I had the fortune of being invited as a judge for Standards Reboot, a standards-centric web design event. The deadline is May 1 and I thought it would be appropriate to “reboot” my site to go along with the event. Let me clarify a bit, the reboot will be less visually oriented and more user-experience oriented. These change (which hopefully will occur) are tied to the moves I have been talking about for quite a while. I was lucky enough to have had an online buddy help with some changes that I have yet to institute due to a lack of time. I feel pretty confident that a few serious sit-down sessions could end up being quite fruitful. Life has finally started to slow down and so I feel right now is as good of a time as ever. Still, this project needs to be very focused and pragmatic. No significant changes can be implemented within the 2 weeks before May 1, so I really would like to tackle two or three areas in a very simple, yet effective manner. As the title suggests, these are short term goals, but they are all directed towards much larger ideas.
Here are the topics I am considering – I would love to hear your thoughts on what you see as the more important to you.
- Increased Comment Love functionality
- Improved load times
- Improved commenting experience
- Basic user participation elements
- Cleanup/refinement on homepage UI elements
- Easier access to less noticeable areas of the site
- Work on branding and visual language – only where it improves user-experience throughout the site
This site has continued to grow much more quickly than I would have ever imagined. Nonetheless, the actual site has not progressed significantly for nearly 6 months. There is no way that a large-scale redesign could happen, nor do I think it should occur. Still, I really want to make this site more enjoyable to come to as well as come back to. Your feedback would be amazingly helpful.
