Design or Content

Unless you are reading this via feedburner, you should be able to tell that the blog has a new design. A facelift, if you will.

I felt like it was time to change it up, give it a more professional look to it.  I really liked the old layout and design, but I felt like the design took away from the content.  I want my content to stand on its own.

This goes for whatever you are creating.  You don't want your movie case to be better than your movie, you don't want the cover of your book to be better than the words written inside.  No one would make it to the actual reason the movie case, book jacket, blog is there!

My wife told me she was sad to see the photo slider gone, that it really gave a good synopsis of who I am.  I thought so to, and I liked it, but again, I felt like it was taking away from the overall blog.  I mean, it took up a good 3/4 of the screen (that and the header).  You were forced to scroll down if you wanted to read a post, and then the theme had a default of shortening the posts so that you had to click on it to read the whole thing.  That is going to make the bounce rate go through the roof!

I don't get my validation from the amount of people who read this blog, or how long they stay on it.  It isn't the reason I blog, but at the same time- it isn't good if people are coming to the site and immediately leaving once they see that they will have to work at reading it.

So I changed the site to something I think will be very user-friendly.  Let me give you a quick tour:
The menu has changed and includes some drop down menus. Fairly self-explanatory.
Links and blogroll has moved to the bottom of the page, and is in three equal sections.
I have included a section of the most popular pages of all time.
That is basically it.  I also changed around the social media buttons.

When you are designing/ creating- do not forget to let the content speak for itself.  I don't fancy myself the best writer, in any category, by a long shot. Same with music, film, and everything else I like to do.  But I have to let it stand for itself.  It robs me and those who experience it when I make the outside something different that the inside.

Always focus on content first, then make sure the design backs it up.  I hope I have done that here.