A category page with the old and new design. What do you think? (Click to enlarge)

Hi all, Jer the GV Tech Lead here with another design update, this time to the metadata we show for each post on the homepage and other screens that list posts.

Making contributors more visible

The most obvious change is that we now show both the writers and translators of each post on the homepage. For many years now, we've opted to show a region category category rather than user links because they are more predictable in their length, but after many conversations with our editors and contributors, we've decided that making the community visible is a top priority.

The change also applies to mobile, at least for now while we test the effects. (Click to enlarge)

Not only does this new design give credit where credit is due, it highlights to our readers the vast and diverse nature of the people who fill Global Voices with unique stories!

Highlighting “Taglines” rather than “Excerpts”

Another change we're making alongside showing the credits is to show post Taglines in these promo cards, rather than excerpts.

Another comparison of the old and new designs. Does the new design feel easier to read with the shorter but larger taglines? (Click to enlarge)

What's the difference between a “Tagline” and an “Excerpt”? It's a bit complicated, but each post has two similar pieces of text that can accompany the title. The Tagline is a shorter text that shows on the post itself, right below the title (You can see it in grey at the top of this post). These are usually punchy bits of text that tease the article. An Excerpt is instead a slightly longer piece of text, and traditionally it's more of a summary of the article. The biggest difference between the two, semantically, is that the Excerpt never shows on the post itself, and may be a quote from the start of the article, whereas the Tagline is designed to always show alongside the full article.

The goal of this change is to have less overall text on the homepage. When we add all the text for credits, it can get a bit overwhelming, so we're hoping that showing the shorter Taglines will make the design more relaxing for readers. We also think that the Taglines are usually more punchy and effective, and readers will be more likely to click through to read the whole post. As a bonus, because taglines are shorter, we can also make the text itself bigger and easier to read!

The Design Working Group (Core team members as well as Associate Editors) is working on a revision to our editorial policies around both Taglines and Excerpts to accompany this design change, but for the time being, we'll be using Taglines whenever they are available, with a fallback to Excerpts for older posts that don't have a tagline.

New A/B test: Should we show credits on mobile devices?

The one aspect of this redesign that we aren't 100% convinced about is the effect of showing the full list of user credits on mobile. As you can see in the comparison below, adding all that text can sometimes make the design look lopsided and show less posts. It all depends on the number of contributors, and the specifics of their names.

The old and new designs, as well as a third version we're considering to simplify the layout and make it easier to read. (Click to enlarge)

For now, the official design is the one in the center above, with full credits showing. This is the one we want to use, because promoting our contributors is a top priority, but we also had some concerns that maybe it creates too much of a noisy layout in some cases, such as above. If it turned out that the extra information density turned off readers, that would be a shame and we'd want to reconsider and look for new solutions.

So the answer for now is to run a test! Along with the launch of this design change we're implementing an A/B test on the site, with one version showing the credits on mobile, while the other just shows the title and date. Once we've collected enough data, we'll compare the two versions and see if there's any noticeable difference between them.

Thanks for reading

Please let us know what you think of the changes, and what you think the A/B test results are going to be. As always, if you notice any bugs with these new features, please get in touch with me here in the comments, using my user page on this site to send an email, or on the Global Voices Slack!