wgstoo

A New Design For We Got Served

By on September 22, 2011 in News, Site Updates

After a couple of years with the same look and feel for We Got Served, I thought it was about time we splashed a little bit of paint around and have a tidy up. You’re seeing the results of a new design for the site that we’ve been working on for a couple of weeks, and finally dropped in yesterday (thanks for your patience during the downtime).

The idea this time was to create a cleaner, less cramped design, with more space for content, larger text and images and better colour contrast for improved readability. We’ve also been able to take advantage of a few modern web standards, including the use of CSS3 for a couple of design features, jQuery for content sliders and image lightboxes and improved social networking links – so if you like what we do, you can share it with friends and followers (thanks!) In short, this revision is all about making the site a better place to spend time, whether that’s about easier reading or a slicker, more interactive experience.

We’ve also introduced a new commenting system, moving from Automattic’s Intense Debate over to Disqus. We were still getting a lot of comment spam with the old system, which I hope will be resolved with the switch and readers were also finding comments going missing after posting (depending on the browser being used). It looks like it’s taking some time for our comments to sync with Disqus’ servers, but don’t worry, everything’s safely stored and should be appearing back on the site in the next 24 hours.

There’s still some post-installation tidying we need to do, most notably around image formatting (you may well see odd sized, or blurry images if you dig around the site) – one of the more tricky aspects of changing a website design is the need to reformat images to suit the new site. That’ll take a little time to work through, so “pardon our dust” as the saying goes. Expect to see a few additional tweaks on the site as we get feedback from you all on likes and dislikes and we all settle in to the new place. To that end, please use that brand new commenting system below to share your thoughts on the new look and feel.

WGS Forum users, you’re in for some downtime today as I upgrade the forums to the latest version of the software and drop in the new design there too.

Thanks for your patience and as ever, many thanks for your visit today and in the future!


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About Terry Walsh

Terry Walsh is the founding editor and owner of We Got Served. Since February 2007, the site has provided detailed coverage and analysis of the emerging home server category, and has subsequently grown into a trusted outlet for digital home news and reviews.
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  • http://davepermen.net davepermen

    Looks great, gratulations for the refresh. First Disqus Post? Yay!

    • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

      Apart from a couple of spam posts, Dave ;-)

      Glad you like it!

      Terry

  • WeeHappyPixie

    Looks good. Well done.

  • Claudiopolis2

    Looks clean, readable (ar least on my 24″ screen) but has anyone noticed the increase in advertising space? The ads are awfully made and my opinion is that it really spoils the website’s look. I know that advertising pays for lots of things but overloading the site with ads will surely drive some visitors away. Not to mention that some of these ads have nothing to do with the site’s profile (unless you’re on tatoos for instance…)

    • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

      Hi

      Interesting feedback! There’s actually no increase in advertising space at all – it may just be that the design makes them a little more noticeable? We unfortunately have very little control on the design of the ads themselves… they’ll also differ for different countries/regions, so depending on where you are, your experience can change.

      That said, you’re right, they do really help pay to keep the place running so appreciate readers supporting us.

      Cheers

      Terry

  • http://www.facebook.com/welchwerks Greg Welch

    looks great

  • JerryW

    Terry,

    I like the new design! Looks great!

  • S_l_hughes

    The design is good apart from the main font used on eveywhere – it seems to break up and is difficult to read.

    • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

      What browser are you using? 

      • S_l_hughes

        Firefox 3.6.22 on my crappy work machine. Can’t change it either – looks fine in IE though

        • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

          I guessed it was an old browser. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to retain full compatibility with these obsolete browsers now – glad you have an alternative in IE though.
          Terry

  • Don C

    I like the look, yes, it is brighter but once you start gettin’ around it works good.
    Good job!

  • Kim

    Looks good, but one small thing, the pictures in the top frame on the front page should all be the same size or something. 
    Right now when the page switches to the Fractal case review, that picture is smaller and thus the whole screen moves. Were annoying when reading headlines on the front page.

    • Titus

      Agreed. Each of the 5 sections of the scrolling headline section need to be the same vertical height. Many of them are not the same height and it’s annoying to try and read something when the page is constantly shifting up and down. :-(
       

      • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

        Yep – leave that one with me. These images are automatically re-sized to fit the page, and we just need to make sure it’s being done to a consistent height.

  • Kim

    Looks good, but one small thing, the pictures in the top frame on the front page should all be the same size or something. 
    Right now when the page switches to the Fractal case review, that picture is smaller and thus the whole screen moves. Were annoying when reading headlines on the front page.

  • Buttbongoapril

    I’m so thrilled it takes 10x to load now, thanks! It’s unresponsiveness is graying my hair as I type- amazing!

    • Claudiopolis2

      While It’s not that bad over here, I have to admit it actually loads slower than before. I’m subscribed via RSS and every time I open an article from here it takes longer than before. I blame it on the ads. As I said before those are horribly made. Visual bloat silenty accepted by everybody because this is the way the site keeps working. Slower.

      • http://www.wegotserved.com Terry Walsh

        The additional load time is actually due to the fact we’re loading in more images on the front page – there are more posts exposed so more images.

        I’ve dropped in some server optimisations today which have reduced the load times.

        Terry

  • Toby

    I’ve been reading (and loving) your articles on Lion Server, and when each new article comes out, it’s like my birthday all over again! However, now when I click on “Articles in this Series” nothing loads. I’ve tried tried the most updated versions of Safari, Opera, Firefox, and Chrome. I want to read and check for new articles! Is it just me?