August 30, 2009 in Personal, Web/Tech Well… how do you like it? I’ve got a few tweaks/additions to make yet, but all in all I’m thrilled with how it turned out. A huge, massive monument-size (think Burj Dubai) thank you to my friends at Squarespace for helping me make my new design a reality. Krystyn, Kris, Dane, Erica, and the entire Squarespace crew have been the BEST PEOPLE EVER, and I can’t thank them enough for helping me build the next generation of sarahlane.com. Does anyone know how to say “thank you x infinity” in CSS so that it ends up crashing Firefox? If so, please send via my contact link and I’ll start spamming them.
A word on the new design: my old site was perfectly functional and I liked it a lot, but it was pretty static if I didn’t actually update the blog itself regularly, which I didn’t. These days I spend so much time on a multitude of social networks that I wanted sarahlane.com to reflect my overall activity, rather than appearing neglected all the time. Please note that I don’t intend to stop posting longer form content here, quite the opposite. I love to write and a spiffy new site is just what I need to kick myself back into TMI overdrive. I’m simply reinventing myself as a realist, which I think is very mature of me. Matronly, even. Geriatric.
So… how do you like it?
BTW, Martin Sargent says I look like a muppet on the landing page, which is one of the greatest compliments a friend has ever given me.
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Reader Comments (54)
Love the new design! It's clean, functional, and very hip. Like you! teehee....
Great site design. I really like the idea of keeping long- and short-form posts visible together. I bet a lot of people will copy this. I bet I will.
Looks great, Sarah!
I like the new design very much. I like the landing page! The whole site is clean and easy to navigate. Makes me want to update my own site. lol!
looks great!! keep up the good work!
I like it, simple to the point and left aligned done right.
Currently as I'm still stuck in the "maybe it could be better" mode for my own web site, I sorta have no weight on this suggestion, however, I'm still going to make one.
I see that the website's navigation on the top on non-home-page pages is colorized differently then the navigation on your home page. I believe if you were to stylize your homepage navigation, located to the left of your lovely photograph, to match in color the navigation on your non-home-page pages, it would initially create a relationship between the two locations that represent the same functionality and make navigating your website that much easier.
Hi Sarah,
I'm a huge fan of the redesign - the Squarespace crew did an amazing job - both from a design and from a UX perspective.
Congratulations!
site looks great. very modern asthetic. well done
The look is nice and clean but there is something I hate about left-aligned designs... On large screens it's really annoying. I'm talking mostly about Windows users here because on the Mac the default behavior of application windows is to have windows 'restored' (not maximized). So when you browse a lot (going from one site to another) where some sites use more screen space than others (hence why you maximize the browser window), and then suddenly get to one that is pushed all the way into a corner, it's kind of irritating.
Also another small point: Home links on web pages are usually expected to be in the extreme left not right. There is also a small design flaw with the textarea input for posting new comments, it's slightly too large (500px instead of 550px on line 27 of common css)
And finally, that white box below HOME in the upper right corner I assume is going to be a search box (it's not selectable now)? If so, I'd try to fit it into the dark gray sidebar instead, and even the whole menu too if possible (maybe by reducing the font size -- it's already larger than most menus anyway).
Just to leave on a good note, my favorite element is the twitter bubble, I love it :)
Brilliant Design Sarah. It's nice to see something new every now and again. :)
I have to agree with Istvan about the left-aligned design. It looks odd having a giant gray area on the right. Otherwise it looks pretty good.
i really like the new site design, it is refreshing and i like the way everything is arranged.
Oh and btw your top banner on your home page , where you are smiling over your laptop.
you look like stephen tyler just a little bit.
Fresh design. I like it. Some portions don't work from my iPhone. However, you will likely be forgiven...
Love the new site! I had to laugh at the "Muppet" comment :) Glad you are doing so well, and keeping busy!
New, Kewl, Sexy, just like U
I like the overall design, but the color scheme just doesn't work for me. The multi-colored links at the top is cool, but HOME should be on the far left. I'm not crazy about the color of blue at the bottom of the main page either.
I really like the main page though. You don't see that in a whole lot of websites these days, nice touch.
Looking forward to Current.ly with Sarah Lane and can't wait for TWIF. (By the way, send some love to the TWIF is Fun website http://twif.squarespace.com/. The guy feels a little unappreciated.)
I like the greys with little accents of color at the top.
I think the navigation on the home page should be the same as it is on the rest of the site. Consistency is important.
There's no left to right scroll bar. I keep my browser narrow and usually only maximize for boobs or robots, so, turn into a topless mechanoid or let me scroll right. Better than that would be a design that stretches or shrinks to fit the window it is in but almost nobody does that, so, I won't expect it. But please surprise me and have it become really popular and spread around the web and become standard for every site.
There's an expectation of some kind of banner or site logo at the top left that can be clicked to return to the home page. The home link way off to the right all by itself is like driving in England. Except for the English. For them it's like driving in America.
There are a couple of other minor problems like the video being wider than the dark grey sidebar and the too wide comment box but those can be fixed with a few tweaks. Overall, it is remarkably similar to what you had before but shuffled around.
Love the colors - very cheerful and bright. The whole design seems very fresh and it appeals to me.
For consistency, I think you could use the same top-navigation menus even on the front page, but possibly only visible as mouse-overs as to not compete with the big main navigation left of your image. I also agree with above comments to place the HOME link to the far left - that bugged me :)
As I'm writing this comment, I also find the font-size of the comment box to be too small for my aging eyes.
