New Zen Habits Redesign! Tell Me What You Think

Sharon Says:

November 4th, 2007, 21:41 pm

I love the look of the new site! It’s still clean and simple, nice job.

The only thing is to get to the links at the bottom of the page I have to do a lot of scrolling. Many people probably won’t bother. Maybe you could have on the front page 5 or 6 recent posts.

Connie Says:

November 4th, 2007, 21:44 pm

It is simply perfect! Love the banner, love the colors.

justin clifton Says:

November 4th, 2007, 21:45 pm

As a graphic designer I appreciate the new look quite a lot. while the old wasn’t bad in any way, this is an overall step in the right direction. a wider format for main content means less scrolling and setting apart the sidebar in another color focuses the main content as well.

The range of mostly monochrome colors is familiar and works well. Less is more, and you’ve done that. The overall feel is very clean and finished.

mia Says:

November 4th, 2007, 21:45 pm

I love it! great job. :)

Leo Says:

November 4th, 2007, 21:46 pm

Thanks guys!

@Sharon: Good suggestion … I think I have 20 posts on the front page right now. I’ll change it to 8 I think.

Julian Montez Says:

November 4th, 2007, 21:55 pm

Wow, I love this design. A wise investment my friend. By the way, I’m totally digging this color scheme. :D

Jenn Says:

November 4th, 2007, 21:56 pm

I really like the overall look and feel of the page - it’s MUCH MUCH better! One thing that does bug me is the right-align, though. There’s a lot of unnecessary whitespace when the browser window is larger than the width of the page (which I’m assuming is designed for 1024px). The comment about the links being far too down on the page is a good one too. The sidebar is substantially longer than the average post, so there’s a lot of whitespace between the bottom of the post and the start of the footer. Perhaps shrink or move around some of the stuff in your sidebar?
Even so, I really like this redesign and will probably click through from my feed reader more often now :)

MikeTheory.com Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:02 pm

The site looks great! I love the colors and the beautiful header graphics.

Ben Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:02 pm

Looks great! However, I think for efficiency and to minimize scrolling you could cut out about 115 pixels from the top of the page, all that grey area above the logo.

Keep up the great work!

Kevin Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:05 pm

Looks great. Only thing really not working for me is the RSS icon.

I don’t mind its glossiness of it (even though most of the design is nice and flat), as it helps to make it work with the donate and browse icons (though not entirely), but it takes a somewhat standardized symbol and makes it non-standard without a very good reason. Flipping it 90 degrees clockwise and it’d be an improvement. The blue is also a bit stronger than the rest of the ones your site uses.

I’m being terribly picky. The site does look really nice.

http://pagandad.blogspot.com Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:06 pm

Great job! Great minimalist design.

Kevin Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:08 pm

I disagree with Ben about removing pixels from the header. It’s a really nicely balanced design.

Imre Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:12 pm

Really nice and refined. Congratulations for the redisign.

Skunkie Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:19 pm

Wow! I absolutely love the new design! I thought the old site was a bit dull and amateurish. But this definitely makes coming to Zen habits much more enjoyable!

By the way I love reading my Zen Habits RSS feed once a day. Thanks so much for keeping this blog up!

Omar Qazi Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:27 pm

Noice fucking design mate! Noice fucking design!

holli jo Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:29 pm

I think it looks awesome! I absolutely love it. Collis did a great job.

Rick Castello Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:29 pm

It’s beautiful, but I agree, it’s a long way down to reach the bottom for link menus, and entering comments.

Maybe relocate the links to a secondary navbar or something?

Jim Steele Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:34 pm

It’s too web 2.0 and counter-intuitive. It’s harder to get around, too blown up, and its very unoriginal, as it is like every other 2.0 site.

Can we have at least a switch to have it back as it was?

Rick Castello Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:38 pm

Gravatar test.

Nate Berkopec Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:39 pm

Love it!

Dan Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:43 pm

Phenomenal

Eric Says:

November 4th, 2007, 22:43 pm

Right-aligned? Yikes. Standard widescreen monitor has way too much space on the left site, maybe 40% of the overall site. Nav and subnav could use a little more pop; the 3-color design in standard template form is a little flat and requires much more brainpower. (Side benefit, though: doesn’t push our ADD into overdrive.) Just keep the content coming!

james Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:15 pm

I find the new layout helps make your site more approachable, mostly because the content is given first visual priority and it’s less cluttered. Big improvement. Kudos.

