2004 Redesign Is Here!
February 10, 2004 | 
39 Comments
Update: Thanks to Oscar and the great folks at Needa.com I was able to work out my rebuild issue. Turns out it was too many archive type tags in my templates. I moved those to PHP includes and everything got much better.
I’ve still got many issues to tackle and lots of work to do, but most things should be ok for awhile! Thanks for all the help.
Personal sites can be a lot of work.
So, here it is. At the time of this writing I’m still in mid launch as I ran into some problems with my server timing out. The big problem being some of the older archives. But for the most part it’s ready to go.
I had to launch it a bit prematurely because I’ve been so busy with other things lately I felt that if I didn’t get it up there I’d never get to it. Consequently there are still a few things to work out. Bear with me.
As soon as I’ve got some time I’ll give y’all a run down on all the behind the scenes goings on. I started off this project in a very professional manner — I had goals and a plan. I gathered feedback and did user testing. All that fell apart due to external resource issues. It ended up being very “real world” after all.
I guess there is no such thing as the perfect project, just like there is no such thing as the perfect Web site.
I’d like to thank a few folks who helped out. Nick for review and suggesting the blue. Arve for his help getting over the last stumbling block in MT. Mike Rhodes for the feedback and Linux testing. Dunstan and Scrivs for great ideas. Everyone who helped with “live” user testing and all the others who sent notes expressing interest, etc.
Anyway, my brain is mush right now. I’m quite sure there is some huge piece I missed, but heck, I think you’ll live!
Feel free to comment, critique, flame, question or whatever. I may not address everything here, but I do appreciate any feedback and I’ll be happy to answer questions in my forthcoming write up. All I ask is that you send any obvious “bugs” to me via email. If you’re not sure, just email me.
Anyway, I hope everyone likes it. One of my major goals was to make the site a bit easier to get around and easier to use. It was done with the user’s goals in mind as much as it was with my own.
Filed under: My Sites
Comments
1. Cheah Chu Yeow said:
It looks great! Nice and clean with the subtle lines and drop shadows - everybody loves dropshadows.
Did you do your testing in Firefox? Because certain things break in IE and Opera. On my IE6, I get a JavaScript error and the Song of the Week Shockwave thingie doesn’t work. I wish I could tell you why, but IE not being helpful.
As for the problem in Opera (7.23), your navigation bar doesn’t string together like it should but rather stacks up vertically. It _could_ be due to #navcontainer ul li { display: block; } but I’m not sure - I miss EditCSS whenever I use Opera. If you need a screenshot let me know.
Posted on February 11, 2004 12:47 AM | #
2. John said:
Arrived via Digital-Web.
First impression is that the site is a lot more elegent and organised.
Looks great in Firefox and yes, the display block needs to be edited as your menu is verticle in Opera 7.23
Well done on all the work. The content deserves the renovations :)
John
Posted on February 11, 2004 12:59 AM | #
3. Sascha said:
Well done,
one think. When resizing the textsize in Firefox the comments box goes at least 120px over the right column. In IE this is not the case.
Personally I always liked those nifty backgrounds. The blue is fine, but I would like one of those psychadelic backgrounds more I guess.
Great Work!
Posted on February 11, 2004 01:20 AM | #
4. pF said:
The link to “Dunstan” is wrong BTW. I think you’ve missed the HTTP. :)
Posted on February 11, 2004 02:10 AM | #
5. ste said:
Wow, this looks fantastic. It seems like everyone is doing the dropshadow thing these days. (That’s not a knock on your design - it’s just something I’ve noticed is very prevalent.) I like the subtle use of double borders to add a little more depth to some of the boxes on the site. The extra attention to detail could easily have been overlooked, but it definitely adds value.
My only complaint is one that carried over from the old design - the Guidelines for posting comments. It’s not that I don’t agree with any of them, but they take up a lot of space. Particularly in lower resolutions, someone may see “Post a comment” but not actually where to do so. A minor usability issue. If adherence to the guidelines is a regular problem, then I can see your reasoning for their placement; if it’s not a problem, you might consider shortening them to a disclaimer with a link to more details (as a popup so the user doesn’t navigate away from the page).
