Sporting a new site design & features

If you’re currently reading this in your browser you will have probably noticed that Design Droplets has recently undergone a significant change in the last few hours (The DNS is still propogating so if you can’t see teh change yet empty your broswer cache or wait a a few more hours. If something isn’t working please bare with us while we make this transition). If you’re reading via RSS or Email visit designdroplets.com to see the changes.

The most significant and noticeable change is our site design, in conjunction with the team at Portable in Melbourne we have completely redesigned and reevaluated many aspects of the Design Droplets site. In this post I will outline each feature change or addition to help you, our readers, take full advantage of the changes to Design Droplets (or you could just visit the site and starting exploring!).

If you have any comments, thoughts, ideas or questions please don’t hesitate to drop me a line via our contact form.

What are the Changes?

Overall

1. A new look and new branding

This new site design aims to make the content the main focus of the site, while making it easier to read and navigate. It also provides Design Droplets with it’s own distinct look and feel (something it was missing before due to the use of a generic wordpress theme).

2. Goodbye advertisements

We have removed the clutter of text and banner advertisements from the site. While advertisements, both text and banner have the potential to drive revenue to a site like Design Droplets we felt that overall they were of no real value to readers and in many respects no value to advertisers. So we got rid of them.

How will you keep Design Droplets running? We are exploring various other options to generate revenue streams which are more focused on delivering reader and advertiser value (more on this later). However we have kept affiliate links in book review posts as these are unobtrusive, useful (you can easily purchase the book) and drive a steady (albeit small) stream of revenue into Design Droplets. We are also now changing a small fee for Job listings as this service provides job hunters and job advertisers with potential for tremendous value.

3. More RSS feeds

We have made it easier to access content from the comfort of your RSS reader by adding feeds for each specific topic on the site. The most useful for many will be the Jobs Feed. Note: Not all RSS feeds are up and running yet, please be patient. They should be working in the coming days, we’ll put up a post when they are.

4.  Drop Down Menus

To make the content a bit easier to navigate and to clean up the main menu we have added drop downs. You can click on either the main menu item which will take you to that page or if you are looking for something specific in that area explore the drop down as it may take you directly to where you want to be.

5. Search

We have added a more accessible search into the main menu, just hover your mouse over the little magnifying glass to the right to the main menu.

Home Page

1. Featured content area

When you visit the home page of the site you’ll notice that at the top we have fancy sliding feature content area, this means you can easily view a selection of the latest or most interesting articles from Design Droplets in a quick and easy way.

2. Latest jobs displayed directly on the homepage

To make it easier for you to quickly view the latest jobs when you are looking at the latest content we have added a small feed fo the latest job listings onto the right hand side of the home page content area.

3. Topics listing

Next to the latest content area you can now easily visit specific topics.

Articles Pages

We have simplified and cleaned up the articles pages and added new styling that will make it easier to read specific articles like interviews.

1. Who wrote this?

The author’s profile picture, name and number of articles contributed to Design Droplets is displayed in the right hand side bar so you can quickly and easily find out more about them and read their other articles.

2. Share the Knowledge

We have added share widgets in the right hand side bar so you can quickly and easily share useful or interesting articles with friends, colleagues and the world.

3. Recent posts & Topics

Also in the right hand side bar is a listing of the five most recent articles published on Design Droplets. Underneath this we also have a listing of the latest topics so you can easily check out other interesting topics.

4. Clip it & Like Button

On the top left hand side of the article under the date we have included quick and easy access to a clip it button for evernote users and a Facebook like button for Facebook users.

5. Photographer

As we often have different photographs or images contributed by different photographers for many articles we have included underneath the article name space for the name of the photographer so that the photographers get the recognition they deserve for their awesome work. You can see an exmple on 7 Insights to make you a great designer.

6. Coming soon…

We will also be adding related articles and translation functions to the articles in the coming months.

Jobs Board

There are four big changes on the job board:

1. A Listing Fee

2. A Search Function

3. Styling of the pages

4. Jobs RSS feed.

More exciting features will be coming soon on the jobs board, including employer profiles.

New Content Types

• Quotable Quotes
• Videos
• Events Listing
• Competition Listing
• Comeption Results
• Event Roundups & Reviews
• Themed Link Love

Coming Soon…

• Inspire Me – your daily dose of creative inspiration.
• Interviews and features on the minds behind the awesome design work available in the designer wares section of the store.
• Weekly/Monthly Columns on specific design topics.

Contribute

Although there is a bunch of new content in the pipeline we are always looking for members of the design community who want to contribute to Design Droplets. Its a fantastic way to promote yourself or your company. It can also help to beef up your resume with some writing experience for an established online magazine. So if you are interested flick over an email to contribute@designdroplets.com or for more details on making a contribution visit the Contribute page.

Whats under the hood

During this transition we have also upgraded our server to make the site faster and less prone to the porblems that exist with shared hosting. We are still hosted with our long time web host MediaTemple.

For those of you who are interested in whats going on software wise to power Design Droplets here is a quick listing of some of the main things we are using to run Design Droplets.

• WordPress – In our opinion the best opensource CMS available (A lot of other people agree with us!)
• A custom theme built by the awesome team at Portable.
• Google Analytics & Crazy Egg for tracking.
• Sexy Bookmarks – thats the cool charing thingamy in the right hand sidebar on articles pages.
• Platinum SEO Pack
• MailChimp & Feedburner – To power our RSS and Newsletters

Wrapping Up

If you have made it this far, thanks for reading this monster of an announcement all the way to the end. Overall our aim in making the changes to the site is to make it better for you, our readers. If there’s anything you would like to say about the new site, please let us know. Otherwise grab a cool (or warm) bevearage and take the time to explore the new site, the archive of content and new articles as they come along.