Fact boxes for the Dinosaur Toy Blog

[ceratopsian]

Good point about the phone view. I was looking at the box on my desktop.

[DinoToyForum]

Yes, I moved the box from the top to the side to make it more integrated with the review, and avoid a sea of empty red on the right (if the box is full width) or empty white (if the box is less wide). But the appearance on mobile is bad - the text getting squeezed between the image and box. It doesn't look like that on my own mobile but each screen will be a different size...

The difference between the front page and review page is that the image is a thumbnail they occupies a set % of the width, whereas the image in the review is 100% width.

Can anyone with CSS experience suggest a solution? Maybe if I make the thumbnail and box 50% each, it won't ever pinch the text, but then the height will vary from screen to screen. I'll have a play around. Otherwise, I'll probably go back to the 'boring' option of positioning it as a 100% wide box above the content.

[DinoToyForum]

I've put the box on top for now. How does this look?

[DinoToyForum]

Any more feedback on the fact box before I turn it off on the front end?

[Lanthanotus]

Hi Adam,

I persoanlly liked the blog bettter without these boxes, though I generally could think to like the idea.

In the current form I find them way to big and eye catching in all red and over the whole width, and unfortunately, a lof of information in most is just blank. Maybe the fact boxes could be smaller and only show those information that are in fact given.... as, leave scale or width totally out instead of just saying "Scale: N/A" or "Scale :?" Also, for example in the case of my Protocasts Allosaurus I dunno what "Company: 735" stands for...

I could imagine having smaller or less alarming fact boxes, maybe with just a frame instead of a full color background, and, as said above, just those information that is given, leaving away those missing. If we deceide for fact boxes, I`d suggest any author is held to provide some basic information to best of his/her knowledge. Anybody should be able to measure the figures, providing the "correct" scale could be a matter of discussion though....

[suspsy]

I am still not liking them. Among other concerns I've shared with Adam, I feel they may encourage some visitors to not read the reviews in full.

[Bokisaurus]

Sorry, late for this.
I like the idea of the fact box, however, I feel that on the main blog page, it's so overwhelming and swallowed the review!
Is there a way to put in on the end of the review itself and not front and center?

The fact box I feel should just be a small bonus and not be the main star of the review as it looks right now.
I also feel that the box takes away from the main purpose of the review.
There are other websites that already have all these facts and the same format.
Like others said, I also share the concerns that in time, this will diminish people reading the actual review and will just take a quick glance at the box and that would be very discouraging for reviewers who put so much time in writing.
What makes the blog so unique is the various write up, the fact box just, in my opinion makes it look so much more generic.

Lastly, almost all of the information on the box are written somewhere in the review already so it becomes redundant, and it would be very hard to keep consistency especially on the measurements and scale.

So, although it's an idea worth exploring, in the end I feel that it take away more than it add and unnecessary and distracting.
Unless it could be moved off the front page and put inside the review on the very end, I'm not a fan of this (I tried to fill them out on my last entry).

[DinoToyForum]

Thanks for the feedback @suspsy, @Lanthanotus, B @Bokisaurus

I agree that it is taking up too much space. This isn't what I had in mind and I wanted to avoid it happening, but finding a layout that works equally well on a computer screen and a mobile screen is...challenging. At the moment, what works for one doesn't work for the other. I'm sure there is a solution but my coding skills are not currently up for the challenge, so I need to do a bit of research on how to make the fact box...

1. Only appear on the review page and category pages (not on the front page).
2. Appear as a small box in the body of the review on a computer screen.
3. Appear as a full width box above the review on a mobile.
4. Make the line spacing smaller so the box isn't so deep (this is normally easy but for some reason I'm having trouble.

I've turned off the fact boxes on the front end while I try and find a solution but there are still fields for the fact box on the back end, so if authors could please fill them in going forward I would appreciate it. I'll go through my own reviews, and I wonder if we could crowd source the data for the old reviews in a forum thread, then I'll just have a massive copy-paste job on my hands! Then, once the back end is populated, or close to being populated, I can go live.

[Halichoeres]

I think, contrary to discouraging current readers from reading the reviews, it's at least possible that people who were never interested in reading the reviews might visit the site for quick reference. Even now I suspect that many people visit for the photos alone and don't bother reading the reviews--I've made my peace with that thought, even though, like all of us, I put a fair amount of work into the writing itself.