Mac Tips Site Revamped

March 13, 2007

The main panel is pure white, as before. while the background and the interface elements are now much more subdued. Although the interface parts are important, and I want the setup to be such that it never takes more than two clicks to get somewhere else on the site, I want the reading of the actual articles to be as distraction-free as possible.

The main panel is also now 30 pixels wider. I originally sized everything so that the whole width of the page would fit on a smaller display without the need for any horizontal scrolling. Research shows that practically everyone who visits has a screen 1152 pixels or wider, and, the previous narrowness made the site look more like a weblog, which it definitely is not.

I’ve also padded out the white space around text and graphics on all the pages. This extra headroom, I think, makes for a more relaxing reading experience.

Finally, I felt that the new more subtle look of the background and navigation parts should be broken up with some color, so I added a logo that appears throughout the site. It looked a little garish at first, so I ended up making it 70 percent transparent. The jury’s still out on its placement though.

Hope you like it.

New Look Andrew’s Mac Tips Website