Almost 70% of the web poll voters “Love” or “Like” the new NorthEndWaterfront.com website style. Cool. And then, there is the 30% that “Hate It,” which has me emotionally devastated. (Not really. It’s the internet. Change is hard. I get it.)
Most folks like the magazine-style grid layout and the “wow” factor of the big image slider (now that its working). The clean look of the single-posts with columns also received mostly positive reviews.
About half of the “hates” came in the first week after the roll-out when the site was slow, buggy and frankly, a mess. That is my fault and I appreciate your patience.
I have received dozens of emails with constructive (mostly) feedback. Thank you. Several of you said the change was pretty drastic, and it will take some time to find your way around. I completely understand.
When it makes sense, I am happy to make adjustments. Without getting too detailed, I’ll just say there are some features that will take some time to fully come together.
A few suggestions were easy to implement, such as a larger and easier to read font size. Done. The front page was too cluttered, so I added more empty space and relegated some things to back pages. It is a balancing act, but I am still working on the front page to give it a crisper look and feel.
I received many differing opinions on the new comment system. That’s a subject for a separate post. In brief, I changed it (again) so you no longer need to login to Facebook (or anything else), but I am still requiring real first and last names. (See the comment policy.) Some people couldn’t see the comments. That is now fixed.
Links and images are still a problem for the older posts. Working on it. Interestingly, readers noticed the static “Living” and “Visiting” pages were missing as are most of the photo galleries. Those were not used very much, so it’s nice to know you cared about them. All of the old pages, maps and galleries are on the way back, with some of the static pages already available from the nav menu.
Of course, it’s the content that really matters and so I am trying to keep that coming while doing all the techie stuff behind the scenes. I’ll try to post updates as things develop on the new site. Thanks again for all your support! –Matt
P.S. – I’m always open to suggestions and ideas. If you voted “hate,” I’d really like to know why. You can reach me at info@northendwaterfront.com.
