Blog Redesign. Testers Needed.
Mar 01, 2010 
View Comments
Over the past couple weeks I’ve spent most of my free time giving DanielMosley.com an extreme makeover. Just ask my wife. She’s ready to have her husband back. Anyways, the site should be a lot more functional now. It’s not complete, but my guess is that I will always be tweaking little things here and there. Here’s a few major changes (besides the obvious).
- Content is more accessible. There’s now a “featured” section that allows special posts to “live” longer. Popular posts will also remain on the surface.
- I’ve added some necessary pages that the previous theme lacked: An About page and a way to Contact me.
- There are hidden pages for Twitter visitors and new commenters.
Also, you can now subscribe via RSS or Email.
There are many other small feature tweaks. But you’ll discover those as you look around.
So, what do you think of the site? Mind helping me test it on different browsers, particularly Internet Explorer (as I don’t have that one). Please let me know if you find any errors. Also, I am VERY open to suggestions for improvement. Thanks a ton.
PS. I’m not happy w/ the temporary logo (see above). Any of you creative folks have ideas for DM?
Related Posts
Daniel,
For the most part, the blog is clean and attractive, but there is a lot of stuff going on. The icons on the lower left rail are troublesome for me because they interfere with my view of the page. As with most pages and blogs, it seems there is too much going on, which can drown out the main purpose for the blog. I also do not like the "Share" icon and functionality, again because it interferes with my view of the page and just seems to be in the way.
I like what http://zenhabits.net/ is trying to accomplish. While the post seems mainly negative, your blog has a nice look to it; just too much going on. As preachers are wont to say: Keep the main thing the main thing.
Thanks for this feedback. I will take it into consideration.
I think it looks good. Simple. Easy to navigate. All the important stuff at the top.
Very Masculine
Masculine… yeah, thats what I was going for
Hi Daniel,I was taking a look at your site and found it very interesting. It has enough pages,blog and topics. I think the logo should have more brightness or color. A photo of you would be nice to put in your Home.I liked to see! Have enough subject, his personal life and his ministry. I like U2 as well.Needs some adjustments but everything is perfect.
Good point. I’ll add an “author” picture.
Lots of helpful replies coming over Twitter. Some things I’ll be working on immediately:
1) The commenting system. I’ve already disabled Intense Debate plugin until I can better integrate it with the blog.
2) The Social Media icons on the left interfering with page content on small monitors.DONE.3) One person said they were having formatting issues with the header using Internet Explorer. Could anyone else verify this? Possibly send me a screen shot?
I’m also taking into consideration the lack of color that several have mentioned.
Thank you.
I like the layout although the other poster might be on to something, if a newbie makes it to your blog they might be overwhelmed. Also it seems a bit sterile; maybe monochromatic is a better word. Personally a big feature for me is that I like blog sites that can be optimized for reading on the iPhone. I don’t read most blogs more than a couple of times if they are not. Not sure if yours is as my iPhone recently died.
Motored around a bit and I didn’t find any broken links, that’s always good.
Lastly, your content is very engaging and of high quality.
My .02
(feel free to leave it in the sofa cushions)
Monochromatic is a good word for the current color scheme. You guys are convincing me to reconsider this.
Yes, there is a mobile version of the site. Test it when you can.
Looks great man. Easy to manuver from my BB.
Great! I haven’t tested it on any mobile devices besides my iPhone.
Love the popular/latest/comments/tag box in the sidebar. Also the footer is useful. I checked the mobile site. Don’t you love the WP-Touch plug in?
I think you need more “pop.” Maybe changing up the header will help with that. Where do you put all your photos? A feature of a few of your favorites might be nice in addition to your flickr button.
Awesome plugin. So simple!
I love how each post is in snippets. Makes it easy to puruse till something catches my eye. Great job!
Welcome to the blog. Preciate the feedback. Hope it doesn’t take too long to find something of interest
Daniel,
Everything looks good to me – I for one kinda like the monochromatic look. It keeps the eyes focused on the content instead of the flashy borders/etc.
I personally don’t think it’s too busy. I think it’s feature-rich.
I’ve been checking it out on both Firefox and Internet Explorer 8 (IE8) on Windows 7 – not seeing any trouble on either browser.
I’d make sure to ask those who reported trouble with IE which version they are using 6/7/8. If they are using 6, I have two words for them. WINDOWS. UPDATE.
My only quibble would be that perhaps you should make the “rotating” featured post take a little longer before switching to the next one. On my PC its only staying about 5 seconds before rotating to the next one – maybe 10-15 seconds?
Oh, and you don’t need the “tags” box at the bottom of the page, since you have a spot for it in the tabs on the right side already.
Later,
Rich
Thanks Rich. I was digging the monochromatic look as well till so many others mentioned the lack of color. I’m gonna change up the header and logo a bit as soon as I have time. Still wish I had a more creative logo. Not my expertise. I was doing good to create that icon.
Overall, I think it looks good! Probably don’t have anything new to add, but will reiterate some of what others said:
- Probably best to have a picture on the front page
- Although I am a fan of the monochromatic color scheme, it does come off a little industrial (ie – cold).
Also -I don’t think it’s too busy. Maybe if a visitor isn’t used to blogs it might come off that way, but I think it’s neat, clean and organized.
Good job!
Thanks Jason. I’m adding a picture to the right column now. Just gotta find one
Cool! Always takes me a while to find a picture I want to put up.
Daniel, I like it. Really easy to navigate and it looks really clean. I like the Monochrome look a lot. good Job!
Thanks Dan.
Daniel,
I think it’s clean-looking but needs more color. Gazillion colors by the Creator…USE some of them!
Easy navigation. I like it.
Amy
Looks awesome. I like the clean layout. The featured article scroller is a little distracting. It is scrolling much too fast to read the blurbs before next article rolls in, at least on my end w/IE. Actually took me a while to realize I could stop its scrolling with the menu on the right. New logo would be a plus. Go easy on the color suggestions, I prefer easy on the eyes and readability over splash.
Tony, several people have asked for the featured section to scroll a little slower.
It is currently set to 5 seconds. I’ll bump it up a bit.DONE. Its now set to 9 seconds. Better?Any suggestions for a new logo design?
Daniel,
I like it. Clean is the one word I would use. That is a good thing.
JD
Clean and easy to navigate is exactly what I was going for.
Under Personal…”About Me” Where is your Bio. How did you get where you are? Did you go to school? What are some of your hobbies? Do you work all the Time? No recreation? Just interested in what some of your readers might have in common with you. I may have missed all this stuff under another heading.
dude.. loving the new site..
Very clean… which i am a fan of.
Very cool
Thanks Adam. I loved reading the stories on your blog.