Site Facelift
This site is now out of beta phase and fully complete! Well.. actually, beta phase is a term used by Web 2.0 developers for finding bugs and to test new features. What I did the past few days was to simply change the design of my blog a little bit.. After seeing the winners of (almost) an online beauty contest!Those of you who visit my site regularly would have noticed that there were some minor changes in my blog over the past month. The changes were mostly done to increase its usability rather than to improve on its "look and feel". According to comments my friends made, for example, it was not easy to pick out where the posts began and ended. However, I had not put much thought or effort into the visual elements of my blog before. After all, its the content that counts.
Until now. There is no reason for a website to not look nice as long as they are not tedious to use. Besides, I enjoy designing in my free time but that was the only thing I hadn't done thoroughly for this site. Inspired by the gorgeous examples in the link above, I searched online for a guide to lead the way.
TA-DAAA! Below is my blog, before and after.. What do you think of the result?
(3 Days Later..)
TA-DAAA! Below is my blog, before and after.. What do you think of the result?
What's New?
1. Tabs: the main navigation bar that is positioned on top of everything to provide easy access to stories posted in related categories like ads, arts, cars, computers..etc. It makes my blog look like a pro as well!
2. Side Bar: this bar on the right includes blog tools such as:
- Search: find something you read about before fast or use it for your research! :)
- Translate: into 8 different languages including German, Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, Japanese, Korean, Chinese and Arabic. More to come in the future.
- Subscribe: to feeds such as recent posts, recent comments and email - the last one is a really nice tool that allows you to receive new posts in your inbox. For those of you who don't like to visit a website everyday.
- The rest: of the side bar probably needs no explanation.
3. Posts: now easier to read, share on bookmarking sites, email to a friend and write comments. You are no longer forwarded somewhere else to read comments either. One simple click on the number of comments will reveal them under the article. If there are no comments, you can write a quick note.. it can't get any easier than this!
I would like to note that design for me is an ongoing process. These looks will certainly not last forever! Help me improve it with your thoughts? Suggestions? Comments?!!
