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Mistakes at launch.
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Learn from me. Learn from others.
Don’t self impose deadlines.
Never set unrealistic deadlines for yourself. I only say unrealistic because its more practical than saying “Never set deadlines for yourself”, which is what I feel like saying. All it does is hasten production and detract from the end product.
Not only that, but it takes away from time you have to spend on the content. While designing this page (4 redesigns total) I had no time to post, and went over 3 weeks without a single post. Trust me, this is not good for traffic. Not only do your readers lose interest in your site, they lose faith in you as a blogger.
And if you find that you have to set a deadline for yourself, don’t announce this deadline. In fact, don’t announce you are even redesigning. Sure it builds the hype machine, but if you don’t follow through, you leave your viewers confused and more importantly disappointed. Announcing my redesign and making promises did nothing for me.
Make room for error
I came across quite a few unexpected errors when implementing this design. Errors that I had not accounted for. This probably more than anything pushed the design process back.
So when you are designing, leave time for error checking. I know this seems silly but hey, you would be surprised at the little things we overlook. A lot of little errors make a big problem.
Don’t leave anything for last
You better have a design process. Don’t pick and choose at elements of design. You need to have the design done, and the code thought out before you start work.
Make a checklist with goals, think over everything before you even start. There are lots of elements of design that you may forget about until the very end. Don’t fall prey to the “this can wait” syndrome, it can’t. Trust me. I “this can waited” so many things that I ended up with everything waiting in line, with nothing in front.
Have a plan
Have a damn plan of attack. Really. Nothing turns out how you expected when you just launch. Don’t be afraid to launch things piece by piece. I know a smooth transition is preferable, but you just can’t always have that.
End.
So the design is launched, although incomplete. I have minor tweaks that need to be made, things that need adding, and things that need addressing. If you see something that looks wrong, let me know. I need all the help I can get. So I hope you enjoy it. It was a learning experience to say the least.
Also, I plan to get out at least two more posts that I have cached. But after that you may see another week of no posts. Christmas and I’m off to ohio.
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30 Comments
Tom said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 4:23 am
Yes, finally the new design shows. Looks bloody nice if I do say so myself.
Well done.
ME strauss said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 7:39 am
I find the new design beautiful. Though finding the new comments box was a bit of a challenge for me. I love the chance to click through to hear fron others on the same subject “Learn from others” feature. Would you like to give a tour of your desing on Successful Blog. It would be fun to have to talk about it. If so, e-mail me Successfulblog@aol dot com
Liz
Successful Blog
USC said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 8:10 am
Awesome as usual, Sr. Koray.
You’ve got some good principles for redesign, and they make sense (especially after seeing some of the comments on your page beforehand). The only problem is actually following it. :)
I’ve been stuck in a half-way stage for more than a year now, I believe.
beth said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 11:38 am
I’m digging the new design. I like your subtle green versus the explosive lime that’s popping up everywhere.
Jonno said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 11:51 am
Looking awesome as usual, and god knows I’m getting sick of compementing your design skills. I have to agree with Liz though, making a comment isn’t all too easy, but otherwise everything seems fine on my end of the wire.
Koray said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 1:32 pm
I am definately going to rethink commenting then.
Do you guys think the “Leave a response” link is enough, or should I replace the comment box entirely? I appreciate the feedback and it helps greatly.
Thanks for all the compliments, it makes it worth while. And I’d love to do a tour Liz, I’ll draft up an email now.
beth said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 1:35 pm
Koray have you given any thought to adding your Leave a Comment fields to the sidebar instead of all the way at the bottom? That might be a good option for you.
Koray said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 1:50 pm
You know I haven’t, But I really like that idea. I’ll mess around in the sandbox and see what I can whip up.
Worm said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 2:21 pm
Koray, your wisdom never fails to amaze me.
Nick said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 2:37 pm
Koray, totally awesome design. I love it, I cannot keep saying, to you, how good it came out over the time when you were even under a bit of pressure. XD
Anyway, work on the comments and I’ll be sure to keep reading.
KoE said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 4:25 pm
Yeah, other than the difficulty of finding the comment form, its amazing!
