michael's thoughts » design

Updated Site Theme

Michael Ridley — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 01:30:18 +0000

I have finally gotten around to changing the theme for this web site. It’s still a work in progress, but it got to the point where I just didn’t feel the old theme appropriately reflected the tone of the site. So I switched to my work in progress custom theme.

Obviously the new design is very spare and minimal. I do plan to add to it a bit, although it will remain on the minimalist side.

While I tend to think that content is more important than asthetics, this is a personal publishing platform so it sort of behooves me to have a design that is at least somewhat reflective of my preferences. Perhaps that was true of the previous design at some point, but time has moved on.

Since I’m a founder of a web design studio, you’d think I’d have a bit flashier personal site. But I can’t justify spending a ridiculous amount of time on the design here. Too many other projects to work on. Plus, I’m the technical guy at Communications Tool & Die. Heather is the artsy one! But at least now it doesn’t make me cringe when I look at the page to preview my posts.

I’ve also changed some things on the back end. The previous theme dated from a time before WordPress widgets. The new theme is fully widgetized. This has been a great benefit as I’ve been able to use existing plugins and save time. A great example is with the site archives. I knew I wanted a tree structure that wouldn’t take up so much space on the page. I figured I would have to write something, but no – a search of the Wordpress plugins site revealed the “Collapsing Archives” plugin.

I’ve also installed the Photo Dropper plugin which I’m looking forward to playing with and hopefully using to add more visual appeal to my writings. Fun stuff!

While there are new plugin additions, I’ve also removed some technology that didn’t seem to be adding value. I’ve removed the Snap Shots (formerly Snap Preview Anywhere) popups. I may add them back in at a future date, but probably only for selected links.

While all of this no doubt is of infinitely more importance to me than anyone else, it’s nice to once again have a web site that I feel has a design in line with its content. Enjoy!

Installed Snap Preview Anywhere (SPA)

Michael Ridley — Tue, 03 Apr 2007 10:29:40 +0000

I’ve installed Snap Preview Anywhere on the site. I’m not sure if that is going to be annoying or helpful. If I get negative feedback, I’ll take it off.

For the time being, if you hover your mouse over the SPA icon next to any off-site link, you’ll get a popup JavaScript window with a preview of the web page linked to. Seems like a lot of web sites are using SPA these days; let me know what you think.

Screen Shots of Web Sites

Michael Ridley — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 10:59:59 +0000

Today’s topic is an interesting trend in web site design that needs to stop. It’s the screen shot of a web application. Typically the web site for a software application will offer screen shots of its user interface so you can get a feel for the software before downloading it. Most programs on sourceforge.net offer such screen shots, and for applications that you download I think this is a great idea.

But not for web-hosted software. There seems to be a trend of offering image file (JPEG, PNG) screen shots of all sorts of web software. I’ve seen a lot of Wordpress theme designers do this, and today I was looking at Squarespace which is an online publishing tool. Squarespace apparently offers a publishing platform to do rapid web site development. I don’t know if it’s any good, but that’s beside the point.

The point is that instead of offering a live demo portal to show how their software works, they post screenshots. Screenshots of a web site. That you view in a web browser. Somewhere along the line, the train has come off the rails here. If you are developing software that is accessed through a web portal, offer a demo portal or at least non-functioning versions of various interfaces. Not screenshots.