The main reason I decided to redesign is because alot of people tell me we don't understand anything when visiting your site, a UX problem, I realized my old site was hard to understand for regular un-advanced web surfers, it may be usable for web savvy but for other people it's not.
So this is how I started rethinking about the IA from the very beginning, mixing up IA main three aspects context, content & user.
What do I want the visitor to understand, what action I want him to take, what image I want to deliver to him and how this will work with the content I have, mixing this by the user needs, first who is the visitors what they wanted to see, what's make them happy.
Redesigning a site's UX sometimes is not enough, sometimes you have to go further and redesign the whole IA to get the UX design you desire, I think of UX as hospitality, if you imagined some stranger visiting a hotel lobby, how hospitable receptionists usually be, your home page is the same, you have to make it as hospitable and comfortable to users as possible, that's why I make up the comfortable home theme, most welcoming the visitors and inviting them to feel home.
Even in choosing the words, the first word in the new design is You while this kind of sites usually start with the word I , UX involves human psychology alot.
Thanks alot for your support, I hope you like the new design, and if you have any comments or you see any thing here as confusing or annoying, please leave your comments below.
January 20, 2010, 7:40 AM | Events , Point , User experience