A screen grab of the front page of ChrisD.ca as seen on January 3, 2011.
We’ve made some changes here at ChrisD.ca over the holidays.
One of the most noticeable is a new organized header with a categories menu under the navigation bar. We previously listed categories in the right sidebar column of the site, which forced the user to scroll to find their preferred news items.
We implemented some flashy new social media icons, but that’s just a minor aesthetic detail. We also bumped up the current weather conditions to the top of the site, as that’s what Manitobans tend to talk about the most.
One of the larger changes is the widening of the site in general. We stretched out the layout, allowing for larger photos and video of 600 pixels to be embedded into a post. As the standard for screen resolution increases, we needed to stay with the trend and adapt to a larger content area.
With the larger space also comes larger text. We increased the article text by a single pixel, and readers are already providing feedback saying it’s easier on the eyes.
We didn’t sacrifice too much as far as functionality goes. We did, however, cut back on a few widgets to reduce page load time and tweaked our backend CDN (Content Delivery Network) to host larger, more media-intensive files off-site. This allows for the files to be pulled from a server closest to the visitor’s location, making for a better viewing experience overall.
If there’s anything you’d like to see added or improved, let us know!
— Chris D., Managing Editor