Wayde Christie Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:18 pm

Yeah - I’m not keen on the right alignment either. Just centre it. Also menus at the bottom should be on the right.

Nice work though :)

DB Ferguson Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:19 pm

You’ll need to tell me how those bottom-of-the-blog menus work for you. I’ve been toying with a magazine-style template revamp for my site, but I’m just having issues getting my mind around a non-traditional Blog format. Make sure to post about it!

Kerry Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:20 pm

I like it. Fresh and clean. But yes the links at the bottom are sorta hard to get too.

I think if you just added a link at the top that said “archive” that would solve everyones problem and nothing has to be changed . You know for some reason the first the I was looking for was the archive (LOL) not sure why.

You’re on my home page so, this is a sight for sore eyes.

Thanks!!

Leo Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:23 pm

Thanks for the positive (and constructive) comments, everyone! I really appreciate it.

I’ll ask Collis about the right-align.

As for the nav links on the bottom, just to let you guys know, in the right sidebar, there are links to “popular posts” and “categories” that pop you down to the bottom real quick … hope that helps!

Nate Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:24 pm

Everything is hard up against the right hand side in widescreen… Not nice at all :(

Jamie Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:26 pm

I like the new look. Not that I didn’t like the old one, because I did. But I like this one as well. Very clean and simple.

Neena Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:28 pm

Beautiful. And I love the navigation in the footer. However, I would like it better if there were links to the commenters websites. If someone writes something of interest I often like to pop over to their site and learn more about them.

Travis Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:30 pm

That banner is amazing….

Dave Willison Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:34 pm

I love it and it’s pleasing to the eyes, but there was something on the old layout that screamed ‘Easy to read!’ I think it was due to the fact that I didn’t have to move my eyes back and forth to read the whole page. I could see every little peice of content in a few inches of screen space.

However well done to Collis, it’s a sexy design :)

Jesse Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:37 pm

I like it a LOT…but I will say this - if you hadn’t mentioned that the sidebar links popped you to the bottom, I’d probably never have thought to take them. Perhaps make them a little more obvious (for those of us who need it *grin*)? Other than that, it’s very nice, and I agree, I REALLY like the new banner.

Wayde Christie Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:37 pm

Background colour of the ‘Donate’ icon is slightly off:

http://newism.com.au/bg.gif

;)

Wayde Christie Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:39 pm

Doh! That link:

http://fourthwall.com.au/bg.gif

Glen Stansberry Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:41 pm

Leo,

Looks FANTASTIC! Kudos to Collis and his wizardry in design.

Phil Gerbyshak Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:45 pm

I like the header a lot. I haven’t seen others like it. Bravo.

I like the sidebar links. That’s very cool.

I notice the whole PBN list is gone. Was that purposely removed now that you’re part of the LifeRemix project?

All in all, I think it’s simple and clean. Nicely done!

Leo Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:45 pm

Wow, Wayde, you have really good eyes … I wouldn’t have noticed the background for the donate button unless you showed me. :)

As for the other suggestions … I’m listening … I can’t guarantee that I’ll implement every suggestion, but don’t think it’s falling on deaf ears.

Thanks guys!

Estella Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:46 pm

great layout! so clean and simple. it’s a lot easier to look at :) keep up the great work!

Collis Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:48 pm

Hey guys! Just realised this design was up, looks like mostly good feedback!

Right Align
Yep it’s definitely possible to centre the design, maybe thats the way to go. I did the right-align because I thought I’d try something a bit different to be honest. Also Leo wanted lots of white space. But perhaps if no-one likes it then it’s not such a good idea!

More Feedback
Anyhow curious to see what other feedback appears. We will be tweaking a bit further once everyone has had a chance to comment (though I can’t say will make everyone’s requests reality :-D )

Zenith Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:50 pm

Nice and clean look, Leo. In my Firefox web page displays “aligned right”. Nothing is unreadable or anything, but I see a huge white space on left. It’d be ideal if the content started from the right edge of the browser window and then ads and then white extra space. I hope I am making myself clear.

