The New NVS: Cluttered, Clogged? - Nigerian Village Square

Jun

2009

I don’t envy Big-K and his cast of dedicated editors/moderators of our beloved NVS. The service they are rendering to Nigeria is thankless and one can only imagine what they deal with on a daily basis. However, our brothers are not just managers of opinion and the public mind. They are equally managers of aesthetics, taste, and style. Consequently, the visual health of NVS’s readership should matter to them.

I woke up two days ago to a crowded and cluttered NVS that made reading a patently unpleasant experience. I almost concluded that NVS management had declared war on aesthetics, clogging your gaze with too many titles at once on the home page. I normally start my day with Sahara Reporters and NVS. Reading the new NVS is an ordeal. Suddenly its no longer sexy to go that homepage first thing in the morning because of the crowding.

I guess the volume of submissions compelled management to adopt this new format. Did quality lose the war to quantity? Is it worth it? Perhaps, management should have polled NVS readership (some kind of referendum) before throwing this much material in one’s face? I don’t know. Maybe it's just me. What do you think?

Your Comments

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Robot

# 1 | 19.06.2009 07:41

	I don’t envy Big-K and his cast of dedicated editors/moderators of our beloved NVS. The service they are rendering to Nigeria is thankless and one can only imagine what they deal with on a daily basis. However, our brothers are not just managers of opinion and the public mind. They are equally managers of aesthetics, taste, and style. Consequently, the visual health of NVS’s readership should matter to them. I woke up two days ago to a crowded and cluttered NVS that made reading a patently unpleasant experience. I almost concluded that NVS management had declared war on aesthetics, clogging your gaze with too many titles at once on the home page. I normally start my day with Sahara Reporters and NVS. Reading the new NVS is an ordeal. Suddenly its no longer sexy to go that homepage first thing in the morning because of the crowding.I guess the volume of submissions compelled management to adopt this new format. Did quality lose the war to quantity? Is it worth...Read the full article.

Ebe

# 2 | 19.06.2009 08:25

	Pius, The quantity-quality dilemma was debated sometime ago and I recall that opinions coalesced around a delicate consensus: only a certain number of articles (can't remember how many) should be published a day. With the rising profile of NVS, that consensus seems to have been overwhelmed as the increasing number of daily submissions have made that decision untenable. Perhaps it is time to hold another discussion on the subject and come up with another solution that reflects our current status and anticipates future growth. The pre-clutter design was definitely more friendly to the eye.

Kenn

# 3 | 19.06.2009 08:48

	. Baba Pius, I think this aesthetics versus quantity debate is a slippery slope, because your taste may not be the next man’s cup of tea. Thus, to impose such subjectivity as standard imperils the whole NVS experience. Besides, quality isn’t only expressed in the visual import of the NVS, but also in the content of articles themselves, no matter how they appear. My honest view is if I have to choose between keeping articles unpublished in order to preserve some aesthetic requirement and publishing as many as possible, I will choose the latter. While beauty is desirable, the business of imparting knowledge and providing information as quickly as possible to readers cannot take a back seat to satisfy such luxury. The key thing must be that you find something worthwhile to read on NVS. Nevertheless, I’m sure the operators are mindful of the issue you’ve raised and would do all they can to reach a decent compromise, but I do not think it’s such an issue as to exercise us at this moment. Perhaps I’ve lost all sense of beauty; but I’d hope I’m not yet a beast!:D CHEERS! .

Ph3y

# 4 | 19.06.2009 09:15

	Me i like as they have decided to overload us with information.........TMI is not a bad thing. They want all of us to get Phd via NVS. On a serious note though, i think space could be better optimised. Lemme point out one case Upcoming events: This notice shows up in 3 places. at the top, bottom and finally as a big picture on the side bar Plus that member rating thingy up there looks so scary where it's currently placed......

Simbili Simbili is online

# 5 | 19.06.2009 09:21

	You are so right, Pius. Even Nairaland is better. Compare and contrast. http://www.nairaland.com/ Simple and straight to the point. Then this: http://www.nigeriavillagesquare.com/home/index.php Who wants to see all those images, narratives and so on? I just jump straight to the Main Square without ever clicking or spending any time on that extremely 'messy' home page. You even have one crazy section up there at the top right to remind you which moniker you are using in case you forgot who you are. Meeeeeeeeeeen, if the administrators of this website have their living rooms in this format, no need to clean them. Where do you start without signing your death warrant? The roaches and rats will definitely have a lot of live-in quarters without disturbance. Please, don't invite me to your houses. . . for I will promptly refuse since I can neither eat or take a pee for fear of what your kitchen or lavatories may look like. Signed: Very over-stimulated and concerned villager with tons of love.:1love:

Igboamaeze Igboamaeze is offline

# 6 | 19.06.2009 09:24

	------------- I do not think that quality and quantity are mutually exclussive, in this instance. It is important that NVS continues to publish as many views as are available without sacrificing aesthetics because to sacrifice some views on the alter of aesthetics will negate the whole essence of a true "village square". The solution is for the page designers to call their creative instinct to task. There are hundreds of on-line forum (MSDN, for one) that publish tons of posts per day without sacrificing looks. I agree with Pius that aesthetics is important. As one advert said, appearance is everything...

Ph3y

# 7 | 19.06.2009 10:03

	Nairaland ke? Abeg nairaland looks so childish. What is on Nairaland? maybe i'm just biased. IMO,Content wise NVS is better. Segmenting the square into sections aids navigation a whole lot. I think it's good space usage that needs to be implemented. The homepage and indeed the whole square can be made to look better than it does currently.

Ph3y

# 8 | 19.06.2009 10:04

	Nairaland ke? Abeg nairaland looks so childish. What is on Nairaland? or maybe i'm just biased. :D IMO,Content wise NVS is better. Segmenting the square into sections aids navigation a whole lot. I think it's good space usage that needs to be implemented. The homepage and indeed the whole square can be made to look better than it does currently.

Simbili Simbili is online

# 9 | 19.06.2009 10:14

	Of course Nairaland is childish(population-wise with an alarming rate of incurable juvenile delinquency, regardless of age and marital status) But we are talking of aethetics and I think I most definitely prefer that home page format. Very tidy. Less offensive use of contrasting colors and so easy to navigate. You can block out all areas of interest by clicking on just the political section. Very soon you will see some areas on this NVS homepage with people selling pure water, gala and recharge cards like you would find in the worst Lagos traffic. Others to compare NVS with in terms of home page layout: http://www.nigeriansinamerica.com/ http://www.naijaryders.com/forums/ http://www.nigerianetforum.com/ http://www.nigeriaworld.com/ http://www.nigeriafilms.com/ http://nigerianmuse.com/ http://www.elendureports.com/ But don't worry, be happy NVS. . . you beat this one. http://www.biafranigeriaworld.com/ or http://pointblanknews.com/(terrible use of color contrast.. . .this wan na 'flea market') http://www.huhuonline.com/(Okija Shrine?) http://www.nanaija.com/job.php(extremely problematic) http://www.nigeria.com/dcforum/DCForumID28/2199.html Biafraworld is the very worst of all 'jaga jagas' websites.:lol: This worst of messes. http://www.nanaija.com/job.php http://www.nigeriannet.com/nigeriannews/ http://nspace.nigeria.com/main/content/home Not to mention this one with the absolutely riotous colors. http://www.ghanaweb.com/ Yeah, been around. . . .my full time job.:cool:

Big-K

# 10 | 19.06.2009 10:52

	Pius et al, Thanks for feedback. We'll work on it. Simbili, there's a difference between message-boards and websites. I take your point though..Cheers!

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