After redesigning the Hub and Profile pages, the hard working team at HubPages Headquarters has turned their focus to Topics and special programs, hence today we are excited to roll out new designs for Topic Pages and HubNuggets Program, as well as an updated About page and some improved Forum styling.
Topic Pages
Topic pages have been given a sleek fresh styling by Derek Gulbranson that has been expertly implemented by Edward Zhang. Though most of the elements present on the pages remain the same, the page now has a greater emphasis on images, as well as a more tangible feel (see, for example, the shading that makes these pages look like open books).
As Gulbranson puts it, “I wanted to bring richer browse experience for articles, full titles and descriptions and larger photos, more of a magazine feel. Less focus on the navigation and topic hierarchy and more of a place to explore and find something you’re interested in. We also wanted to highlight the community more and give the sense that stuff is happening here.”
In short, our main objectives with this update were to:
- Create a great browsing experience for Hubbers and casual visitors alike
- Better showcase our community and make it easier to both discover great content and connect with the authors who created it
- Create pages that are better designed to drive traffic from search engines to your Hubs
HubNuggets: Now Rising Stars
Because HubNuggets voting takes place on Topic Pages, we took the Topic Page redesign as an opportunity to update the HubNuggets program as well so that it can be easier to interact with and more clear to those who are not yet familiar with the more esoteric ins and outs of the high power HubPages community.
This design update includes a new voting interface on Topic Pages (also designed by the Venerable Gulbranson), as well as some logistical changes (voting will no longer also take place in a roundup Hub).
Finally, to make the program more clear, we are changing its name from HubNuggets (which, while meant to evoke the sense of discovering nuggets of gold on HubPages, often evoked mental images of chicken nuggets) to the Rising Star program. Hence “HubNuggets Wannabes” will henceforth be known as “Rising Star Candidates” and HubNuggets winners will be known as Rising Stars. You can learn more about the new program in the Learning Center.
About Page & Forum Styling
In addition to significant stylistic changes with Topic Pages and the HubNuggets Program, you’ll also see that our About page now offers more of an explanation of what HubPages actually is (before, it focused primarily on staff bios) and also has a much more visually-oriented presentation.
Derek has also applied some more polished styling to forum posts by giving them a gradient and a drop shadow as well as making them a bit easier to expand and collapse.
We hope you’re pleased with these changes! Let us know what you think. 🙂
HubPages Blog 
Hate the new profile pages.
NOT happy with the changes to the forum layout. Why mess with a thing that worked well, not to mention, you’ve got bigger fish to fry. There’s trouble in HubLand with Pinterest and falling, falling traffic. Please put your efforts there, where they count. This forum change does nothing to improve anything and makes at least some of us mad.
You asked what I thought, so I said.
Sorry, but the last two rounds of forum changes have turned things from bad to worse to just plain awful in my experience. I’m just finding the category changes to be extremely jumbled and now I can’t separate all the squabbling and garbage from any threads of worth, and the new layout and font change is DREADFUL when viewed using an iPad which was how I preferred to spend my forum time. Guess I’m just going to be taking my 6 years of Hub experience and keeping them to myself now instead of answering questions…
Wow! These are some great improvements. I love watching HubPages grow. The “About” page is phenomenal! I love it! It is a true testament to what is going on with HubPages and the Community! Hats off once again to the staff…
JSMatthew~
I was awarded a HubNugget accolade on December 7, 2011 for the second Hub I published on HubPages, My Flying Lesson.
May I ask why my HubNugget accolade was removed from my HubPages profile on October 9, 2012 and replaced with the Rising Star accolade, an accolade I was not awarded?
Thank you.
I appreciate that HP staff is working on the look of HP, but what concerns me (and many other hubbers) at this time is the huge decrease in traffic to even our best hubs. That this coincided with BOTH the profile page change and other internal HP changes as well as the Google algorithm change hasn’t been fully addressed by the HP team, especially in telling us what we can do to get back on track. I’ve already updated and edited my hubs. My most-viewed hub, which got up to 466 views daily before this “crash” is still ranked by Google on its first page, pops up with an even higher ranking (second last night rather than #8 as before), but still down to less than 200 views per day. Can you explain this or tell me what to do? I’m very frustrated and thinking if it doesn’t change I’ll need a better venue than HP. Please reply. Thanks. Jaye Denman
Hubpages is always on top! Your constant updating and ‘spiffing’ up makes it even more fun to be here.
Thanks for the feedback, everyone!
Daisy, we’re just renaming HubNuggets as Rising Stars, so the Accolade was naturally updated. 🙂
Jaye, we appreciate your concern. Right now, updating your Hubs and making sure that your work is high quality and well-constructed is the best thing you can do. We’re working very hard on our end to get to the bottom of the latest update- rest assured of that!
I always welcome the new changes at HP. Who am I to complain? I’m just an ordinary hubber.
Perhaps, if you’ll implement a change, you can also brought it out at the Forums. Whatever the outcome, then, the HP Staff should weigh the results and the forthcoming effects on Google search, and the like.