Also, as some ppl suggested, the links which are at bottom might be more handy if they were at top somewhere.

mollyc Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:52 pm

it looks really cool and new, but the balance is off. the lack of content on the left looks weird. also, though I like the ying yang, it culturally doesn’t seem to have much to do with zen… ying yang –> chinese, zen–>japanese. But if you like it, that’s all that matters :)

Collis Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:55 pm

Damn, the trackbacks thing isn’t working :-( They are appearing in the comments, I could have sworn that was fixed.

Re: Yin/yang, that’s Leo’s penchant for all things Asian :-)

Leo Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:58 pm

@mollyc: Actually, I realized that the yin-yang symbol is Taoist, not Zen … but I really like it (the only tattoo I have is ying-yang, on my left arm) and so I decided to go for it. :)

Please forgive my indulgences.

Otoh, the yin-yang symbol is actually in line with my philosophy, so it’s actually fitting. Maybe I should write about this in the future?

Karim Baz Says:

November 4th, 2007, 23:58 pm

Wowzers. That is awesome. I love it. Good job and keep it up.

– Karim Baz

Cynthia Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:01 am

Looks great!

Valerie Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:03 am

So, so nice! I think the banner is perfect-overall very simple, very lovely. Nice change :D

BT Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:06 am

I like it, but what is most important is the conTENT! Although I think the header has too much black empty space. No biggie though, Thats just my inside minamalist talking. Great job!!!

Mak Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:07 am

I love it!

Leo Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:08 am

I just tried changing my screen resolution, just to see what people were talking about with the right-alignment (it looked perfect in my regular screen resolution) … and it looks really nice with all the white space at the left! :)

I’m a fan of lots of white space and minimalism, so that looks good to me.

But if everyone else is against the right-alignment, I could live with Collis changing it to center-aligned.

Joseph Hsu Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:11 am

interesting layout.
I would have liked to see a more liquid layout (so higher resolutions don’t waste a lot of space).

with the overall image, i love it.
I see freelance switch style layouts all over… they’re taking over, i swear…

Trevor Bramble Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:20 am

Leo, I applaud your continued efforts to evolve and refine Zen Habits. I think you’re doing a great job, even if I don’t agree with some of the changes.

Coincidentally, I was evaluating the sight layout a few days ago, mostly because the sidebar was a distracting eyesore.

I have, however, always appreciated the simplicity of prior design, and while the new design does look very nice (I like the color choices, even if I prefer plain white with sparse color) it seems that a lot of the problems were just moved around.

Are all of those ads really necessary? Perhaps limiting the number of them within each group might help, but more effective would be to determine which of them might not be performing well and try dropping them from the layout. Seriously, I want Zen Habits to support itself, but this is embarrassing and crass.

The links at the bottom …I didn’t like them in the sidebar (again, distracting noise) but they’re next to useless at the bottom. It takes a concentrated effort to pick out the contents, and in addition to the lack of visual cues, there’s just a lot to pick through.

So to still add some suggestions for moving around the site, and delivering to users a set of links that should (based on what they’re already reading) be more of what they’re interested in reading. In practice that would mean that while the home page has perhaps the 5 top posts overall, an individual post’s page would feature the top 5 for it’s primary category/label. WordPress can easily do this.

Funny enough, I can’t actually find where the category for a post is communicated. It’s disorienting to not know where in a website you’ve found yourself.

I do like the line spacing, which does so much for increasing readability (and is often neglected). The simple, ‘chicklet’-free bar across the top is excellent, and the new iconography is stellar. Colorful without being cartoony.

And that’s way too much out of me. Cheers!

Graham Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:22 am

much better

Leo Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:32 am

@Trevor Bramble: Thanks for the thoughtful analysis! I appreciate the feedback.

Regarding ads: you’re absolutely right. I’ve been working to cut back on my ads (and you might not have noticed, but I got rid of some over the last month or so) … and I have plans to reduce them even further in the next month or two. So be patient, but I will be reducing these.

Regarding navigation links … I hear what you’re saying, but I’d like to give this a try … I think one problem was that new readers were having a hard time finding key posts from different categories, so I wanted to give them a way to access old content easier. This may not be perfect, but having only the top 5 posts for each category in a post is too limited for new readers (they’d only have access to 5 posts instead of the current 50 in the bottom nav bar).

