November 8th, 2024

Dev Blogs home page layout simplified

Radhika Tadinada
Senior Program Manager

Hello, Dev Blogs community!

What we heard – part 2

In my previous post about the grid and list layout choices I shared the feedback we received after launching a Dev Blogs refresh. I also shared how we improved and provided options for the layout of posts. Today, I will address the other major feedback regarding navigating to the latest posts on the main Dev Blogs home page.

  • Difficult to navigate: The new layout of the main Dev Blogs page had a lot of wasted space, with large header images and excessive padding, making it hard to get to the blog posts.

Image DevBlogs Main Home Page Original Layout with large highlights and events section

Updates to layout of the Dev Blogs home page

Many of our new readers and those who don’t visit Dev Blogs often appreciated the highlights that showcased posts that would other get pushed to page 2-3 before they got a chance to read them. However, this layout also meant that our returning readers had to navigate other content to get to the latest posts. We heard that there was a need for both highlights and the latest posts, but not much more.

With the updated layout, we focus on content. We have dedicated space to highlight posts, events, and new blogs launched on Dev Blogs, and then we jump right into the latest posts. All other information has moved to the right side panel. Now, you can find list of all our active blogs, resources, links to Dev Blogs Privacy and FAQ, as well as the RSS feed button, in this right side panel.

Image DevBlogs Main Home Page Modified Layout with shortened highlights section and side bar with other information

Looking Ahead

We’re thrilled to have addressed all the top areas of feedback with this change. But we’re not stopping here! More features and improvements are on the way. Your insights are incredibly valuable to us as they influence how we improve Dev Blogs. We encourage you to keep sharing your thoughts. Thank you for being a part of our community!

Please take our 3-minute survey to share your thoughts.

The Dev Blogs Platform Team

Category
Announcement

Author

Radhika Tadinada
Senior Program Manager

9 comments

  • T Hoffman 6 days ago · Edited

    Please either automatically open stories in a new browser tab, update the url to track my “position” as I press load more, or give me a profile option to automatically open stores in a new tab. Going to a story, then going back to the homepage (pressing the back button on my browser) and losing my spot in the stories grid is irksome at best.

  • Hamed

    In Latest posts section, Wasn’t the three column design better than this two column one?

    • Radhika TadinadaMicrosoft employee Author

      Hamed,

      The layout is still 3 columns on standard desktop screens, without zoom. As the screens get smaller, or zoom/resolution changes, the page responds to show you the best view for the content layout.

  • JEET MAJUMDAR

    @radhika-tadinada, I’m encountering a significant issue with the authentication feature on dev blogs. The access token’s expiry time is too short, requiring me to log in frequently to interact with comments and like blogs. Could you please extend the token’s expiry time? I believe this should not pose a substantial privacy risk.

    Thanks!

  • ω

    Thank you, Radhika and everyone else behind the scenes, for listening to feedback and making these updates happen. I appreciate these specific changes, but more so I appreciate that you and your team take care to listen.

  • Sean BarnesMicrosoft employee · Edited

    On the homepage, it looks like the "Load more posts" skips a page the first time you click it. For example, today I see posts from November 8th and 7th, but when I click "Load more posts", the first new posts are from November 5th. It skips over posts from November 6th (for example, Raymond updates The Old New Thing every business day and his post from the 6th doesn't show up on the Dev...

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    • Radhika TadinadaMicrosoft employee Author

      Hmm I do see Raymond’s post from Nov 6th (on the main home page) so I am not sure what is going on but we will investigate, thanks for flagging it.

      I am glad to hear the updates are helpful.