New Dynamic Views - review

Click >>>>>>>>> FLIPCARD 

Too many thumbnails in one page?? 

I quite like this design though. Somehow my blog looks very full. It's the most "fair" design out of the rest. One thumbnail per entry, and those without pictures are displayed as well. Move the cursor over the thumbnails to see the post title and comment count. As you scroll down, additional posts will continue to load. (I just realised that I have quite a lot of good eye-caturing photos!!) I like how this view can sort the entires out by Recent, Date, Level and Author. Very organised view.

Overall rating: ★★★★☆

Click >>>>>>>>> MOSAIC

Quite funky design I must say. One click on a picture will expand that post to the full width of the view, and vice versa when you click again. In Apple language, it'd be one tap will do it all. It would have been a better design if the sizes of the photos aren't so randomly chosen each time you refresh. Perhaps the ones with more feedbacks could appear larger than the others? What about allowing the "ranking" system for the authors to "rate" each entry? Something similar to rating musics in iTunes. This view is typically designed for iPad and iPhones I'm guessing as it is optimised for the tablet viewing, and supports screen rotation. Ooooooo so cool ya.... 

Overall rating: ★★★☆☆    

Click >>>>>>>>> SIDEBAR

It's very neat and quite logical design. Very easy to see the number of comments too on the left column of the page along with the titles. It helps with quick browsing without weighing too much on photos, but the downside is that you have to scroll down so much to all the other entries because it only has one column that shows all the entries. There's no other ways of categorising them apart from chronologically. For those who have been having the blog for a long time... it's a bit of a pain. And most importantly... where does it show the date of the entry!?!?!?!? It just says "posted yesterday, posted 2 weeks ago, posted a month ago..." how stupid.

Overall rating: ★★☆☆☆

Click >>>>>>>>> SNAPSHOT

I like a bit of the irregularites in how the snapshots are displayed. It's also just the right size, not to big, not to small. With a click/tab, you can see the date of each entry unlike the one above. Good good. Guess this would be a good way of keeping the blog if you take lots of gorgeous photos. When you put the cursor above a snapshot, its snippet pops up. Cuuuute. It shows all the snapshots that you've uploaded while you were blogging. Potentially lots of snapshots can just represent just one post. In this way, its aim is slightly different from that of the flipcard. Downside is that it does not show any entries that do not have photos. Pressure on bloggers to upload more photos, but hey Google, if you want us to do that then why don't you increse the 1GB limit of the photos................?? 

Overall rating: ★★★☆☆    

Click >>>>>>>>> TIMESLIDE

This view breaks the page into three uneven columns. The left column shows the enlarged picture with a post snippet and title, the middle column displays just the post title and snippet, and the right column is only for the individual post titles. This is my least liked way of viewing the blog. I cannot get any control over which entries will be displayed where and why.... The Blogspot has its own mind to it. And it doesn't seem to be able to change everytime you refresh the page. Quite silly I must say...

Overall rating: ☆☆☆☆☆    

To get extra ★s, they will have to make sure that we can still edit html and change backgrounds. Also, rather than making visitors to type www.*/view/blahblah, they could perhaps give the authors an option of displaying a blog the way he/she wants it?