Anyway, the navigation stuff can be changed over time, but I’d like to give this a test … if it’s too difficult to use, I’ll look at other options.

Thanks again, Trevor, and thanks to everyone else!

smoother Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:37 am

I think the site looks great. Nice and clean.

maccnl Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:40 am

I think it’s great!

Sleepwalker Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:41 am

Looks as great as the content is presents. Excellent job. Keep up the great work!

Ivan Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:44 am

Really nice redesign! How about adding “mobile” to the subscribe links at the top!

Lipton Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:44 am

I think it looks great :) only thing I noticed though is on my resolution (1900×1600) I see everything kinda more over to the right side, which feels weird for me.

Leonardo Cassarani Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:45 am

Superb! Thumbs up!!

dharana Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:45 am

The header is too tall. I come to the website to read the content, not to look at the header and at 1024×768 the content starts roughly below the 50% of screen height. I also used to go quickly to the post a comment section by pressing the “end ” key. Now I have to press the end key followed by two “page back” key presses.

Kyle Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:47 am

I really like the new design. My only suggestion are:

Make the top just a tad shorter, It takes up a lot of screen. But just a tad.

It’d be nice if there weren’t so many default gravitars. A lot of people might not want to sign up, and a lot of defaults kinda clutter up the page.

Maybe the sponsor and books section in the sidebar could have a background color that blends in better, like the search or vitalist ad.

Other than that, the site looks absolutely great.

Evan Meagher Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:49 am

Whoah! I love the redesign! Very clean and nice.

I like the pebble logo and the posts/categories section at the bottom.

Leo Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:50 am

Excellent suggestions, everyone! Will definitely consider them.

Just to let everyone know, Collis will try centering the alignment, as no one seems to like the right-alignment. :) He’s going to be working on that change and a few others in a day or two, so just bear with us for now.

Thanks again everyone!

Kyle Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:55 am

Also, It’d be nice if us commenters could enter out website if we have one. I think it would improve the “community-ness” of the site.

Keep up the awesome work!

Leo Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:57 am

@Kyle: Yes, that’s something that’s going to be fixed … I think the “url” field in the comments was inadvertently left out. Will be changed back! :)

Stephen Says:

November 5th, 2007, 0:58 am

Wow, love the new look. Great work!

Mirabai Says:

November 5th, 2007, 1:07 am

Everyone’s a critic…LOL I realize you asked for comments and suggestions and wow! Folks sure have a lot to say, don’t they? I must say you are taking it all in stride, very commendable. Websites are extensions of the personality and I think you have captured your approach to life, your thoughts and beliefs very well with this minimalist design. It really says something about your philosophy and who you are. Keep up the great work! I have just begun reading your pages and love the content. You are a blessing.

Gates VP Says:

November 5th, 2007, 1:17 am

Hey Leo;

The new site looks really nice. I have a personal preference for serif fonts in the main text, but I love the colors and layout.

Cesar Says:

November 5th, 2007, 1:45 am

I think the site looks great. The only think i don’t like is the font. Also the popular post are in the bottom and for me is important to have this greats posts handly.

violet Says:

November 5th, 2007, 1:47 am

i love the re-model! the top is my favorite! i love how simple but bold it is!! how great is the popular posts!! thanks for everything you do! keep it up!

Cesar Says:

November 5th, 2007, 1:47 am

I think the site looks great. The only thing i don’t like is the font. Also the popular post are in the bottom and for me is important to have this greats posts handly.

Vanessa Van Petten Says:

November 5th, 2007, 1:48 am

I Love the color scheme! Really great, I never thought it was cluttered but this is even smoother!

Mirabai Says:

November 5th, 2007, 1:52 am

Popular posts…..at the very top, to the right, directly under browse is a link for popular posts…click it and it takes you right to it, without having to scroll all the way down :) Once you find that, its easy sailing :)

T. Page Says:

November 5th, 2007, 2:11 am

I haven’t read all the comments so I apologise if this has been mentioned: I find it is too boxy. I like the new layout, but I find the transition from black, to white, to blue is too stark. Like living in a black and white world with no grayscale. Anyway, that’s my two cents. Keep up the good stuff.

etavitom Says:

November 5th, 2007, 2:12 am

i really like the new site! congrats on the change and i look forward to more profound content from you… thanks!

