Thursday, March 08, 2007

Redesign

When I was in retail there was a rule of thumb that every three to five years a store should be completely redesigned. Regular customers tend to get into a rut and although a store's merchandise mix is constantly evolving and it's appearance is constantly being tweaked, many of those changes go unnoticed. A redesign forces customers to look around again and see the store with fresh eyes. As a store manager (at Pier 1 Imports) I went through two redesigns and saw sales jump significantly after each event.

Thinking the same thing applies to Web sites, I started thinking about revamping Seriously Good last fall (the old design had been in place since July of 2005). I've just completed the redesign and I'm interested in any comments, observations, or suggestions.

Thanks.

This Post was written by Kevin from Seriously Good

6 comments:

Celine said...

Comes across as "rustic". I hope that's what you're going for. Regardless, I like it.

Amy Sherman said...

Have you considered a drop down menu for your archives? The listing is taking up a lot of precious space.

Also is there some reason the length of the banner doesn't match up with the the columns?
The banner doesn't feel balanced with the columns somehow. I guess if you are going for a patchwork feel that comes across.

FJKramer said...

I'm blown away about how you could design this all yourself in addition to making your own corned beef and sausage.

I found it very readable. The competition for my eye at the top(banner, ads, photo with post, etc.) was a bit of a turn off for me, and for all the professionalism involved in the writing, photography, food and design, the tiny scattered photos across the top were unappealing to me and made me expect less than the blog delivers. I think I would have liked fewer, larger photos or more of the tiny ones to make it more like a mosaic.

I found my eye went to the photos of the man (you?) and the meat grinder in the middle and it took a lot of determined scanning to find the name of the blog. Don't know if that is an issue for you at all, I just thought I mention it.

Again, I think it looks good and you can come and create a new design for me any time you'd like!!!

Good luck.

Hope this helps.

Jocelyn:McAuliflower said...

good point about redesign.

some quick notes:

+ how are users to get back to your home page if they are lurking around older posts? >>make your "banner" area a link to your site.

+ a personal pet peeve: I'd love to see move blogs link their post titles ! If I'm linking to your recipe I don't want to hunt for the microscopic text at the very bottom of your post.

+ the stagger design of your banner is interesting. It looks too orderly to reference a pile of pictures... and I'm not sure the overlap accomplishes anything. Hope this criticism isn't too direct- just chewing here as this is a really different style from my own!

+ I'd also suggest looking at your site with the browser window drawn to different widths. I don't view sites at 880wide (i tend to go bigger)- so what I see your site looking as is a bit different than what you see. aka: check how your site scales.

inspiring post Kevin!

Kevin said...

Thanks, all, for the comments. It's seems I haven't accomplished what I wanted in terms of appearance, but the hard part is done, so I'll be revisiting the design shortly.

Again, thanks much!

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