New koew.net Design Released (Updated)

It’s like I almost forgot to write something about it. The new design was published at April 5th 2008, and I’ve since been working part-time on just making it work the way it should. I believe I’m almost there.

There’s alot I could, but won’t, write about this design. I’d rather focus my writing on the things I know for sure and actually would like to share with you.

The design name

To start, I’d like to mention that this design (made into a template) is named All Praise To Coffee. The reason would seem easy enough to understand, and it is. I created the first doodles of this design in September 2007, high on my 9th cup of coffee that day. The first real PSD-files I created had a real coffee-flavor on it, but I decided that it would make it less the personal website for me.

I’ve consumed at least two gazillion litres of coffee from the first doodles to template release. Hardcore black coffee, no sugar, no milk.

So what’s new?

At first, it would seem as alot of things have changed. Now there’s tags instead of categories and a easy-to-reach search bar which users might use more now than before. But to be honest, there ain’t much new features - at least not yet. I’ve just made sure to not repeat the mistakes I did with the last one.

I’ve been doing some reading, yes I do read when I don’t hunt the local midgets for gold, on subjects that’ve made impact on how this design has developed. Subjects would for instance be web usability, accessibility and backwards compatibility. Here’s what I’ve covered on the subjects:

Making it work for users

Thanks to the writers Steve Kruug (why do I picture some hideous orc?) and Jakob Nielsen, I’ve learned more on user behaviour and how to make websites work out-of-the-box. For instance, the navigation and search bar located on the right side will always be at the same place and look the same (except from navigation-markings) on every page. That makes it easier both for search-dominant and link-dominant users to find what they’re after.

Minor changes are still to be done with the menu, and it’ll be smoothed out during the next week.

More accessible

Thanks to a lot of work and focus on web accessibility, the new design (read: the structure behind it) is easier for a screen reader to understand. By using proper headings, all posts and pages do have a title enclosed inside a <h1>-tag. Then lower headers (h2-h6) follows when necessary.

During next week, I’ll also implement access keys and create an accessibility statement that’ll be published as a sub-page on the About-page.

Looks the same for everyone

Backwards compatibility is a real bitch. Especially if the userbase is divided on the three major browsers (Internet Explorer 6 and 7, Firefox and Opera), which mine is. The latest browser report for koew.net showed that visitors still preferred IE6 in the IE/Win-area. That’s why I had to work twice as hard just to make it look the same on all browsers.

Apart from content-boxes’ shadow - what I would call koew.net’s only eye-candy - everything looks the same on all major browsers on all the major platforms. I’ll upload screenshots later on.

Why didn’t you just…

There’s alot of things I could’ve done different, as it always is with these things. I’ve decided I’m going to make this design work as good as it can for the user, and when I’m done with all the minor changes that’s left, I’ll focus everything on content. A website consists of only one thing: the content, the content, the content.

My regular visitors and, perhaps, new visitors, might want to say something about this design. I welcome you all to use the comment-field below. It’s important to get some user feedback as soon as possible, though it doesn’t mean I’m going to remove widget X or change the colours right away. After all, this is my personal website.

Update version list

The current version of APTC is 1.0. I’ve already written lists of improvements, upgrades and additional features that I’ll make into two larger theme releases. Here’s what’s what and in what version:

APTC version 1.5

• CSS improvements for IE6/Win (and 5.5)
• CSS improvements for printing (which is already very good)
• All pages will have content. No more empty pages
• A helpful 404-page, especially for visitors who’ve visited links that uses /blog/post-id
• Better navigational marking for sub-pages
• Sprite-image improvements (especially for IE6/Win and lower)
• Access keys for people with disabilities
• Renewed favicon

APTC version 2.0

• Re-vamp of the markup and CSS: Content comes first, making it improved both for accessibility and SEO
• Max-width and centered design. A must when working on a liquid layout on screen resolutions above 1280 pixels in width
• Increasing readability even more, with line-lengths and contrast control checks

Now I’m tired and need to sleep. Looking forward to hearing from you all, whenever you feel like telling.