Ben Says:

November 5th, 2007, 2:31 am

Great Effort Leo, well done

Yorkali Says:

November 5th, 2007, 2:35 am

Spectacular!!!!!!!!!! Perfect!!!!!!A more appropriate design could not be found!!!!!!

Steve Bell Says:

November 5th, 2007, 2:39 am

HATE IT! HATE HATE IT!!! (remember the funny wedding dress helper guy on “Sex and the City”?)

well, not that bad… it’s just, I liked the way the old one looked a lot better. This one is too blown up, it looks like a template site. I’m sure with some tweaking, it can be made better. No knock on the designer, I’m sure he’s terrific!

-steve

Thomas Says:

November 5th, 2007, 3:06 am

I like it more than previous one, but…

- black drops/stones aren’t that cool like previous image was
- with my 1600×1200, I get plenty of empty white space on left side - I would like content there…

Yodhia Antariksa Says:

November 5th, 2007, 3:44 am

Great design….but the color of your body font is a bit too gray. Should be a solid black.

myElrond Says:

November 5th, 2007, 3:53 am

Nice redesign.

But I do not like the navigation links position at the bottom of the page. Especially in posts with many comments, readers may not find them. I personally read the posts, read a few comments and almost never scroll down to the bottom of the side.

Alexander Says:

November 5th, 2007, 3:59 am

For me, your blog is a bright site about living the bright side of life.

So, why now open with a big BLACK top banner, black stones? It makes me feel sad just looking at it. Is that congruent with your message?

& praise for all the other changes!

Divya Says:

November 5th, 2007, 4:05 am

I am looking at the blog on Opera and it seems like everything is aligned right. I use a 24″ and view the browser at its full size.

Is that a bug or a feature? :) seems distracting for me as I expect to read all websites from the left and all I get to see is a blank page.

Otherwise it looks neat and clean!

Jerome Says:

November 5th, 2007, 4:31 am

I like the design a lot! Nice and clean. Kudos!

bean Says:

November 5th, 2007, 4:40 am

Sorry, but I REALLY hate having navigation on the bottom. If I can’t see what is available to me when I first hit a site, I don’t stick around wasting my time trying to find it, The only reason that I bothered this time is that I have been impressed with some of your posts in the past. If the nav at been at the bottom the first time, I wouldn’t have come back :-(
I do appreciate the ads being moved to the right, They are out of my way and follows my American centric means of reading left to right. Now if you moved your nav stuff to the top of your right panel above the ads you would be set.

Leslie P. Polzer Says:

November 5th, 2007, 4:41 am

I concur with Alexander and cannot understand why everyone likes that huge black thing on the top.

Black is neither a color of hope nor one of happiness. I suppose anything will fit better than it.

I also feel kind of lost with that large white border on the left, and that’s only with an X resolution of 1280.

But I congratulate you for your courage to make such a radical re-design, anyways! :)

Leslie

William Profet :: OneJobTwoSalaries.com Says:

November 5th, 2007, 4:45 am

Wow! The new design is perfect! I like it very much!
Congratulations, Leo!!

Dee Says:

November 5th, 2007, 4:54 am

I am afraid i don’t like it at all. I am using a small screen, so it is a lot of scrolling to get anywhere. Having the navigation at the bottom is a killer really. I love browsing through past posts, but that’s not really gonna happen like this. Having the navigation on the left was almost ideal (for me anyway), but it certainly should be near the top, or at least have a complete copy of the menu near the top, instead of just the link. By putting the navigation at the bottom it seems like the adverts are more important than the rest of the blog :(

Anthony Says:

November 5th, 2007, 5:00 am

Wow, i love the design much more than the previous one, that i liked a lot :)

Evelyn Vincent Says:

November 5th, 2007, 5:15 am

Overall, I like the new look.

I think the header could be a tad smaller as well as the ads (too large, doesn’t really fit the Zen theme).

Ditto…scrolling all the way down is a long trip.

It would also be nice to be able to click on the commentors names to visit their blog/website (provided it is of acceptable content, which I’m sure most here are). I like clicking on their link to find out more about who the person is and what they’re doing.

Thank you for creating this website and taking the time to write about so many topics of intetest!

Juan Says:

November 5th, 2007, 5:32 am

I like the new design, nice colours.

