OK, then, away with the search box bubble. Realign the title logo vertically, rather than horizontally, and make it the same width as the left pane where the Blinks are. Recombine the current issue and magazine info bubbles on the right (they were split while highlighting the Locus Poll voting). Make all the content in the left pane left-justified, rather than a mix of center and left. Make the search box a simple box, same width as left pane, and put the semi-independent other Locus links (the indexes, Locus Press, etc) in a similarly thin box alongside, the width of the center and right panes.
Consider moving Blinks into the center section, alternating with main content posts. That works OK, but then what fills up the left column? More ads? Put blinks back in left column.
Realign categories of drop-down menus along the top. No need for Indexes drop-down; those sections are static, and now listed across the top. Move the similarly static Links pages drop-down over the left side, as part of the website links. Now the four drop downs in the center section are all content that’s regularly updated and amended. And there’s now a distinction between features derived from the magazine, and those special to Locus Online, though perhaps most readers don’t care or notice.
And finally, make room for a link or two to specific posts from my blog, when they are relatively newsworthy.
That’s it for now. (Here’s what it looked like a month ago, though this capture has the ads removed.)
