I just finished a site overhaul. Whew. It took me about 15 hours from the drawing to the final upload to the server. Let me know if anyone sees some strange browser problems. I haven’t actually checked Internet Explorer 6.0 yet, but it should work in Safari, Internet Explorer 7, and Firefox.
I added a couple of new things:
-
An extra sidebar with more stuff on it.
-
On the inner sidebar, I added a more detailed discussion viewer so we can see where the discussion is going on.
-
I updated the comments section so that your name appears to the left of your comment body, sort of similar to discussion forums.
-
I rotating header image. I keep using an image of monkshood – a purple flower that seems to best represent spirituality. I wanted to use green and purple to represent life and mystery/mystical/spiritual.
-
The email subscription mechanism has now been updated.
-
I made little calendar day cards to show the current date in a more interesting way.
-
I added topic descriptions. When you click on a topic, you will be taken to a page that lists all the posts in the topic, and will also see a short paragraph describing what that topic is all about.
Let me know what you think. Be honest!
The new site looks good. I really like the header. One thing I would say is that it does appear to be a little busy for my taste.
I like it, too. It’s very easy to navigate and after viewing it once, I’ve already almost forgotten how the old site worked since this one is so easy to use.
One recommendation: The two right sidebars (without the main text) show up as blank, unless you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page. At first I thought nothing had loaded in those two sidebars at all. Then I scrolled all the way down and saw the discussion, recent posts, sites of interest, topics, archives, etc. I’m using Explorer 6.0, which could be the problem.
Thanks guys!
Mark – I think you are right. The front page is a little busy. Somehow or another, my post side became too small and my sidebar side became too big. I originally designed the columns to follow the measurements of the golden mean (.681), but it seemed to have been lost in the transition to the web. I think I need to tweak that a bit. I think the sub-page is better balanced.
Elise!
Oh no! This is why I have to design for all 5 major browsers, but especially for Internet Explorer 6! I’ve got some padding and margin issues for the sidebars in that browser- what a terrible experience. I’ll try to get that fixed ASAP so you can see the sidebars where they should be…
For starting from scratch I have to say that this looks absolutely fantastic. I like that you clear-out the discussion column on post pages and think that when you got the golden mean your index page will look even better.
Looks great!
Mel,
Thanks! I’m exciting about setting up the golden mean proportion on the homepage – I think it will work very well… until I just realized that I am now designing 5 other websites for clients… 🙁 how did that happen?
Marie,
Thanks for stopping by! I’m thinking the site is almost there, but there is that last 30-40% of the job that is examining the tiny details and fixing them- I’m in that stage right now… it will look even better when I fine tune a little more (being another 5 or 6 hours).