But, like others, I do think the size of the logo/top banner is too big, users with small screens will lose half the page!

The links at the bottom, I have never really seen this feature (as seen on thousands of site) as very useful, but having a link to it on the right does help.

I also agree with others about the colour of the banner on the right, it does not distract from the main content.

I would keep this new design, but make some minor changes,

Keep up the great work Leo.
Juan

Mifeng Says:

November 5th, 2007, 5:34 am

I love the new design~ however, the footer bar isn’t that good. it is crowded with things~

Ole Says:

November 5th, 2007, 5:44 am

I really, really like the design but I suggest adding a good-looking printing-stylesheet as well.

I like reading good work on paper…

michaeld Says:

November 5th, 2007, 5:58 am

Nice clean layout.

Brajeshwar Says:

November 5th, 2007, 6:04 am

Looks like the start of a new evolution “Right aligned Design”. This is a clean, crisp and clear design.

Lauren Says:

November 5th, 2007, 6:04 am

Hmm. I don’t think I like it as much as I liked the old one, but in the grand scheme of websites, it’s still very good-looking.

I find the colour of the body text too light against the white background - I’ve been straining my eyes to read it.

On my standard, small display (12″, not widescreen) everything feels like it’s being shunted to the *left* for me by that wide blue bar. I think I generally prefer all-white backgrounds (I didn’t notice the ads as much when they were on white, somehow) but that might just be me.

I can confirm that on a small display the top banner does indeed take up nearly half the page - it feels very heavy as a result.

I think I’d prefer the popular posts to be to the side, but if they stay at the bottom, I think the change in page layout, and having all the boxes different sizes, looks messier/less calm to me than the rest of the page, and feels less coherently integrated with the rest of the site’s appearance.

That’s just my 2c worth, and then some!!

Lauren.

Brajeshwar Says:

November 5th, 2007, 6:07 am

[OffTopic]
How do some people have their pictures shown up there on the right side of their comments? If that is Gravatar, why isn’t mine working?

Bru Says:

November 5th, 2007, 6:14 am

it looks really nice. Bigger text, easier to read! :)

Jez Says:

November 5th, 2007, 6:16 am

Great Job!! Looks lovely!

However, I would have had the same colour on the sidebar as the header.. the blue is maybe a little dark to do that.

Also the header takes up a lot of space! 1/3 of the screen when opening the page

Finally, I think your search should be the first link on the sidebar and not your donate button..

Great Job anyway!

rupert Says:

November 5th, 2007, 6:41 am

in general, I like it.I personally feel black doesn’t jive with ‘zen’ or self improvement, however.

AnneTanne Says:

November 5th, 2007, 6:56 am

I must say that I do like the new design…
Some remarks… At first glance, the contrast between the black and white seemed a bit too much. Of course it is the black and with of the yin/yang symbol, but… well I just thought it to be a little bit too much…
I shouldn’t change the color of the body font, as suggested by Yodhia Antariksa, as that would even accentuate the black/white contrast more.

And the navigation links on the bottom…. Well… Since I gave my tagcloud a place at the bottom, quite a few people asked me why I had removed it from my blog, so I wonder if everybody (especially new visitors) will find the navigation quickly…

boek Says:

November 5th, 2007, 6:57 am

I think the old one was a lot nicer. A great loss.
This one is ok, but the former one was really ‘zen’.
It’s not clear to me why it had to be changed.

Question: is the background of the posts supposed to be white? In that case you may want to make it actually white. Now it takes the browser’s default background color (which in my case is beige)

Leo Says:

November 5th, 2007, 7:12 am

@Brajeshwar: Regarding your gravatar image, after you have uploaded the image to your account, be sure that you have actually assigned the image to your email address. That’s a mistake I made at first. :)

Leo Says:

November 5th, 2007, 7:14 am

Regarding the black header … that struck me as strange at first, when Collis first showed me this design … but it actually grew on me and now I love it. :)

Instead of thinking of it as a bad color, I now think of it as the inky black of night, when all is still and quiet, and I’m left alone with my thoughts and the infiniteness of the universe. It’s not a bad image, imo.

Carlos Says:

November 5th, 2007, 7:30 am

Hi!
Sorry if I repeat something already said, but I haven’t been able to read all the comments…

I will focus on a few points I don’t like, so please understand that I like the rest!

