Thursday, 4 February 2016

Website Make-over

We communicate with each other more today than ever before. We don't have to wait for a ship to sail from Europe with a letter which would be left under a designated rock at the Cape of Good Hope.
We can connect to others anywhere in the world via email; instant messages, blogs, Skype, Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn. You can share photos on Instagram, Snapchat and Pinterest. If I were to give you a complete list I would have to go on for ever, but you know what I mean.

The result of this plethora of communication systems, though, is that you have to keep up. You have to learn the new way of doing something almost every day.
So too it is with a website. This needs to be updated and periodically a make-over is needed. My website, Carol Lee Beckx has just had one and the new theme is now live.


New Website screenshot - Home Page on iPad

One of the changes that make navigation more streamlined is that the menu bar, with a splash of colour, has moved to the top of the page. Previously it was buried at the bottom of the page - lost and, I think, mostly ignored.

A large percentage of website browsing today is done on mobile phones and tablets. The challenge when re-designing a website is that it needs to work effectively across all devices. Something that looks good on a PC monitor is often hopeless on an iPhone. Consequently there was a lot of backwards and forwards with my ever patient website techie – he needs a medal. (I confess to being a bit of a perfectionist) Love the three little white bars to  indicate the menu on a mobile site.


Screenshot iPhone - Still Life Gallery

All the text has been revised, updated and edited. New photographs have been added, others removed. The format of the Commissions Page is now in the form of separate posts. Most people love to learn the story behind a painting. If you click on a painting you’ll be able to read the backstory.


Commissions Page - screenshot iPad

Similarly the News Page is displayed as a series of posts, easily accessed when you click on an image. 


News Page - screenshot iPad

There are also some direct links on the top Menu bar – Blog links to Art Matters; Shop has links to Etsy and Red Bubble. Then icons to my social media sites are also there – Facebook, Twitter, Flickr, Pinterest and Instagram. I know one shouldn’t have favourites but I do love Instagram best – I do enjoy my daily fix of inspiring images. It’s a good place to see WIP images.

So the hours of work have paid off and I have a finished product. I'd love to know what you think.

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