White whale: A blog undesigned
Posted: 3 June 2008
Relaunching a site is usually about enhancements to design. Well, I've never been one to follow the herd: I'm shaking up the mix by undesigning my blog. Say hahlo to my new design the "White Whale".
For some time now, I've been pondering how to make neilang.com a better site for users. My thoughts on this have been many, but I keep coming back to the same three goals:
- Accessibility;
- Speed;
- Navigation.
I realised that over-designing my site was hindering these goals, not helping them. From this was born the White Whale - a clean, stripped-back, easily navigable design with super-fast loading time and scalability across a range of different platforms.
But how, you say? Read on...
By reducing images, enabling gzip compression and reducing white space from mark-up, I was able to reduce the site size to a miniscule 17KB, reducing the load size by 92%. I rock.
By using the WAI guidelines as the basis of my design, I was able to greatly increase my site's compliance with accessibility standards.
By allowing all posted content (e.g. articles, categories, comments) of my site to be fed directly to a user's RSS reader, I can offer users the ability to select only the elements that they want to read.
With the sites reduced size and increased accessibility, it should view well on an iPhone. But if you are still stuck in the middle ages (like me), and have a Sony Ericsson or Nokia, I've made you m.neilang.com. This is a super cut-down valid WAP 1.0 version of my site.
Thoughts?
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James 3 Jun 08 at 7:25pm
Aarrrr! That be a tasty white whale!
The serif headings to san serif paragraphs work well, and I like the links – very accessible. And em widths… o yea!
Only suggestion, perhaps you could put a bit more padding between the columns, but other than that, it all looks great, i especially like your Mii.
Good stuff.
Dean 3 Jun 08 at 7:52pm
Nice work Neil, I like. Really like the social networking page its got a lot on it but I think its organised really well.
Tony Arnold 3 Jun 08 at 7:52pm
Bravo, Bangarang – there aren't enough people paying attention to the WAI guidelines (myself included). Glad to see Glyph is up as well!
James 3 Jun 08 at 8:11pm
Hey howd they get images next to their names. I want an image damnit! I only look like a speech bubble on weekends.
Also, my details didn't get cookied and saved. Should they?
Oh, and i like ur bullets ;)
Neil 3 Jun 08 at 8:17pm
@James The speech bubble looks good on you, but you can setup a gravatar to get your mug there instead http://en.gravatar.com/
norbert neumeister 8 Jun 08 at 9:28pm
minimalism, accessibility and being web developer super hero is definitely the way to go! enjoy your time in USA and keep following that road.
‘Just enough is more.’ (milton glaser)
Neil 8 Jun 08 at 11:42pm
@everyone Thanks guys! I still have more work to do, but I think it is coming along OK so far.