Personally I find too much header, almost half of my screen. Also the links at the bottom are too much and too far. I would prefer them on a separate page, so the main page looks cleaner.
Here I have a wide screen so I have a lot of empty space on the left. The text, which for me is the most important thing, ends floating between a lot of white, blue and black areas…
From my personal point of view, I would stretch the right pane, and make the header smaller (text and drawing). Maybe also a smaller image for the post, so the main focus goes to the text of each post.

Apart from that, as I said, I like the colors, the new logo and most of all, the content.

Thanks for sharing your experiences, your site is always a pleasure to stay in.

gc Says:

November 5th, 2007, 7:49 am

i like

sr abel Says:

November 5th, 2007, 7:49 am

like the new look - nice job

Peter Says:

November 5th, 2007, 7:53 am

Perfect design. Looks like a great match between your values and the colour scheme, content alignment etc. I really like it.

Minor suggestion might be to have paged comments, since some posts (like this) have a lot of comments.

(I really like the links at the bottom)

Great work Collis.

Kathryn Says:

November 5th, 2007, 8:25 am

I’ve got to say, the banner feels very heavy–almost angry–to me. I do like the layout better in general, but also agree with many that the bottom navigation bar is very hard to find.

Fabrizio Says:

November 5th, 2007, 8:49 am

Excellent desing! I like it and it really reflects the idea and philosophy behind the site.

Just a little problem: I have tried to print with both IE7 and Firefox. With IE7 you can’t see anything of the post content and comments; with Firefox I see the post, but not the comments. In addition the printout from Firefox is neverending (99 pages!). I don’t know whether the problem is with my settings or with the print style sheet…

del Says:

November 5th, 2007, 8:50 am

It’s nice, but everything is HUGE! It make it really difficult to take it all in. And I agree that the black banner is very heavy, not at all what I would call zen. To me, you need a lot more negative space, on either side of the screen, and more gentle transitions.

nXqd Says:

November 5th, 2007, 8:54 am

Yeah ~ I looks great, but I hate scroll. Plz move bottom links to the right and simplify all of these ..
nXqd

Kat French Says:

November 5th, 2007, 9:23 am

Beautiful new design. Very clean, and still fits in the content window of my netvibes feed viewer when set to view the whole site.

Must be the week for redesigns–that’s where my entire weekend went.

Helen Says:

November 5th, 2007, 9:30 am

I like the header. Very zen, actually, in my opinion. Simple and calm. You could maybe cut a little bit off the top, but not much.

I also like the general layout and colour scheme. The text area width works well on my screen.

I do think that the bottom-of-page navlinks are too hard to find. A simple step to make them more easy to reach would be to replace the big unclickable “Browse” label at the top of the side bar with two clickable links of the same size. I.e. lose the “Browse” and promote “Categories” and “Popular posts” to a larger font size, the size that “Browse” is now.

Lea Woodward Says:

November 5th, 2007, 9:37 am

Hi Leo

Like the new site a lot - like you, black to me doesn’t mean bad and I find it “draws me in”.

My husband (the graphic designer) pointed something out purely from his design perspective which was that the RSS icon disrupts the flow of the banner and takes away from the pebbles etc. I wondered whether perhaps that was the idea - disrupt, so people would be prompted to subscribe?!?

Now he’s mentioned it, I agree - it does disrupt the natural flow of the banner and take away from the pebbles It looks a little “plonked there”. I think it would look great left- aligned with the top of the column and the subscriber no. perhaps underneath or above it.

But that’s just quibbling…overall, looks great!

Lea

Andy Says:

November 5th, 2007, 9:39 am

Hi Leo,

Here’s a screenshot of what the website looks like on a 24″ widescreen monitor, hope it helps!

http://img229.imageshack.us/img229/5261/zenhabits24inchmontiorxn8.png

Simon Says:

November 5th, 2007, 10:04 am

it’s very clean but looks a little odd on my 24″ monitor as well. Everything is to the right. I suggest maybe centering everything and maybe moving your popular posts & categories at the very bottom to the right side bar as well

Gerry Power Says:

November 5th, 2007, 10:19 am

There are plenty of ideas for tweaking, but I just wanted to add my simple ‘wow, just wow’ to the cacophony of adoration!