Posted on February 11, 2004 03:28 AM | #
6. Matt Burris said:
Very slick, it feels good on the eyes, and it’s a refreshing change over the old layout. I really like the light brown sidebar, it fits nicely with the blue background. The only gripe I have, and it is a personal preference, is the red/orange menu. It seems to stand out awkwardly compared to the blue and brown light hues. I’m by no means an expert on colors, that’s just my first impressions. The site works fine, as other mentions, on Firefox 0.8. Good job on the redesign. :)
Posted on February 11, 2004 04:12 AM | #
7. Chris Vincent said:
As everyone else said, it looks very good! There isn’t much about it that I would change, and I’m sure it will be tweaked over time, as things tend to go.
I really like the navigation bar. They seem to be cloning themselves on CSS sites these days, so it’s nice to see one that isn’t the same as everyone else’s.
Posted on February 11, 2004 05:01 AM | #
8. Matt said:
I already got you by e-mail, but just wanted to say again great job, and congratulations. The site looks tremendous.
Posted on February 11, 2004 06:34 AM | #
9. jonathan said:
Looking really good Keith. This is very clean and crisp, especially the new sidebar. I really like the way you’ve organized everything without compromising on the amount of content. There’s a really consistent flow to it.
Asterisk has been hitting a stride content wise with some really thought provoking entries, and the new look just takes it to the next level. Nice work.
Posted on February 11, 2004 07:06 AM | #
10. Bob said:
Gorgeous!
Posted on February 11, 2004 08:07 AM | #
11. Dysfunksional.Monkey said:
Love the new design… though I’m a bit unsure about the space at each side of the blog. They seem as though they’ve been ignored, forgotten about. I thought the “wallpaper” pattern was wonderful - non-descript, but interesting. Currently it just seems a little… bland. Maybe you could pop it back in and see what others think?
Posted on February 11, 2004 09:14 AM | #
12. Keith said:
Thanks for the comments. I do know of a few issues and I’m working on them. I’ve had quite a few comments about the issue with the Navigation in Opera. I can’t figure it out. When I’ve got time I’ll look into it, but in the meantime if anyone has a solution let me know.
Please send me an email if you find a bug – don’t post it here.
Thanks again everyone. Glad to see the majority of the folks like what I’ve done. I’ll be working to clear up bugs and make improvements over the next few weeks so don’t hesitate to let me know if you have problems, or just plain don’t like something.
Posted on February 11, 2004 10:07 AM | #
13. patricia said:
The light blue background was a little shocking at first. I’d quite gotten used to the dark color scheme, but it’s growing on me.
Everything looks great, but what I’m especially loving is the font selection. Much easier to read than before, and when my eyes are acting up I can resize to my heart’s content. Thank you for that!
Posted on February 11, 2004 10:44 AM | #
14. ssn said:
I think that visually the look is more “standard”. Although great.
The previous design had a “distinctive” kind of look. If I looked at a page I would recognize it as an “asterisk” page.. But then again.. maybe its just a matter of time..
Posted on February 11, 2004 10:48 AM | #
15. Matt said:
Just saw your note about the archive type tags screwing up the rebuild…I actually ran into the exact same problem when I put my new site online last week. Turns out that MT chews up a bunch of RAM when it is rebuilding the archives. I wonder if they’ll come up with a way to take that down in MT3?
Posted on February 11, 2004 11:04 AM | #
16. Kyle Fox said:
Looks great! Really nice. I too miss the background a bit, but over all it’s a great improvement.
Seems to work in Opera now as well. I love that you are able to react to feedback like that.
Keep it up my man.
Posted on February 11, 2004 11:05 AM | #
17. Mike said:
I like the look and design very much.
Being very critical, I may feel like the Archive list-style-type graphic is a little overwhelming and repetitive. There’s just too many.
I’m surprised to see that the design is all fixed-width. Any reason you decided to go that way?
