– Sridhar Machani
The new Indus is an enhancement of the older version (which we still like and is available here!). The enhancement directly matches the evolution of static HTML pages to Web 2.0 content. At the heart of the content, we still have the individual pages, or rather, articles.
What has changed?
Apart from the obvious (usability and design) and the not-so obvious (CMS-based, standards-compliant, SEO-friendly, and more) changes, with the new Indus, we can:
- Get the content where we want it and when it is published – by subscribing to RSS or email updates about new editions, articles, and comments.
- Discuss an article – by commenting on an article’s view points and provide counter-points or references.
- Find related articles – by following the article’s categories and tags, no matter when they were published.
- Rate an article – by voting on the article.
- Share articles with friends – by email, twitter, facebook, and hundreds of other ways (!).
Acknowledgments
Thanks to the STC India 2010 Admin Council and the Indus Editorial Team for being ready for the change and for all the inputs to bring the change to life. We’ve moved all Indus editions from Aug-Sep-2009 onwards to the new format. You’ll find links to the older editions on the archives page.
We hope you’ll like it. As always, please take some time to check out the new Indus and leave your feedback in the comments section.
About the author:
Sridhar Machani is a Technical Writer at Wipro Technologies. In his spare time, he doubles up as a Web design and branding consultant. He spends most of his energy at http://sridharmachani.com.
The new interface is simple and well organized. Thanks for bringing in the new features — subscribing to RSS feeds, discussing and rating articles.
Hi Sridhar,
Thank you for getting in the new interface… I would like to add a precaution here… the introductory line of a topic is starting right after the name of the author… there should be a line break or a full- stop…
Thanks and ALL The BEST… 🙂
TnR,
nAVEEn.
@Kumar, @Naveen: Thanks, Kumar and Naveen. While we keep improving Indus, please drop your comments and spread the word!
~ Sri
Sridhar, I really like this avatar of INDUS. Kudos.
Some suggestions:
(i) Is it possible to move “Current Edition Articles” and the dropdown “Indus Editions” somewhere near the top of the page (screen)?
(ii) When we hover our mouse over the category list just beneath the banner (top of the screen), is it possible see a list of articles without having to click through?
These are just suggestions. The new INDUS looks great in its present form.
@Anindita: Thanks for your suggestions. We’ll keep them in mind.
(ii) What you’re trying to achieve is a ToC, upfront. Can you imagine the articles on home page, without the excerpts? That’ll be a ToC. So, it’ll be a question of whether we want to retain the excerpts or not.
Indus team: Awesome stuff. Thank you. Keep up the good work.
Outstanding people have one thing in common: an absolute sense of mission.
– Zig Ziglar
Thank you for the kind words Ramesh. 🙂
Hi Team,
The new Indus looks awesome. The interface is clean and very user friendly.
I’ve one suggestion, in terms of content. The introductory message from the editor could be in the form of an editorial, rather than just summarizing the contents.
Cheers..!!
Aashish Washikar
Thank you for the suggestion Aashish. I’ll keep that in mind when I write the next editorial. 🙂
Sridhar, another observation 🙂
“Rating an article” (the one with the start string) is an action separate from “Rating” (the one with the thumbs), and the actions are not mutually exclusive (you can choose to do one, both, or none). This is not very apparent from your write-up.
For “Rating an article”, move the mouse over the stars. The number of stars the mouse covers turns red. Select the number you want to give the article, and click.
For “Rating”, for a positive vote, click the Thumbs-up icon, and for a negative vote, click Thumbs-down.
Errata:
In “the one with the start string”, read “start” as “star”.
Hi Sridhar, Anagha,
I started a discussion thread over at the Scriptorium forums on the new INDUS. Sarah O’Keefe has very helpful pointers on design and the content; Rick thinks Intercom should follow INDUS’s lead :-).
Wasn’t sure if you guys are following the Scriptorium forums, so thought I’ll holler. It’s here:
http://forums.scriptorium.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=17
Was also wondering if there could be a heat map implementation?
Dear Indus team:
Awesome job. Congratulations.
I hope we win the competitions this time too!
Regards,
Subash
(one of the former editors :))
@ Ramesh Aiyyangar, Aashish Washikar, Subash Babu: Thank you for your kind words!
@ Anindita: Thanks for spreading the word on other forums. It’ll be great if our team can redesign Intercom as well!
I’ll get in touch with you for the heat map implementation.