The New Design

I’ve finally got some time, as I’ve got Christmas holidays from now, to write. And then there’s the question on what to write, since my life is as exciting as a pack of chocolate donuts; once they’re gone you just want another box and a glass of milk. I’ll write about the new design. My new (blog) design.

I realised that it would be a good idea to actually do a re-design of my webpage; it would perhaps benefit not just my users, but also me. And I created some drafts a couple of months ago, but scrapped them for the time being. A few weeks back I found ‘em again and started working. And my work is nearly - I’d say it’s about 78 percent - done, but I can’t set an ETA due to both work- and personal-related issues. Anyway, here’s some exciting features:

• Other colours: I like green, and I like the buttons (the menu) which I created a while back, but enough is enough. I’ve decided on another colour-palette for the new design. Not just for comfort, but for readability as well. And then again, as we all learned from the martians: Because it’s cool.
• Priority 1 WCAG coverage: Thanks to my job over at the Norwegian Schoolnet, I’ve learned the necessity of making a webpage accessible (w3c.org/WAI). The new design will also be more “viewable” for screenreaders than the current one.
• Optimized for search engines: As I’ve been reading on SEO lately, I’m working on how to structure my pages/posts better. I’ve put special emphasis on header-taggings and META-information and how the data relates to the content of the page/post. But don’t worry, it’ll still be my own personal weblog, so don’t go and make a midget out of an elephant.
• No more inline-styling: A big no-no. I’ve tried to keep myself from doing it, but I’ll be even more strict with myself when the new design-template is published. A complete separation of style/content is a goal I want to achieve.
• Backwards compatibility: The new design/template will be compatible as far back as to IE5.5/Win. Thanks to heavy styling which works in all newer browsers, it’ll be more rewarding for users if they use IE7/FF 1.5+/Opera 8+. If you’ve got an older browser than IE5.5, it might be time for you to leave the Internet.
• Handheld-version: I already knew that it was going to be an issue. That’s why I’ve been working on a stylesheet for handheld devices only. It won’t be as purdy as the one for screens and projectors, but it’s a working one. Also, I’ve got to inform visitors about wap.koew.net, which is especially made for cellphone browsers.
• Tags: Instead of the old categories which I haven’t really used well (or almost not at all), I’ll be switching to tags. I’ve already converted the category anime into a tag, and you can view the posts by this (nice) url: http://koew.net/blog/tag/anime

The only thing which I consider a problem, is when do I get the time to complete the template AND publish it? I do not know, and I won’t give out any promises. Hopefully - that includes the word HOPE - it’ll be before the end of 2007, then again what do I know?