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new homepage

The front page has been waiting in the wings for a little while, I broke down and launched […]

The front page has been waiting in the wings for a little while, I broke down and launched it. It will change more; I will keep experimenting. I’m sticking with css, despite misgivings, because I do believe it is the right way to go, for so many reasons (many of which well articulated in Owen’s Design Rant)

I especially want to thank Mark Newhouse for his wonderful article on css flexible layouts: you rock.

Please resize it — hit F11 and go full screen, make it narrow… mark’s a genius.

NN4.7 users (and lower), sorry, you are still stuck with this.


p.s. If you want to chat about the viability of css, please free to do so with comments. If you want to snipe, insult me, or get mean, please use the feedback form. No matter what, please respect each other. I will delete nasty or rude comments.

19 Comments

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  4. 4
    hackles

    funny thing is, on IE5 mac, making the window narrow makes some of the text disappear completely, but leaves a lot of dead white space on the right margin.

  6. 6
    Andrew

    On MY IE5 Mac it resizes great, no loss of text. It fits as many full collumns as possible for the current width of the screen. I like it.

  7. 7
    hackles

    i’ll try to email her a screenshot. i have screen res at 800×600. when the window goes down to halfwidth, i have one unhappily skinny column. but at about a third width, half that text disappears and i can’t scroll to it.

    not a big deal, i suppose. the number of mac users trying to view eleganthack in a window 220px wide or whatever would be pretty small. but just curious.

  10. 10
    hackles

    here it is the tog way:

    cw, while you’ve displayed your brilliance many times over through the years, the current iteration of the site just takes my breath away. the keen skills and deep sensitivity you bring to all of your projects have never been more apparent. visiting now makes my day.

    take the opening page. the lovely photographs of whatever it is, all those squares. truly amazing.
    i must wonder, though, and do, about what gleam of genius led you to open your site with a virtually content free index page that users have to scroll around on to see.

    i anxiously await enlightment.

    yours, ever,

    hackles.

  11. 11
    christina

    what part of “email me” do you not understand? I will be happy to hold conversation with you; I am not going to do it here.

  12. 12
    James Buckley

    This may be the unpopular vote, but I can’t say I much care for it. Slows down my navigation and doesn’t really intergrate the sites content in a useful way. I know this is a personal site but I can’t help but expect more usability/IA for a site that often is my favorite resource for said material. I do like how it degrades based on browser widths though.

  13. 13
    Mathew

    Speaking of photos, this has all just given me a vision of a “Brady Bunch” style into page, with photos of Jakob, Tog et. al in the little boxes….

  15. 15
    Eric Scheid

    front page?

    hadn’t seen it for months, only looked now because you mentioned it (cool stuff, btw).

    I just jump right on in to the blog from my favourites list, which is always open in a window to the left of my screen (complete with subscription flags letting me know which of my top 20 faves have changed since last visit).

    Who else does this? Who is the front page designed for?

  16. 16
    Jeff

    *wipes eyes*, *recovers*, *switches to IE5*

    I don’t think I’ve ever seen a site so completely conform to my browser size. Very technically impressive. Some issues to consider:

    When I browse familiar websites, I tend to remember the path I need to take to get to content that interests me. I remember this path sequentually within the context of the site, and spatially within the context of the page. This spatial orientation depends on a consistent page layout.

    The homepage isn’t a destination. It’s a gateway. But unless users visit with consistently sized browsers, locating the correct links from session to session becomes a game of catch the monkey.

  17. 17
    christina

    the front page is to orient and explain. Most all my regulars come in straight to the blog– in fact there was an uproar when I moved the blog to the front page.

    I’m probably the only person on the web who has almost no use for the front page… why do people come there?

    to get an overview of what’s on the site.

    I’ve provided it, and in the first row.

    beyond that? who knows. I suspect I’ll keep redesigning it, and people will continue to fuss about it. I suspect it will suck on a semi-regular basis. critiquing is easy, design is hard.

    sidenote: I’m on dial-up these days because of my move and I’m stunned at how fast it loads. Sure, the photos take a little bit to pop-in, but the page is usable in about two second. I like css better and better almost every day.

  18. 18
    Kate Barker

    It’s an awful thing to say, but I just don’t care that the new front page is not super-usable. It’s just beautiful and minimal and such a change from busy portalesque sites. I’m so jealous of the css layout, I’ve too many N4.7 users to do it. Sigh. The resizing browser window thing is fab. Love the site, love the blog but I miss weekly gleanings…

  19. 19
    Richard

    I’m just setting up my first blog , a photo type blog, and have been visiting 100’s of blogs to get an idea of what can be done. Your front page blows me away, loads super quick, visually grabs your attention, encourages exploration, and doesn’t look blah like a blog! It presents the basic info and paths if you want more detail, instead of listing 100’s of links, topics etc. The photos are great, page design is unique and works! Keep up the good work!
    Richard

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