A few days ago we asked you to send us your questions for me to answer in a future post. Now that we've rolled out many of our changes, it seems like a good time to do that.
Why wide?
Some of you have noted that the site is "wider." Some of you are glad: That big strip of unused white space that used to go down the right side of the page on your monitors is now used for news. Some of you say that you now have to maximize your browser window to see the full page. And some of you say you're being forced to scroll left to right to see everything.
We have optimized the user experience for a 10x7 and wider experience, which more than 80 percent of our readers use. As technology has progressed, more and more people have complained to us that we're "wasting" the space left over in their browser window. Other "wide" news sites include New York Times, CBS News, ABC News, Washingtonpost.com, Google news, CNN, USA Today. We had heard repeatedly from our users that we needed to catch up with the technology that the vast majority of you are using, and that all of our competition had already adopted.
The thing I like most about it is that we have more space to give you more headlines, more space to display great photos.
What's up with those fly-outs/rollovers?
You hate fly-out menus and now there are more! What is the deal with that rollover function? You love fly-out menus and you're glad they finally work on your Mac!
First: If you hate to roll over a menu and have it "fly out" to show you the headlines in that section, you can turn it off. Below the list of sections in the left-hand news menu is a button called "Disable Fly-out." That will disable the rollover function and let you simply click to the section fronts you're interested in.
Second: We are thinking about developing new functionality for these headline menus. What if you could choose to click to get those lists, rather than triggering them when you roll over? Let us know what you think about that idea.
Where are my current weather conditions?
Current weather conditions are at the top right of your home page. We heard from a lot of you who really missed this content while we were working on it over the weekend, so we hope you like its new more prominent location that doesn't even require you to scroll down the page. If it's not your local weather, the "Local news & weather" section on the home page has a place for you to enter a ZIP code. You can also click "edit" to change your settings.
Where are the market indicators and the "My stocks" functionality?
The Dow Jones indicator is at the top right of the Business section page. We are working overtime to get it into the Business section "slice" on the home page, and to get your personalized stock information back in place on the Business section.
Why does it say five stories are showing when I only see four?
The video or multimedia story in the third column is the fifth story.
What does "pinned" mean and how do I make it work?
The tabbed box in the middle of each section front has a wealth of content that's revealed as you click on each tab. You can choose your favorite tab to be open every time you return to the page. To make it work, with a tab clicked, click on the thumbtack icon, then click again on the tab. Now that tab is "pinned" open.
Where are the blogs?
We've created a new section called "Community" where we've packaged all the ways you can interact with us and other users, including our new partners at Newsvine.com. This is where the blogs are listed.
