Yahoo RSS reader icon, how do I put it on my site?

I have a newsletter that I would like to make available via RSS but don't know what I need to do to use the Yahoo reader icon on my site.

Yahoo RSS reader icon, how do I put it on my site?
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Add to my RSS reader – Add to my Website clutter!


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Tuesday, October 31, 2006


Comments (25)


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RSS feeds are gaining extreme popularity and are unstoppably close to appealing to the mass market. They are everywhere we look and undoubtedly synonymous with “Web 2.0”; they are an older technology who clearly represents the future. However, feeds are still an untamed beast let loose in the wilds of the internet with little control or attention to visual design and user-experience. We have a feed, but it is as though we don’t know what to do with it. This is my second post picking on the design of feeds; today I am going to focus on the “add to my reader” phenomenon that is cluttering websites more-and-more.





I’ve used Fadtastic as my example of choice. I thought it fitting since they playfully call attention to web design “fads” – often in a rhetorically negative light. They, like many other sites have opted for the lengthy and unnecessary list of feed readers for which their users can subscribe from. Fadtastic is by far not the worse culprit of this painful visual experience. Scarlet Blaze is an example of more syndication options than I know what to do with – than anyone should know what do with. Just do a Google search for “myaol.gif” and you are bound to come across an abundance of “great” examples.





So, what is my problem with this abundance of “subscribe to” lists? Well, simply it is the adding of clutter of your website which I am sure already has half-a-dozen elements fighting for attention. How important or useful are these colorful little buttons to begin with? Lets think about this logically. Only first-time visitors are really getting any benefit; most of your returning visitors most likely already subscribe to your feed or have made that conscious decision not too (for whatever reason). Sure, I buy the argument that helping the first time visitor subscribe is crucial for conversation rates (turning a first-timer into a long-timer) – but at what cost and is your method even doing that? If your user is using a feed reader you can make the safe assumption that they are reasonably technologically literate. Your user will find your feed and subscribe if they want too; thrusting a variety of options to which they need to filter through isn’t going to help your cause. I should mention that Firefox 2.0 and Internet Explorer 7 are both making this even easier for the common user!


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A lot of complaints should warrant some subjective and opinionated solution, don’t you think? Of course! I say you keep offering your long list of links, just keep creativity and innovation top-of-mind in keeping your visual design and user-experience in tact. Everyone (who uses feeds) has come to recognize the infamous feed icon – use that little 20x20 icon to its maximum potential; exploit it and make it an amazingly powerful visual cue. What I’ve done is add a hover state to my “Add to” icon (well, first thing I did was make it an add-to icon instead of just a simple feed icon). On hover the user is then and only then presented with a list of “add to my” buttons for quick and easy subscription appeasement (I’ve include only the popular ones I’ve deemed appropriate for myself). However, the key to this solution is limiting that long list of “add to” to a hover action – presenting options when they are wanted (providing the user an experience as opposed to forcing one). It is a simple, subtle and obvious location for multiple actions directly related to feeds. On click is where the real beauty of XML really comes into play. As described in a previous post, “Well Designed RSS feeds – Would all web designers please stand up?”, I’ve highlighted the power of XSLT by completely branding and customizing my feed’s XML page for the optimum user-experience. Again, adding the list of “add to” in a nice and subtle location as well as presenting the user with a preview and explanation of the feed.





My solution isn’t “the solution” by any means; just a solution I’ve found effective for my site and those I’ve been currently working on. I feel as though a lot of design decisions being made recently around new “web 2.0” type technologies are being made as rapidly as their deployment. We need to invoke our creative and innovative minds to truly present the best visual decision for the ideal user-experience.





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