Pam Says:

November 5th, 2007, 10:25 am

Very open and uncluttered. Overall, I really like looking at it.

The color scheme feels calm and soothing. Which is nice to look at, but it’s so subdued, it’s hard to actually read. Please put some contrast on the text. Conversely, the “Donate” and “Browse” fonts are *too* easy to read–very distracting.

The print layout needs work. I’m pleased not to see ads in my printout, but it’s only using about two-thirds of the page, and claims it wants 99 pages to print an article.

Top banner is about twice as big as I want it. I can only see the headline of the top article.

Dot Hage Says:

November 5th, 2007, 10:37 am

Overall I think it’s a big improvement, especially in focus. The larger size is nice and easier to read, and the page has much more impact. I have a couple of small constructive criticisms and a suggestion.

I liked your old logo a lot. The new one is also nice, but I wish the rocks were better. One appears to be standing on end, or maybe not, and they all would have a more “zen” feel if they were matte black and flat like river rocks. Nice concept, though!

To my taste, the colors are a bit boring (the blue matches parts of my Windows Start Bar, which I have to look at all the time). However, they’re definitely simple and good looking.

As for functionality, I was hoping for a way to navigate through all the back posts, not just the popular ones. You could perhaps have a tab at the top for “Archives,” where you could put all the links to old entries that you want to share, rather than at the bottom of the page. I agree with the others about putting recent posts in the sidebar.

Overall, a great design!

Joe Says:

November 5th, 2007, 10:45 am

The new design is great, but the top header takes up way too much space. I would recommend to slim it down (slice off the top of it, since it takes up too much space on my web browser.

brothajohn Says:

November 5th, 2007, 10:45 am

Excellent redesign, nice layout, love the pebbles on the top.

Roman Says:

November 5th, 2007, 10:53 am

I really like the new design.

Nevertheless I would appreciate it very much if you could add a meaningful document title to your template. I often bookmark blog posts in Firefox for later reading. With the new design I have to add the title manually.

Mark Says:

November 5th, 2007, 11:11 am

Most of this has been pointed out above, but you asked for the feedback…
* With a widescreen monitor, there’s nearly as much whitespace as content on the page. It’s very distracting.
* The text seems a bit small and hard to read in places. This is at least partly due to the choice of Dim Grey (#696969) for the font color.
* Increasing the font size settings my even 5% in my browser causes your top navigation to break, as the RSS icon and feed info gets pushed down into date and links to various social networking sites at the top of the post.
* The altered RSS icon is different enough that people might not recognize it as an RSS icon. If you don’t want the the standard orange, fine but at least leave the icon oriented as the original icon.
* Speaking of your feed, isn’t putting up the number of subscribers a bit much like webdesign in the 90s when many people were putting up the # of page visits they were getting? Which is to say a bit silly and pointless. If somebody is interested in your content and does RSS, then they’ll subscribe. If they’re not, I doubt showing how many other people use your feed would convince them.
* It’d be nice if there was bit more visual feedback when your mouse is hovering over a link. Perhaps rather than just bringing back the underline for links, also adding in a color shift?
* While I don’t especially mind the incredibly long, long scroll to your footer with those other links you might want to add in some sort of link at the top to jump people down there if you don’t intend shorten up the scrolling.
* Excluding the font color mentioned in my previous comments, I do like the overall color scheme. I find the blue and white to be tranquil and the black header appeals to my aesthetic sensibilities. It’s a very clean design.

Mark Says:

November 5th, 2007, 11:38 am

Leo -

New site looks great!

mashedpotatoes Says:

November 5th, 2007, 11:41 am

The new graphics are very nice, however the page begins to feel bloated and stretched when the browser is maximized on higher resolutions. This could easily be remedied by making all the content fixed width in a center table. The blue sidebar causes advertisements to stand out more (bad for me, good for your sponsors) this tends to pull my eye away from the important stuff. Actually if I could remove that blue sidebar completely I would love this design much better.

Mostly a clean design but not quite as clean and simple as the previous layout.

Fam5.com Says:

November 5th, 2007, 11:57 am

Smooth icons and great transition into advertising. Great use of Amazon, gives me hope.