Bukowski.net facelift (1 Viewer)

zobraks

Reaper Crew
Moderator
:abge:
My first thought when I saw the new front page was "George John Martin (not the one from Boston, the other one) finally took his revenge on Bukowski.net."

Now I'm getting used to it.
Sort of.

P.S. I miss Buk with the accordion typer.
 
why has that useful menue to the left gone?
I guess it was too useful for its own good. :p

That's the trouble with (almost) everything new (computer-related): the old functionality is often sacrificed for a new (arguably better) look.
 
It looks clean and uncluttered. I like that photograph a lot, the old one kind of reinforced the drunk wild man of skid row a bit, for me. I see the point about the top line, but maybe it just needs a little time to get used to it. I really like it.
 
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The stats tell me that a very large (and growing) percentage of visitors view the site on mobile devices. It's not the way I choose to meander the web myself, but that doesn't mean they can be ignored. The old site was frustrating and useless when you tried to view it on a tablet or, worse yet, a phone.

So it was re-done the way it was to accommodate mobile users without sacrificing or breaking anything for desktop users. Actually, I think the changes that were made to adapt to mobile make the site better on the desktop. The point of the site is to present images and text, and it does that better now than it did before.

If you're feeling confused or nostalgic you can always look at these and fondly remember your youth:

bukowski-net00.png Buk-net-1.jpg Buk-net-2.jpg Buk-net-3.jpg Buk-net-4.jpg Buk-net-5.jpg Buk-net-6.jpg
 
Like Sky, I do like the picture. (but I also liked the old one.)

Maybe I shouldn't complain at all since I barely ever go to the home-page. But mjp's screenshots above say all I meant:
this menu in form of a column was much easier for a very fast grisp of what's on the site. (with one quick look that is)
To read all menu-items in a horizontal row takes more time as it is more 'sequential', if you see what I say.

of course I'm all for a smartphone-friendly design.
So, let's just get used to it, like all the times before.
 
You could argue that the navigation sticking to the top of the browser window is more convenient than the old static navigation that you have to go hunting for if you've scrolled down.

A while back I looked at the numbers, what people click on in the menu, and that's why it was arranged the way it was (is). The stuff that was on the bottom - the things that are in the dropdown now - just aren't as popular. It's kind of the tail wagging the dog though, because if you make something more prominent in the navigation, it gets more clicks.

Speaking of which, I was actually thinking of an experiment to get more people to go to one of those less popular pages. Just by making the link more prominent and enticing. So I guess I'll do that now. Since you've reminded me.
 
The older I get, the harder it is to accept change. My wife changed our mailbox last week and it both confused
and irritated me. Like that. New pic is very cool, however.
 
It is funny, but 18 years ago it was state of the art. The entire web looked like that.

That site is an exception, unchanged in almost two decades, but eight years is still a long time for a web site to remain relatively static, as bukowski.net did.
 
The new look is great. I liked the old photo of Buk in the boxcar, but the new one is great too and I like the new introduction underneath it. Well done, mjp!
 
I too like the new format. From a user standpoint, it's not all that different than the previous incarnation. What is just a bit unusual is the new photo on the homepage. Dare I say that Buk looks downright affable.
 
Right! No reason to perpetrate the usual skid row image of him, even if he partly created it himself.
 
The stats tell me that a very large (and growing) percentage of visitors view the site on mobile devices.
FYI, numbers for the past couple of months - 32,000 new users on phones and tablets:

mobilestats.png


The problem with alienating them is they don't become old users. They come in, see the tiny text on the non-mobile-friendly site and bounce. There are other, more in depth numbers that show that bounce rate was twice as high for mobile users as for desktop.
 
I almost (re)used the boxcar picture, but the world already thinks he spent his life in a boxcar, dead drunk, beating a whore and pissing his pants, so I figured it was time we gave him the renowned author treatment instead.

the best part of that picture is that he had to be helped up cause he couldn't do it by himself!

it is a false image, so you made the right choice.
 
Well...enjoy that while you can. When I updated the site I made a change to disallow the archive.org bots. So anything related to bukowski.net will be gone from "The Wayback Machine" soon.
 
It means no one will be able to see old versions of the site here.

Right now the archive goes back to 2002, when it looked like this:

thisdomis22.gif
 
I like the new look, Michael. Very nice. I have found myself visiting the main page now. It would be pretty slick if you had 3-4 images of Buk that rotated whenever you visited/refreshed the screen.
 
Eh, not a fan of the "carousel" images you see on top of just about every corporate site in the world, or random images on refresh.

Don't get me wrong, the random image thing was really cool, you know, in 1998. But someone reloading a single page on your site just to see different pictures has lost most of its charm. Except maybe as a retro design feature.

Did you know that random image thing was originally written by someone looking for a clever way to inflate his site's visitor stats? Now you do. Your web design history lesson for the day.
 
Much prefer the new design. I never did care for the pissed in the pants looking photo - as a few people mentioned, it reinforced the skid row poet image. Everyone on this site knows there was so much more to Bukowski than that reduction.
 
Had a shot of my daughter's Nexus tablet, I like the way the front page/main site changes, so that if you have it
tall ways (portrait style?) you get a button to press for the drop down list (should please roni:)) whereas if you have the tablet width ways you get the
menu across the top - suiting everyone.
Also the photos page - some of the captions are hilarious, especially liked 47 and 48. But not sure if they are new?
 
Some of those captions are pretty funny. mjp must have paid someone to write them.
 
I too miss the old lay out and the unsightly social media icons are pretty disgusting, especially when put on the same page with buk... however I like the new picture, buk looks happy in it :)
 
The "disgusting, unsightly social media icons" were actually bigger in the old layout that you miss so much.

sm.png

So you'll have to find something else to whine about.
 

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