What Do You Think Of Our New Site Design?
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Notice anything new about the site? Less cat pictures — yes. Removal of that late-night rambling post I wrote late one night connecting the JFK assassination to the Illuminati, the moon cycles and Rick Steves’s khakis — check. Complete site redesign and overhaul for your reading pleasure — hell yeah!
If you haven’t noticed already (or you read the site primarily on a tablet or phone, in which case you shouldn’t be noticing much of a difference at all), I spent the weekend working the team of underpaid South Korean The Expeditioner coders to the bone to implement a site-wide redesign. So what’s different? Let me run you through the changes.
1) Responsiveness
The site is now designed be fully responsive. This means that the site’s layout will adapt to whether you are reading it on the largest of system monitors, down to the smallest of smartphones. I’ve actually had the mobile design in place for some time now, and I’m glad I did so. My most recent review of the site’s statistics reveals that about 1/3 of you are reading The Expeditioner on a phone or tablet. For everyone else, you’re reading the site on more sizes of monitors than ever before, ranging from netbook-sized monitors up to full HD-ready monitors.
With the redesign, this means that the site will now take advantage of all those extra pixels for those of you reading the site on a large monitor, with less white space to the left and right of your screen. For those on smaller monitors, there will be less of a noticeable difference . . . except for the pictures.
2) Pictures Fit For a Travel Site
Let’s face it, this is a travel site, and something tells me that large, colorful, inspiring pictures are of more importance to someone reading about travel than, say, reading about Rush Limbaugh (who, let’s face it, large photos do not serve a beneficial purpose). If you look through any travel magazine, the one common denominator is their reliance on large, bold photographs, and I want The Expeditioner to emulate that more than it has (or was able to) in the past.
I have now super-sized the slider on the home page to really emphasize the great feature articles we spotlight on the site. I have also begun to increase both the number and size of the images used within each article and post. Again, given the size of your monitor, these images will change in dimensions, but in any format, they should appear with more prominence. I do realize that this means the site will take slightly longer to load depending on your internet connection, but I believe this is a necessary evil in the interest of quality. Oh yeah, get a better internet connection if this is a recurring problem.
3) Bigger Logo
I moved the logo to the right column bar and made it larger. I don’t have much of a well-thought-out justification for this other than a few people have said to me, “Matt, you should make the logo bigger.” Okay, I’ve done it, so can you get off my back now? But seriously, hopefully this will aid in immediate visual recognition for those new readers that land on the site and haven’t visited before. I also hope that it draws the eyes a bit more to the right and encourages people to click on those social media buttons and the YouTube Subscription box in greater numbers.
What Do You Think?
All my designers have now gone on permanent strike, so there’s little likelihood of many drastic changes or revisions in the future. However, that being said, I’m always up for feedback. Do you like the site’s layout in general? Are you having any problems with it on your computer? Any suggestions for changes you would like seen to the design?
If so, feel free to leave a comment below, tweet me, leave a comment on the Facebook page, or if your comment involves profanity or personal insults, feel free to email at: Matt.Stabile@TheExpeditioner.com.
By Matt Stabile
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Matt Stabile is the founder and Editor-in-Chief of TheExpeditioner.com. You can read his writings, watch his travel videos, purchase the book he co-edited or contact him via email at any time at TheExpeditioner.com. (@TheExpeditioner)