Introducing The New Site

Posted on: April 15th, 2010 | 20 Comments

This is Day 86 of the Slow Home Project, and we need you to join us in our quest to evaluate the design quality of houses in nine North American cities in nine months. This week we are reviewing the results of our work in the Dallas / Fort Worth metroplex, but today we want to talk about our new website.

The winds of change are sweeping through the Slow Home site today! We are so excited to reveal the new re-design for the web site. Conceptually, one of the biggest steps forward for us is the new mast-head which clearly identifies Slow Home as “a social movement advocating for better designed houses.”

In addition, the Google Map showing the results of the Slow Home Project which has been evaluating houses in Los Angeles, Toronto and Dallas, has the additional functionality like live map updates of the posted projects, new sort functions and the option to read posted comments about the houses directly from the map.

Over the next while, we will be activating even more links on the site that will provide more detailed information on the Slow Home Test, the Slow Home Project and the “What’s Wrong With This House” book which will be available for sale through the web site very soon!

Look for our next post tomorrow as we reveal the winners of the best housing projects in the Dallas/ Fort Worth metroplex as voted by you, the viewers. Next week we are moving on to our fourth city in the Project to evaluate the design quality of new apartment and loft projects in Denver, Colorado!

As always, we want your feedback about what you think of the new look for the Slow Home site. Please send us your comments!

Note: Dallas data is now fixed. We are working on fixing a glitch with the input form so we have temporarily disabled the “Add A House” button.  We hope to have this fixed very soon. Please let me know if you find any other issues by emailing me at webmaster@slowhomestudio.com – Eric

  • BradW

    Congratulations on the new web site! A couple of comments 1. the additional comments box I am using right now is way too small 2. the brown background in the “Leave a Reply” session does not contrast the black font of the headings very well and 3. I think the masthead should simply read “Advocating for better designed homes.”
    My two cents…

  • Elizabeth

    Hi all,

    It looks great! I love the new masthead, both text and images. Lovely!

    Brad, maybe we’re in different parts of the site, but my “Leave a Reply” is White text on a Slate-coloured background. On the main page?

    The “tiny comments box” phenomenon did happen to me a couple of times in another site (facebook perhaps), but turned out to be a glitch. Maybe that’s the case here too. Again, I find it normal/sufficient in size, but maybe we’re in different parts of the site…?

    Nice work, John and Matthew and team!

  • BradW

    Way too small comments box still exists – using FireFox 3.6.n browser – really not usable in current form

  • BradW

    On Internet Explorer format of entire site including Leave a Reply much better as indicated by Elizabeth…

  • BradW

    One other thing – in the new blog format it really is not that obvious that additional comments can be made or are available

  • BradW

    Firefox related issues with format corrected…thanks

  • Paul C

    Congratulations on the new look. Looks very good. What became of the library section/portion? Would a link to Housebrand be worthwhile? Without some digging how would a first time visitor get a sense of where you are and who you are and the depth of discussion that occurs here? Should there be an “about” button? Just some quick thoughts.

  • Matthew North

    Brad W – I agree with your comment about the “comments” not being obvious – we are discussing today about having the comments automatically appear at the bottom of each daily post as the viewers add them so it is not necessary to click the “add a comment” button to see them – this will make it clear to anyone who visits the site that there is a lot of discussion going on – thoughts?

  • Eric S.

    Hi everyone,
    Glad you’re enjoying the new site. I’m going to be working hard throughout the day to try and address some of the site issues that I see in the comments and emails.

    In the site looks really screwy when you initially load it, refresh the browser as the site may have been cached in your browser. That usually fixes it. If you notice anything else after that, it’s best to email me directly at: webmaster@theslowhome.com as I may be too busy to catch all the comments.

    Regards,
    Eric S.

  • Matthew North

    Brad W – you think the words “a social movement” should be removed from the mast-head as well as the introductory paragraph below? Can you provide more input as to why? Looking forward to hearing your thoughts.

  • Paul C

    Matthew/Eric,
    Not sure if it is on my end but I don’t see the intro paragraph. I did catch it in your vid though. That might take care of the “about” comment I made.

  • BradW

    Eric – it was the refresh that fixed it for me – cheers

  • Terri

    Good changes–John, Matthew, Eric–congrats of bringing it together!

    I like the masthead with the wording as is. I don’t mind the “social movement” part, though maybe it is a little redundant. Of course, I realize you also want to make it clear that this is not an offshoot of some other professional organization or school, etc. So maybe “social movement” is the best way to make it clear.

    I think a slight word change in your paragraph might be to put the line “It’s time to get streetwise…” first instead of quoting statistics, because many times such numbers sort of float through our heads without registering, which may not be the best way to grab your viewers. Also there’s a missing hyphen in “well-designed slow home.” (Sorry, I had to say it!)

    Matthew, I think your suggestion to automatically have the comments show up is excellent. I can’t remember for sure, but I think I may have seen those comments automatically the very first time I came to this site a year ago (after the Globe & Mail April 18/09 feature) and knew I could just jump right in.

    I’m looking forward to seeing how the new map features will work when we’re assessing Denver next week.

  • Terri

    Typo in my message–bad form after editorializing.

    Just wanted to add that I truly appreciate the larger font for the comments!

  • BradW

    Matthew,

    A social movement is defined as “a group of people with a common ideology, esp a political or religious one”. This would seem to fit Slow Home but the implication of political, religious or even cult like action that is mildly troubling. I prefer to think of Slow Home as an educational site advocating for better designed houses by asking challenging questions, doing research, providing relevant information, welcoming all points of view, embracing change and having some fun along the way.

  • BradW

    Matthew,

    Just to be clear I am not strongly opposed to the wording – just off the fence slightly to the right…:)

  • MollyK

    I agree with Brad’s point. You don’t want the phrase “social movement” to cause first-time viewers to immediately raise an eyebrow or conjure up any negative connotations.

  • Manolo

    John and Matthew,
    Great to see the new site!

  • BradW

    Two things on the old site I am missing here – the Slow Home philosophy box and the comment history box.

  • Mid America Mom

    *FACEBOOK fans* please let us know what you feel on the new look and what you think works or doesn’t.
    -
    Matthew, John, (and Eric) great to see the newest slow home site. I can tell it took much work and you put alot into it.
    -
    I do have feedback but want to take some time.
    -
    Despite my comment on being able to finish the book quickly – I have not done so (ah life!). I will be soliciting the opinion of one of the fans on facebook that I know, and I do have some constructive and positive feedback to share.
    *
    Looking forward to tomorrow’s news,
    Mid America Mom