Change Width Of Our Hubs

1. 66

   LisaMarie724posted 11 years ago

   I may be the only person that feels this way but I really don't like the look of our hubs.  I think they would look more professional if they were wider.  They remind me of blog posts.

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   1. 74

      Kangaroo_Jaseposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      Not everyone has a wide screen used for laptops, tablets, desktop PCs and importantly, mobile devices.

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   2. 90

      Greensleeves Hubsposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I very much agree LisaMarie - it would be more attractive particularly to visitors from off HubPages if the text of the hub could cover a little more of the screen without the blank margin down either side. More like a page of information and less like a blog (although the current format of the pages is certainly much better than it was before last year's revamp).
      
      As far as Kangaroo_Jase's reply is concerned, I have an old 4x3 (non widescreen) PC monitor as this is the screen format I prefer, and even on this, I feel that Hubs could be wider. However, I'm sure the point about mobile devices is very valid - I guess much of the text would disappear off the sides of the screen of such devices if the hub was any wider!
      
      There is always the option of hitting the zoom button to expand the page to the edges of the screen, though this of course also makes the text much bigger, and perhaps too big to make it attractive to read.

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      1. 66

         LisaMarie724posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I really think that it looks more like a blog as well.  My concern is that our hubs may not look as professional as some other sites, so they will look towards those sites for their information.

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   3. 60

      cascolyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      a major propblem is that google judges quality by the % of qualioty -- ie, non-ad info in the first screen page, so HP is eliminating about 40% of our content by what their designers may consider a prettier presentation - yet another example of vomiting out changes without any consideration of real world effects

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2. 59

   paradigmsearchposted 11 years ago

   My sincere concern is that the font is too small. Consciously or unconsciously, visitors will spend less time on a page that causes eye strain. Not kidding here.

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   1. 73

      Barbara Kayposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      I agree. Some people don't have 20/20 vision.

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   2. 60

      The Examiner-1posted 9 years agoin reply to this

      para,
      Go to font when in edit and change the font size.

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3. 88

   mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years ago

   I guess if the hubs were wider on screen, they would be shorter in vertical length, therefore we might lose some of our adverts on the right (which is important if you plan on earning from your writing).

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   1. 60

      cascolyposted 11 years agoin reply to this

      right now, ads take up about half the available space, so with  margins google 'sees' only about 25% of the first page as worthwhile info; meaning placement in searches is going to be reduced
      
      you can't get traffic & clicks if no one can find your page

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      1. 88

         mistyhorizon2003posted 11 years agoin reply to this

         You may well be making a valid point here, to be honest I am not sure as I have not really looked that far into what percentage of the page Google are judging the quality of content on. That said I do pretty well on traffic and earnings, so am guessing that many of my hubs must feature fairly highly in the SERPS. I always try to make sure the first few sentences of my hubs contain keywords  and phrases relevant to the article, which if your assumption on rating by Google is correct might well help to ensure a good position in the SERPS even with the current narrow layout.

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4. 96

   wildernessposted 11 years ago

   No thank you, unless you can make new hubs one size and older ones a different width.
   
   Most people go to considerable effort to make an attractive package, integrating the different kinds of capsules and floating many of them to the right of pertinent text.  Making that text wider will make it shorter as well, and nothing will fit any longer.

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   1. 89

      Howard S.posted 11 years agoin reply to this

      They already made changes about a week ago that affect column alignment. Text capsules and photo capsules placed in left and right columns previously did not align horizontally. They fixed that. It looks better now, but, as you pointed out, you may need to go back and check the alignment of some hubs. If you typically use many short capsules, you've got less worry than if you tend to use fewer long capsules.
      
      It is also more obvious now that the title of ad capsules (if you title them) does not align with the title of right-floated text or photo capsules. Furthermore, since it's off by only a few pixels, it is more obviously a design error than a feature spec.

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      1. 96

         wildernessposted 11 years agoin reply to this

         I saw that thread, yes.  Changing the height a few pixels (which should help everyone) is a far cry from reducing the length by a third or some other huge amount though.  I've often had trouble fitting all the photos, Amazon, extra text, etc. capsules next to a long text capsule; reduce the length of that long capsule and I'm going to have a huge white space at the bottom of it.  Ugly in the extreme.

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   2. 86

      Marisa Wrightposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      I know this is an old thread, but it's an interesting point.  As Wilderness says, most of us have gone to some trouble to use different kinds of capsules with right-floated highlights, photos, etc etc.  That was a good reason for not changing the width of Hubs.
      
      Now that's all in the toilet, because most of our readers are viewing our Hubs on mobiles and tablets which mucks up our layout anyway.   So I think it's high time HubPages looked at a more responsive layout which can take advantage of the wide screen when it's available.

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      1. 73

         relacheposted 9 years agoin reply to this

         If Hubpages never ever responded to all the pleas to make the layout more responsive before the site was predominated by mobile viewers, I feel they sure as heck aren't gonna do it now.  It's clear they are redesigning the entire site for what could be best-described as "phone view" to the exclusion of everything else.
         
         Given the past precedent for Hubpages "all-in" history, and the recent rededication to not listening to user/members that the HubPro rollout demonstrated, the most likely scenario would be that the entire site is fully converted to some design that plays best to phone-equipped visitors, and then after a year something major changes in the greater scheme of the web and that makes the single, locked-in decision now seem bad, so the entire site has to change again.  Like converting the entire site to subdomains only to then turn around and start moving content back to the main domain that's happening now.

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         1. 86

            TIMETRAVELER2posted 9 years agoin reply to this

            Relache:
            
            I was unaware that the team is moving hubs back to their subdomain.  When did that happen and does it affect everybody?
            
            I must have missed something.

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            1. 84

               psycheskinnerposted 9 years agoin reply to this

               I assume this refers to "Editors Choice".

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5. 84

   psycheskinnerposted 11 years ago

   I agree that they look old-fashioned in being so narrow.  Like an old fixed-width blog.

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6. 76

   jacharlessposted 11 years ago

   TMK, Hubs were redesigned to "fit" for most mobile platforms/devices with a max-width of 728 inner pixel container -which houses all hub elements. viewing hub on Anroid or iPhone is actually quite nice. For desktop/wide tablets, it does look "smaller" but centered. Howeaver, seven ads on Hubs carrying less than 3000 words does look a bit heavy -four above the fold alone- not including amazon/ebay capsules...
   
   James.

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7. 88

   lobobrandonposted 9 years ago

   As PD says the text could be a bit larger say 120% of what it currently is.
   
   Regarding the width, it sure is narrow on a laptop. But, if it's spread out too much I would find it a bore to read as I'd feel it's never ending - maybe there are many others like me out there? Younger readers that is.
   
   10% on each side would be ideal in my opinion. But if they do happen to make any changes, I'm sure the team would go through a series of tests to find the optimum solution.

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   1. 95

      Solarasposted 9 years agoin reply to this

      Making the font larger while increasing the width at the same time could allow you to maintain the same proportions with regards to image/capsule placements.

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