All in all - a great job, well done!
peace,
Tormod in Stockholm
I found the homepage very pleasant, and while some opinions on twitter-to-blog integration are negative - I like how it turned out. The large use of white space on the homepage, along with the super big text and 32x32 social media icons felt very comfortable.
I noticed that the top navigation isn't consistent. For instance, you can click on the words "about, videos, home" and your taken to something. However, because "blog and projects" have sub-menus, the actual words "blog and projects" aren't click-able. Because the entire top navigation looks click-able, I'd suggest using smart defaults for items which contain sub-navigation (if the user clicks "blog" they are taken to most recent blog posts, if they click "projects" they are taken to an archive list of all projects, sorted by category).
The interior content pages... meh. Maybe it's all the grey to the right, or the fact that it's not a not-so-subtle three column boxy layout.
THE REST OF THIS.... may be more detailed that you wanted/expected. Take with 12 grains of salt, lemon-wedge, and 1 shot of Herradura Tequila! (or just ignore)
In FF3.5.2 the scrollbar for comments is partially hidden (50%) by the grey border to the right. In Safari4, the scrollbar is 90% hidden as you fill 'er up.
In terms of accessibility, there were also some minor issues mostly dealing with text equivalents for images/links. You can download the "WAVE" plugin for FF (http://bit.ly/5i2Xb), or use DeQue's online compliance tool (http://bit.ly/4prTW6) to find them. If you wave a string across your monitor, your furballs will help point them out (as mine keep offering to do!)
The WAVE tool also has a nifty feature that shows the content outline (how you've described it via HTML header1...6 tags). There are some opportunities to better describe the content/navigation... though the tool won't necessarily tell you what to do. Generally speaking, I try to put an H1 for the site, H2 describing major sections of the page (Navigation, main content, footer, etc, and H3...6 as needed.)
I'd recommend moving the JavaScript references to the bottom of the page, if this is something you control. It's purely a performance thing based on the Yahoo web-page optimization techniques (http://bit.ly/4vUnYH).
One last thing. I noticed that viewing "text only" shows your content in this order: top navigation, column #3 advertisements, column #2 stuff (social networking links), the main content, and finally - the footer. My recommendation would be to order your content like so:
top navigation, main content, column 2 stuff (social media links), column 3 stuff (adverts), footer.
You can still achieve the visual layout your going for, but allow users who aren't supporting CSS to view the most important content first. An alternative might be to institute "skip to main-content" links on each page.
Looks a lot better than the old design! Good stuff, SarAne.
Cool. Love the colours!
yeah, pretty muppety lol, nice site. made with squarespace?
Hey I like it. It's a little stretched on my giganto monitor, but it still looks pretty good.
Like the new page. Looks fresh and simple!
My ONLY criticism Sarah is that you're NOT in color on the front page. You are TOO awesome to merely blend in with the text, though STILL stunning! :-)
That and you seem to smell like ComicCon! LOL!
Why this is simply the best thing in web design since Al Gore invented the whole thing!!! Great work!!
I love the new site Sarah, great job!
I recently came across your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I don't know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Betty
http://dogfurniture.info
Looks good except the picture under the Martin Sargent comment doesnt work. All in all very nice. Now, will you marry me?
Great site Sarah but then you have always had great sites. I think you made a great choice here and I can't wait to see updates :)
Looks great, but really--advertising? Kinda takes away from the site.
I love the new design! But it needs more Elvis stuff
Sarah, I love it. It's really easy to maneuver & I love the section with Twitter & all the other sites we can find you on. It definitely has a very grown up look to it & it's just what you needed. The old site seemed somewhat abandoned. Way to go Sarah & Squarespace!
love this website, now i need to find out how i can duplicate it for my real estate website,
LOL at Martin's muppet comment. Since I clicked from my RSS feed, I initially missed out on that fabulous picture.
I'm with squarespace as well, and although it was slightly more difficult to set up than I thought, I had it under control with the help of a friend after a week or so.
The new design looks great (wow, you have a lot of ways to connect), although I'd love to see your pretty face on every page, including the individual blog posts.
Site looks greats, what does Marty know anyway? He needs to update his site.
Muppets rule!
{LOL} ... It's a good thing I'll be a, "Gentleman Without Visible Means Of Support," for a couple of years, 'cause I'll be prowling around your new website quite a bit, methinks!
So far, my only (negative) observation is that my cursor icon vanishes in the gray area to the right [WinXP on a ThinkPad].
PS: Hmmm - a 'muppety', "tenacious ball of steel," works for me ... [;)~
Cool new site.. definitely agree with Martin about the muppet reference.. Muppet pictures come up at least once in a lifetime for everybody..
Great TWiF by the way..
Love the new design. I may have to try and see if I can get some one at squarespace to work on mine. My site is pretty ugly.
I love it! I just turned my personal blog into more of a life streaming blog too. I wish Facebook statuses were allowed in a feed, like twitter. You were my original source of inspiration years ago to blog. Thanks for that!
Looks great, however I would love to know how to get squarespace to customize a website and what kind of costs would be involved. Keep up the posts :)
I really love the new design, very professional and cool at the same time. Love what you are doing with the site. http://www.highbeam.com/AdMedia/publications.aspx
Love your new site, Sarah! It looks great, especially with the Twitter bubble and all of your social links in the center and ads off to the right. Oh, and the favicon is a really nice touch. I'm inspired. :)
Nice website
Thanks
Geeklayer team
I don't like it being left aligned AND fixed width. It looks real bad on a wide screen monitor because over half of my screen is a big gray blob. I am ok with left align sites if they use a variable width since this takes advantage of all of my monitor space. You need to make the site center aligned or variable width.
Other than that, it looks good.
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