Bloglines interface

[symbioidlj]

I use bloglines, and while it has a fairly decent interface, I find the way to organize the blogs you subscribe to a bit cumbersome. Essentially it's a set of bookmarks organized into folders. I have no problem with the organization. I don't recall if there's a search function, but that would be handy.

The problem is that when you want to move a newly subscribed blog to the folder you think it should go to(or create one if you don't have a category for that new subscription), you have to select a checkbox, next to the pages you want to put in a folder, then select from a dropdown menu "move to folder xxxx". This is actually quite a tedious method of interaction, it seems to me.

If I were to redesign it, I'd use DHTML, and make simple icons for "create folder", "trash can", for example. Then, you could click the create folder icon, and a text entry appears below it, with a nicely design "submit" button beside it. You can then type the name of the folder, and it would appear alphabetically in order in the list of folders.

Now, if you want to subscribe to a page, you would have a "current page/blog" icon(a link to the rss feed), and all you'd have to do is drag it into the folder/category you want to place it (just like you would in browsers' bookmarks)

to unsubscribe, all you'd have to do is drag it to the bottom right(of the whole interface) icon: Garbage/Trash.

I hope this makes sense. Would this be a good way to work on my HTML coding skills? Deconstruct a page, and redesign its interface?

Comments

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

The creation thing would work well, the dragging...not so much.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

could you tell me why the dragging wouldn't work? I mean, I know that the differences between browser compatibilities would be a problem, is that the issue? I know it would take a lot of work, I'm certainly not saying it would be easy or anything, but it should theoretically be possible, wouldn't it? I'd imagine it would be a lot of work.

One of the biggest problems for me is that I'm not good at designing icons.

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

Theoretically, sure it should work. I guess what I mean is that I'd never want to write all that. It'd be like masturbating with a cheese grater. Slightly amusing, but mostly painful.

[symbioid.livejournal.com]

also, if my idea isn't a great idea, what would you recommend to improve their system of subscription and organization to simplify it?

[vesicular.livejournal.com]

Oh, it's a good idea, I just think it would be a bitch to impliment. I think what Bloglines needs more than anything is just some better information architecture. They really should redo the whole site in that regard because I just don't think it's that great.

To answer your point about how to simplfy it now, I'd say take the paradigm you started with creating a folder and do the same for the feeds. Click an icon for "move", and then bring up a select list of folders to move to next to that feed. They basically have this done, but they could simplify it.

I think this works because you end up using the same paradigm for any action on an item, and because it leverages what they've already done, so the change isn't drastic for users, and it's a really simple fix, not much time and effort involved.