28 Nov 03

Recently Redesigned

Hivelogic

Dan Benjamin has gone from a minimalistic, airy white with a sidebar menu to a centered, fixed-width ALA style layout with a grey background and a horizontal menu.

On the positive side, the new design looks great. Readibility and navigation remain excellent, with a slight improvement of the latter. One exception is the link color, which doesn't contrast enough with the rest of the text. On the negative side, the horizontal menu doesn't handle text resizing well, and the random image generator seems to have been abandoned, which is a pity. Luckily, at least one of the old pictures remains in use as a header graphic.

Simon Willison's Weblog

Simon Willison, in a collaborative effort with Natalie Downe, replaced a high-contrast, orange/white and very distinctive looking design with a different layout in various shades of green. The sidebar has moved from right to left, and a recently introduced Blogmarks bar now floats on the right-hand side.

The Blogmarks feature is a significant improvement. Although colors and layout were better in the previous design, it doesn't really look bad now either. Most importantly, readibility remains excellent. However, the left-hand side placement of the sidebar has had a negative effect on usability and should be brought back to the right hand side. The most concrete result of the redesign is a less distinctive look than before.

Summary

Both weblogs are highly recommended.

Filed under: on November 28, 2003, 11:36 am  

5 Comments (skip to form)

  1. Keith Burgin

    Comment on November 28, 2003 at 2:47 pm

    Simon's site always appealed to me because of the soft color scheme - and the fact that he's pretty darned smart - but the new scheme just does nothing for me.

    Maybe it's the dark greens. I don't seem much difference in the colors and it's difficult for me to tell between links and visited
    links, etc. except for the text-decoration. However, he's still pretty darned smart, and I'm going to visit his blog anyway.

    I'm getting ready to do something with the graphics on mine pretty soon. And it's about time.

    I like the colors and design of yours, Lars. Probably because I have an easier time seeing blues. I'm not color-blind, it's just one of those… "things."

  2. Lars Holst

    Comment on November 28, 2003 at 5:02 pm

    Well put Keith, and thanks for the kind words. Well, I like blue too : ) But as you know, I'm a big fan of your weblog, including the graphics. They blend really well with the rest of the page to create what I think is a really cool military kind of look. Was that intentional? I will watch any changes you make with interest though.

    Regarding the links on Simon's site: although the colors could do with some further adjustment, I like the fact that he distinguishes between links and visited links. It makes scanning and selection more efficient, and is actually particularly useful on weblogs because they have such a large number of links that are refenced in various ways: from the full title of the page (exemplary but rare) to a single meaningless word or letter - such as this or that (a sin).

    Or have I spent too much time over at useit.com?

  3. Simon Willison

    Comment on November 30, 2003 at 12:04 am

    Thanks for the feedback on the new design. There's actually a very good reason I switched the menu back over to the left hand side: when I post code samples (which is relatively often) because they were encased in a element they would frequently overlap the right hand menu in smaller browser windows, which looked pretty hideous. Now that the menu's on the left the only result of lengthy code lines is a horizontal scroll bar.

  4. Lars Holst

    Comment on November 30, 2003 at 11:00 am

    That's a pretty good reason, I agree. It's actually always better to analyze the placement of structural elements based on the functionality of the page rather than doing what everyone else is doing.

    But did you try setting overflow:auto on your pre elements? It's a neat and very simple trick I picked up from Anne van Kesteren.

  5. Simon Willison

    Comment on November 30, 2003 at 5:33 pm

    Hmm… that could have been worth a go. I'm pretty averse to horizontal scroll bars in the middle of the page (iFrame style) but I':ll remember that for next time I run in to a similar problem.

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