Design Changes

Now that I've added the link menu to the top, I'll be playing with the design of the blog a bit this week… A lot of the content that used to be in the sidebar has moved, which gives me a bit more room to play with ideas for adding new content.

I usually don't start redesigning this soon into launching a blog, but like a cook with an expanding waistline I reckon it will be awfully tempting to change the design here as new hacks are developed. That said, I'm a big fan of simple and clean design, so I won't be implementing hacks just for the sake of showing them off. If they don't make sense for this blog, I'll create an example elsewhere and link to it. I don't want to annoy people by moving things so often that it becomes hard to find content.

I'd love to hear any feedback you care to drop in the comments, especially as relates to navigation and usability.

• Is it easy to find what you're looking for?
• Is it clear how to engage and participate?
• Do the categories and names of link items in the menu make sense?
• Is there anything that seems like it should be here and isn't?

Comments

[Posted: May 17, 2006 3:12:51 PM]

It's a vast improvement over no menu at all... and you've made some very good choices for your menu items.

While the sidebar(s) are great for many things, site navigation is not one of them. Things get lost in the sidebar too easily. Having a menu near the top of the page has pretty much become the de facto standard and that's where readers look for it. If it's not there, many will just give up and bail out.

I'll bet you're getting more hits on those pages now...

James

[Posted: May 17, 2006 4:33:32 PM]

James,

Yeah, the top *is* definitely where people expect to find nav links.

I *did* see a big spike in page views yesterday… I wonder if you're right and it was the result of the new menu? That would be a nice bonus!