November 28th, 2010
After reviewing several client websites, I have had a chance to review my own as part of a ‘spring clean’ and now the preliminary layout for the brand new site design is almost ready to go into coding. It has been a long procedure reviewing the site statistics and traffic flow, but the new design should make it easier to get to what you want even faster!
I am looking to launch the site at the start of the new year, so I have lots of work to get done in the meantime!
If anyone has any suggestions, let me know and I will add them into the design before the launch. I am thinking a countdown clock on the site might get me more motivated to hit my self imposed deadline!
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May 21st, 2010
The time has come to officially announce that I will not be adding stylesheet support for IE6 into the websites I am designing. Basically it comes down to offering the best user experience for the visitors to a site whilst working within the project budget limitations. I would much rather spend the difference on additional testing and further features over creating an additional stylesheet for a browser that is no longer supported by it’s creator. Most designers and developers have already joined the IE6 is dead movement but after having just generated two complex ecommerce websites to fit within a clients criteria of being fully compliant in all browsers (right back to the one they are still using), I believe any site user is better served with a more considered design that looks to future browsing developments in the HTML standards rather than attempt to force a band-aid solution for older browsers that are no longer compliant or supported by their developers.
Don’t get me wrong I can build sites that appear as close as possible in IE6 to other browsers but it will be an additional cost and an option that I will suggest is not the best expenditure of the project budget when we could be looking at an HTML email template being designed in addition to the website instead, or even the balance of funds going toward a targetted adwords campaign promoting the website itself upon launch.
I am sure it won’t be long before I am announcing the same thing for IE7!
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April 21st, 2010
The next reboot is just around the corner and I am considering what needs doing to refresh my site to give it a fresh and functional look
for the coming year.
In fact building a mobile device option into my websites theme seems to be the first step. Now that I have my iPhone, all the usability issues for websites on the iPhone are easily tested. Just look around at any graphic or web designer and invariably they will have or plan to get an iPhone. This is my primary mobile viewer, so putting something nicer than the default interface together may just be the ticket to stand out a bit more.
The next thing is to make the site design wordpress 3 ready, there is plenty of write ups to the changes and how to implement them.
So, making everything stable and ready for mobile devices it comes down to updating the look of the site and I am tempted to switch to a fluid layout and look at building the layout so it functions well at any width. With computer monitor sizes getting ever wider the fixed format of my site is going to be something I feel will hold it back later on. It could be that I know it will be a full year till the next overhaul and who knows what will happen in six to eight months. Not that I am suggesting you will be viewing the Internet on your 3D TV from the comfort of your lounge in six months, but I do want to have adaptibility built in sooner rather than later.
This site has had a bit of progression in design and functionality since it was launched. Invariably the changes have been invisible to
users, but has helped clean up a lot of unnecessary information and options within the site making it easier to navigate.
My goal for the site itself is to try and maintain the branding style but bring a fresh look and design in without pushing it too far away from what it currently is and confuse return visitors with a completely different look and format.
We will see how I go! Reboot 2010 here we come!
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The pending Bitten By Design redesign launch!
