(1) I know I’ve touched on this in previous comments, but I was wondering if there was some way we could create a live stream somewhere on the page. One of the risks of running a website that only updates several times per year is that it can easily look ‘stale’ or unattended—if we could add a link to Poetry Daily that includes a stream of their updates, it could add an element of freshness to the website, which I think would be rather helpful.

(2) I don’t if this has been addressed, but on the main page, have we considered turning the author’s name into a clickable link? I know this is largely a matter of discretion and personal taste, but I know if I was an author I’d like it if my bio could be clicked on the main page. But I can’t remember if Mr. Smith thought that might be too overwhelming or not.

(3) I clicked on the ‘Current Issue’ tab of the website, and there’s a lot of dead space under the tabs, and to the left of the editor’s note. Do you think it would be possible to allow Mr. Smith’s Editor’s Note to flow out once it reaches the end of the tab so we fill out the entire page?

(4) I really like the color scheme and type of drawdown indexes you used on the ‘Current Issue’ slide. It’s very classy and professional looking. I’m a fan.

(5) Under the ‘FAQ’ portion of the ‘About section,’ do you think that we could center the picture of the dog, write out, ‘FAQ: Frequently Asked Questions’ at the top as a heading, and then have the hyperlinked text take up the entire page instead of getting cut off half-way through and going to the next line?

(6) On the ‘Credits’ section, we quote Carolyn Kizer and Claudia Emerson—do you think it would be possible to turn their names into linkable text that links to their own personal website? It’s a nice touch, and it also adds credibility about the people we’re quoting, I think.

(7) Under the ‘Features’ section, do you think we could add contrasting fonts—i.e. put the initial paragraph bio in italics, have the questions be in bold, have the answers be in standard text so it would be easier to read through?

(8) Regarding the ‘Prizes’ section of the page, do you think it would be possible having a link, or banner, on the main page of the website to whatever current prize we’re offering? That way, it would be easier to drum up support for our contests if they were in plain view.

(9) I really like the staff section—it looks very clean and professional, and very symmetrical.

(10) Under the ‘Submissions’ category, can we fix the gap between the text and the line that goes red talking about Bevel Summers? The odd spacing seems a little off-putting.

(11) Is the ‘Snopes Blog’ something that is going to be a regular feature of the website once it goes live, or is it purely a connection forum for those associated with developing its progress? If it’s going to be part of the website, are we going to delete all the conversation that show up there?

(12) I like the intern bio sections. Do we want me to see if I can get a picture of everyone to put on the site, and we could put the names in bold?

(13) I like the ‘Photos’ section. Would you want me to write some captions to go along with the pictures? Granted, the first third of it is pictures of Mr. Smith reading from a notebook in his office.

(14) I really like the contact form sections. It’s one of the more concise contact pages I’ve seen.

Good job with the website, Mr. Groom. It’s really come a long way in the past couple of months, and I appreciate the steady improvements.

As far as the site as a whole body—it looks great! The aesthetics of the site seem to really work with Shenandoah in print form and, in general, the site is really easy to navigate. Having the content posted fleshes out the site well, and the more that is published the better I can judge the navigability of the site. Below is a list of items that still need correcting/improvement that I have found with my most recent scan of the site.

The “Welcome to Shenandoah” red box takes up too much visual space for such a plain object on the homepage, it almost causes the viewer to skip over the Dunlap art upon first seeing the site

Would it be possible to make the “Current Issue” title on the left hand column a link to the actual Current Issue?

I’ve been viewing the site in Safari and Internet Explorer, so this might be a problem with different browsers, but the text alignment in the gray boxes on the right side is an awkward distance from the titles.Just overall, browser compatability would be a good area to focus on..

The “Next Quotation” link is not working yet

In the issue it might be helpful to make the titles of the work bigger once you get to the work itself. The orange box with the author information overwhelms the title.

Is there a way to include the titles of the Dunlap art below each piece while viewing them as a slideshow or as individual works?

On the “Recommended Reading” tab, I think it would look better to list the titles of each work that is recommended. On the page itself, it would be useful to have same page tab links as each of the work’s titles so a person can jump to the recommendation if a particular title looks interesting.

On the “Credits” page the positive comments kind of get lost on the bottom of the page. Maybe we could make a heading underneath the line that separates the page that introduces the positive reviews? But if we want to continue the idea of running them along the bottom of each page of the “About” section, this could look awkward. In either case, I think the red color of the comments on the “credits” page seems out of place.

Is there going to be content on the “About” homepage or the “Intern” homepage sections? If not, clicking on “about” and “internships” should not lead to another page.

The spacing of the “English 453” page is too spread apart.

This is probably more of a call for what Mr. Smith wants to share but it might be useful to include on the “contact” page a phone number and an actual mailing address? This might not be necessary if Shenandoah starts only accepting email submissions, but it could be a quick and useful way for potential submitters to find the address until we reach that point.

Those are the comments I have for now! The site really is making some great progress.