I was also contemplating a slight restyling on my own site, and I see you’ve done it: i think blogs have been focused too much on the “date” concept, so I’m glad to see the title taking precedence over the time written. Because, really, who browses like that? Along that train of thought, I would reccomend the “category” browsing on the sidebar would be above the “monthly” archives….
Overall, though, great redesign.
Posted on February 11, 2004 11:58 AM | #
18. Zelnox said:
It looks good and classy too. Some previous commenters miss the background pattern; how about using a blue pattern?
Posted on February 11, 2004 12:15 PM | #
19. Bill said:
I really like the new look. Very crisp and easier on my eyes to read. The old design was nice (although not my cup of tea).
I’ve also been noticing how much real estate monthly archive listings are taking. For long-lived sites it is starting to get to be too much. I haven’t come up with a solution yet - maybe list the last 12 months and have a link saying “older posts”. Does MT even support that sort of thing in a template? Oh well, not a big issue.
I’m just waiting for the tipping point when “pretentious tagline goes here” becomes pretentious itself. ;)
Posted on February 11, 2004 12:57 PM | #
20. moonshake said:
black was much better.
Posted on February 11, 2004 02:48 PM | #
21. Joel said:
I see you’ve fixed it in Opera now. A wry smile.
Posted on February 11, 2004 02:54 PM | #
22. Keith said:
Yeah, got it fixed in Opera! Just for you Joel! :) Actually it wasn’t too hard, once I had a few folks point me in the right direction. I hope it’s all good now.
Posted on February 11, 2004 03:24 PM | #
23. Joel said:
Hi Keith, yes, looks fine in Opera now. Might be worth quickly writing what the problem and solution was. I hope you warm to Opera, I’ve been with it since version 3.6, it was way ahead of its time and still is in many ways, though Firebird/Firefox has caught up.
On Firebird 0.7, have you noticed it has a bad caching problem? I discovered it recently, if it serves up a page afresh one time too many it gives a blank page, just white, leading people to think there’s something wrong with a website. Peter-Paul Koch has noticed it as well I see. Hope Firefox may have fixed that one. In the meantime it’s solved by clearing the browser cache.
Posted on February 11, 2004 04:33 PM | #
24. Keith said:
I’ve not noticed that caching problem myself. I do most of my browsing on Safari though.
The problem I had with the menu and Opera was that it was displaying vertically rather than the intended horizontal. The reason being was that there was no Width property assigned to the containing div. Add a Width and it’s all good.
Posted on February 11, 2004 05:10 PM | #
25. craig said:
very nice. you always do a fine job with your designs.
i appreciate that your design is striking, yet not such a big departure from your previous design that it’s hard to orient frequent visitors like myself.
Posted on February 11, 2004 07:47 PM | #
26. TOOLman said:
Well done!
I like the new color scheme a lot, especially the clean blue background. Although I’m not too crazy about fixed-width designs, yours works very well even in <shudder/> IE5.5.
Posted on February 11, 2004 10:21 PM | #
27. justin goodlett said:
I have to agree with all the comments. You have done a great job in your redesign - maintaining a similar look while making the usability and navigation much easier to flow through. Excellent choice of color as well. It a pleasure to read Asterisk.
Posted on February 12, 2004 04:47 AM | #
28. Adam Bramwell said:
The walls aren’t closing in but the ceiling feels low…
I like the space on either side, but it feels like there should also be some on the top and bottom.
Posted on February 12, 2004 06:10 AM | #
29. Lars said:
I like the new design a lot, and am surprised that nobody has mentioned one of its gretest improvements over the old version (which I also liked a lot):
It’s centered.
I can’t stress enough how many sites would be better off centering their content divs, really.
If I was to change anything, I’d remove the “song of the week” box. I’m sure a lot of work went into coding it, etc., but I really couldn’t care less. And, frankly, who gives a damn about these things? The page would also look better without it. But I’m just nitpicking here.
Great work Keith.
Posted on February 12, 2004 07:30 AM | #
30. Minz Meyer said:
Lars Holst wrote:
And, frankly, who gives a damn about these things?
I would have agreed, but since I listened to Incubus, I went away and got myself the CD.
Thanks for the pointer Keith.
