We paused our usual posts for a quick site update: we’ve refreshed the sidebar. It’s a small change, but enough readers asked about the tweaks we made over Memorial Day weekend that we wanted to explain what changed and apologize to anyone who saw odd behavior while we tested things on Monday.
One of my goals since becoming a full-time blogger and dad has been to improve the site’s functionality and tidy up the design within the limits of my coding skills. It was even my resolution for the year. With that in mind, here are the main changes you might notice (unless you read the blog in a feed reader and don’t usually see the sidebar):
Change #1: A Second Tabbed Window — We condensed several sidebar elements into a second tabbed box similar to the search tab in the top right corner. This new tabbed window sits just below that search box and contains items like our smiling mugs and other frequently used links. It effectively replaces the old Contact button while grouping related items together for easier navigation.
Behind the tabs you’ll find a new “Shortcuts” view with quick links to commonly asked questions (for example, “where did you get that item?”) and our most popular how-to posts. We also moved our Link Love section — our blogroll — into this space so you don’t have to scroll as far down to reach it. At the end of that tab group there’s a little appreciation tab we call “Smooch” because we truly appreciate our readers and wanted a fun way to show it.
Change #2: New Buttons — Just below the new tabbed box you’ll see three refreshed buttons. Two of them are redesigned versions of existing links (for quick access to Burger’s blog and to browse all of our House Crashing posts), and one is brand new: a direct link to a Flickr album of Clara pictures. We figured this would be an easy way for those craving a daily baby fix to find photos without filling our regular post schedule with multiple “isn’t she adorable” updates.
Change #3: New Boxes — The final change is mostly cosmetic but made a big difference to me: I learned how to add clean white boxes around sidebar widgets like our Twitter feed, Discount-O-Rama listing, and We’re Digging items. Wrapping each widget in a tidy box helps everything look more consistent and organized. It might not matter much to everyone, but for me it felt like a satisfying, earned improvement.
That’s the short version of our sidebar makeover. We hope you find the updates to be an improvement. We’re always open to suggestions, so if you have ideas for further refinements please share them — with the understanding that not every suggestion will be feasible, especially given my limited coding skills. Also, if something looks wrong on your computer or a browser isn’t rendering a feature properly, please let us know so we can troubleshoot.
UPDATE: A few readers reported they couldn’t see the new buttons. Those buttons (like some of our sponsor ads) are delivered using Flash-based advertising software. If your browser or an extension is blocking Flash content or ads, it may prevent the Burger, Clara, or House Crashing buttons from appearing. Disabling the blocker for our site should restore those buttons. I used the ad software so I could rotate several button images and offer a variety of Burger, Clara, and House Crashing thumbnails — not to force ad views.
Thanks for bearing with us during the tweak session. Now go click the Smooch tab near the Contact tab for a little virtual love from us to you.