 10 then 6 then...
(scroll/swipe is standard behavior now with tablets/ipads training users)
(click behavior has changed dramatically with users willing to navigate)not many users read blocks of text any more (on landing pages anyway)
google... google doesn't even know what their algorithm does... 1 million servers crunching data... regional formulas...
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