This is where I share things with the internet

Design Choices for This Site

Posted on 23 July, 2020 / 2 min read

Front Page Feed

The front page of many blogs is focused more on new users than repeat users, by having a static "About" page. In my opinion, it's boring seeing the same front page on blogs when you revisit them. So this template features a feed-style front page that allows people to quickly see what’s new, without visiting all the pages. And people who are new, can easily understand what this site's about, by seeing the latest things you're working on.

Function > Branding

By using “Bio” over “About”, “Email” over “Contact”, the most common navigation links are able to fit on mobile screens without a burger menu.

Minimalist > Creative

Sometimes the best designs are invisible. They purposely get out of the way, so users can focus on the content and not the design. Since this site is a blog and not an art gallery, the focus was on improving the reading experience.

Bottom-Border > Underlining Links

Multiple accessibility studies have shown that underlined words can be hard to read, especially for non-native readers. By adding a bottom border under text instead of the default underlined text, my links are more readable, and in my opinion, look better.

Meaningful Colors and Shapes

Blue colored text is associated with links, so I used blue text for all my links, except my navigation links, which I used a bottom border for, to make sure people knew they were links.

Simple Interactions > Complex

Javascript can be completely disabled on my site and it would look and function about the same. I wanted to make things as simple and future-proof as possible, by limiting unnecessary javascript interactions. Plus, it makes things faster.

Top and Bottom Navigation Menus

Instead of having a sticky header or footer that takes up space and distracts users, I opted instead to add page navigation to both the top and bottom of each page, so users can easily scroll up or down to navigate to a different page.

Static over Dynamic

I want this blog to be as low-maintenance and fast as possible. By having a static site, I don't have to worry about updating a bunch of plugins or 3rd party software to keep it working.

This story was originally published at davidporkka.com