Koray said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 4:39 pm
I’m really flustered with the damned comment form. I am still working on the sidebar comment form. I’ll try to have it phased in sooner than later.
Ryan said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 6:44 pm
Gorgeous redesign… Very nice work.
R3K said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 6:59 pm
As others have mentioned, the comments form is a bit hard to find. The tabs at the top right shift slightly on mouseover, which bugs me. Other than that, it looks really great. Good job
Koray said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 7:33 pm
Thats due to the underline width. Its a simple fix, I just put it off. For post-launch work I actually have a ‘flow chart’ of things that need doing. Comments being at the top, tabs being at the bottom.
And thanks again, for all the encouragment.
Kory Twaites said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 8:34 pm
Nice, I like the new design. Simple, clean, and good. Yeah i was checking everyday to see when u launched, I didn’t lose interest. Good Job!
Glen C. said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 8:54 pm
Wow, I really like the design. It seems like everyone is copying me a little ;D. Anyway, looks really nice.
Koray said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 10:54 pm
Kory, thanks for the link. And the compliments.
Glen, not entirely sure how I copied you but I am a big fan of your design. ;D
Glen C. said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 11:30 pm
Heh, I just mean the whiteish font with Lucida. Kidding, of course. (Since ordered list stole it from me!)
Aaron said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 11:34 pm
Hey, I love the new design. It’s totally awesome. Great choice of colors, great layout, everything. Although it took me a second to figure out how I was supposed to comment. >.>
Koray said,
Comment • December 15, 2005 @ 11:44 pm
Glen: Yeah, it is a good font.
Aaron: Yeah I’m going to implement the comment form in the sidebar soon. I still want to figure out why its so hard for people to find though. I assume its the individual boxed for each comment, which pushes the form way down. Ah well, I hope the sidebar idea turns out.
Aaron said,
Comment • December 16, 2005 @ 12:03 am
No, not the comment form, that was easy to find, I meant this page. I was looking for a link that said “Comment” like before. I just stumbled onto it because it was the only thing left to click that made sense. I had clicked that “Learn from others” thing before. >.>
Koray said,
Comment • December 16, 2005 @ 12:20 am
Yeah, someone just pointed that out. Does the comment bubble make things a bit more apparent?
Aaron said,
Comment • December 16, 2005 @ 1:06 am
Yes, yes it does.
Tom said,
Comment • December 16, 2005 @ 5:02 am
The bubble is better now. Alot easier to find.
Marco said,
Comment • December 16, 2005 @ 9:35 am
Very nice! I love the colors and the clean look.
Since you asked for some pointers to improve things I have two:
1) the links on top seem to ‘jump’ when hovering over them. Like they’re shifting 1 or 2 pixels.
2) On the archives page, the 9rules logo breaks through the footer. There’s dark space below the footer as well. I think there’s some float(s) to be cleared there.
All in Firefox 1.5 / winXP
Other than that: Awesome!
If Else said,
Comment • December 16, 2005 @ 10:13 am
Have you noticed that you’ve made it onto Screenspire… though the thumbnail is wrong.
Mikey said,
Comment • December 16, 2005 @ 10:37 am
It’s always nice to have cached post. Especially when launching a NEW site; I launched a collaborative blog a few days ago and what we did was put in content from our respective blogs to serve us filler.
Recycling is almost always good :)
Koray said,
Comment • December 16, 2005 @ 2:09 pm
Marco: Yeah, the links up top are easy to fix. I’m getting to it. And the footer is due to the way the footer was coded. If the sidebar exceeds the content div in height the footer jumps up, it should be easy to fix. Thank you for the comments, it all helps.
Phu: Yeah I did notice that, I was featured before with the old design so I guess that thumbnail stuck.
Mikey: Yeah, cache is good. Now the dillemma I face is, when to post a new post. I kind of want this post to be seen a while. I’m thinking I’ll give it another few days.
Edit: Top links fixed and Archives fixed with a temporary solution.
Prashant said,
Comment • December 16, 2005 @ 3:41 pm
I totally agree to what you’ve said on your post, it’s put nicely together and well explained.
Oh, and your new design looks really nice, I’m really liking these colours, great work!
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