Posted on February 12, 2004 09:31 AM | #
31. Gabe said:
I love the new design, but I must make my vote for bringing back some sort of pattern to the background. I can see the benefit of having a flat background to draw your eye to the content. Maybe a good compromise would be a low contrast pattern in the blue.
Posted on February 12, 2004 10:33 AM | #
32. Keith said:
Man, quite a few folks miss the pattern, might need to think on that one!
Lars, just an FYI – Lots of people care about the SOW. I get more email about that (all of it positive) than anything else. In fact, your the first person that’s said they wish it was gone.
To keep up with the frankness, I’m surprised anyone who didn’t care about it would care if it stayed or not, it’s designed in such a way as to be as un-intrusive as possible. I mean, really, does it detract in any way from the usefulness of the site?
I’ve don’t think so, and I’ve not heard anything about that.
In any-case, you don’t have to like it, I like it and it’s not going anywhere. ;)
Thanks for the comments though, I really appreciate it.
Posted on February 12, 2004 10:47 AM | #
33. Lars said:
Different strokes for different folks.
Keith: no, the SOW does not detract from the usefulness of the site. I do think you’ve managed to incorporate it very well into the overall design. I just expressed the fact that it’s not the reason I come here. I’m really surprised that it attracts more feedback than your posts actually.
Minz, that’s great. Good for you. It’s just that I usually visit sites for a certain focus, and the focus of Asterisk, at least in my eyes, is not music. Of course, someone is always going to be inspired by something, and that’s nice, but one has to draw the line somewhere, no? There would probably be similar tales if Keith had posted his [movie | book | whatever] of the week. It doesn’t necessarily mean that a majority of the readers needs it. Assuming of course it matters what readers think, but since comments are open on this post, I assume it does, at least to some extent.
But Keith, you’re in good company; I seem to notice all kinds of funky sidebar content everywhere these ays, so perhaps it’s just that I’m getting old and grumpy. I do enjoy your actual posts on music though, even if my taste is very different from yours. Better, of course ;)
Posted on February 12, 2004 03:49 PM | #
34. Keith said:
Lars – Fair enough and thanks for the comments, I’m glad you like it for the most part. You know I’m aiming for round 3 of your list! ;)
I know what you mean about noticing funky sidebar content. I actually tried really hard to clean up the side bar. It was very long before and rather unfocused. I often write it off to a designer’s personal indulgence and really, as long as it’s not to overwhelming, it’s fine by me.
The thing is with the music, etc. I do want to focus on Web stuff, but I like to branch out a bit and frankly there might be more of that coming. BUT, never fear, I’ve got my good old “no play” RSS feed for those who just want to get the geeky stuff.
As far as musical tastes go, if you pay attention you’d know that I’m wide open, I like lots of stuff. The SOW does take requests.
Posted on February 12, 2004 04:25 PM | #
35. Sian said:
It looks great!
Posted on February 12, 2004 04:36 PM | #
36. patricia said:
in response to Bill’s question about MT supporting short archive lists. It does. Just need to use the lastn attribute. Set that to 6 months or 12 then have a link to a page where you list everything.
Posted on February 13, 2004 12:15 PM | #
37. hren_man said:
Once again Keith … you do great work, but I miss the paisley. The dark prince or pixels is back … he he. See you soon DK7.
Posted on February 13, 2004 03:24 PM | #
38. Lars said:
Keith, thanks for elaborating. I just realized that the SOW is a song that is presented in its own post, as with this weeks Music Was Saved by Starsailor (right?) I had missed that connection completely. I really like this idea, which also justifies the SOW box. Thumbs redirected :)
Then in all the excitement over the new design I forgot to comment on the Quicklinks. I hadn’t noticed your choice of names, despite having done research on this very subject a few months ago. Oh, the names people have chosen…
I ended up chosing Quicklinks too, and now that I am paying attention I keep seeing it here and there, even on a few German weblogs. It’s by far the best name.
Ah well, the little details…
Posted on February 14, 2004 03:33 PM | #
39. * wonderyak * said:
Bad news has wings.
Posted on March 28, 2004 01:34 PM | #
Comments are now closed