Themed Pagination: Enhancing User Experience on devlog-ist/landing

The devlog-ist/landing project aims to provide a customizable landing page experience. A key aspect of user experience is the pagination, which allows users to navigate through content easily. This post explores how we enhanced the pagination by introducing themed styles that align with different portfolio themes.

The Challenge

Previously, the pagination used a generic Laravel style, which didn't always fit the aesthetic of the different portfolio themes. This inconsistency detracted from the overall user experience. The goal was to create pagination styles that seamlessly integrate with each theme, providing a more polished and cohesive look.

The Solution

We replaced the generic Laravel pagination with four themed partials:

• default: dark background, white/mono text, red active state
• simple: light slate background, blue active state
• retro: black borders, hard shadows, press-down hover effect
• nan: serif font, minimal gray borders, inverted active state

Each corporate variant reuses its base theme's pagination partial, ensuring consistency within related themes.

Implementation

The implementation involved creating separate Blade templates for each pagination style. These templates define the HTML structure and CSS classes necessary to achieve the desired look. For example, the retro theme uses black borders and hard shadows to create a vintage feel:

<nav>
    <ul class="pagination retro">
        <li class="page-item"><a class="page-link" href="#">Previous</a></li>
        <li class="page-item"><a class="page-link active" href="#">1</a></li>
        <li class="page-item"><a class="page-link" href="#">2</a></li>
        <li class="page-item"><a class="page-link" href="#">Next</a></li>
    </ul>
</nav>

This HTML snippet demonstrates the basic structure of the retro pagination. The pagination retro class applies the specific styling for this theme. Each theme received a custom Blade component in a similar fashion.

Benefits

• Improved User Experience: The themed pagination provides a more consistent and visually appealing experience for users.
• Enhanced Customization: Each portfolio theme now has a matching pagination style, enhancing the overall look and feel.
• Maintainability: By using partials, the pagination styles are modular and easy to maintain.

Conclusion

By implementing themed pagination, we've significantly enhanced the user experience on the devlog-ist/landing project. This approach demonstrates how small details can have a big impact on the overall quality of a web application. When building UIs, consider how theming can be applied to small components for large UX gains.