Overhaul Looms

I officially hate the way my site looks again.

I’ve come to the conclusion that visually designing and laying out a web site is very hard. Or, perhaps I should say, design and layout is not hard, but finding a design and layout that does not get old fast is very hard.

I started out my “new” portal with the goal of making it simple to use. Now, when I look at it, I find that there is way too much clutter on the screen. If one were to look at a typical blog (which is almost always hosted on blogger.com or livejournal.com), one would find only two columns of “stuff:” A simple little menu on the side and a big column of blog text. Granted, blogs are not portals, but I think my portal could benefit from some layout changes.

First of all, the front page needs an overhaul. A first-time visitor would probably be confused. Where’s the content? What’s this page about? Who is this Krehbiel dude? Why is he here? The content menu at the top is too hard to find. Most of the information on the side menus doesn’t need to be there on the front.

On the other hand, a veteran visitor will need to be able to jump right to the blogs of interest and/or other things. It’s hard to balance the needs of a first-time visitor against the needs of a repeat visitor. Tough stuff.