New Design for Seattle Bubble

Posted by The Tim on January 29th, 2008 at 7:04 PM · 67 Comments

As you may have noticed, I have switched the layout for Seattle Bubble over to a new design. The motivation for this move was to reduce clutter and make the site easier on the eyes.

If you have any problems, comments, compliments, or any other thoughts about the new layout, please air them here, or send me an email.

Categories: Administrative
Tags: administrative, layout

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67 responses so far ↓

1 The Tim // Jan 29, 2008 at 7:11 pm

Oh, I’ll also be switching the forums over to a similarly-styled layout soon. I’m also noticing as I type this comment that the comment preview is insanely small. I’ll get on that.
2 Matthew // Jan 29, 2008 at 7:23 pm

looks good!
3 Sim // Jan 29, 2008 at 7:25 pm

Actually, it sorta all looks the same from my rss reader. Thanks though.
4 Lake Hills Renter // Jan 29, 2008 at 7:28 pm

Wow, this is going to take some getting used to. I’ve been looking at Old Blue for a loooong time.
5 Cougar // Jan 29, 2008 at 7:38 pm

Great staging Tim! It’s a real seller ;)
6 Lake Hills Renter // Jan 29, 2008 at 7:45 pm

Uh, my gravatar worked when I posted, but now it’s reverted back to the dog.
7 The Tim // Jan 29, 2008 at 7:47 pm

It takes a few minutes to propagate. Check back in 10-20. You’re the third person to ask that, so maybe I should add a note to that box above the comments :^)
8 Lake Hills Renter // Jan 29, 2008 at 7:48 pm

I saw where you had posted it takes a while, and it worked initially, but then went back. Guess I’ll wait it out. No offense, but I’m a cat person. ;)
9 John // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:07 pm

The font and the bar color of the poll are hard to read.
10 The Tim // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:12 pm

John, could you elaborate on what you mean by “bar color of the poll”?
11 Lake Hills Renter // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:14 pm

Woot. Image works now.
12 ray // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:17 pm

I love It. But God Dang It. Why could’t there be a 500 Realty Sign between the John L Scott and Remax? With our Lil rider that says, “You Found This Home 75% Commission To You!”

Come On TIM! Lets reshoot that pik and let’s Prop one up!

http://www.500Realty.net
13 The Tim // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:24 pm

Lake Hills Renter said,

Woot. Image works now.

Told you so :^)
14 MisterBubble // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:46 pm

Thank you. My eyes have finally stopped bleeding.
15 laxtosnoco // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:48 pm

I like the new look. Just one question, what is The Tim looking at?
16 John // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:49 pm

Tim, the color of the bars for your “free home” poll is very light blue.
17 Olaf // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:52 pm

Very nice. But the stock photo of sunny skies over the Space Needle is so… realtor. In the spirit of the realism in which this Blog excels, I’d rather see a picture of a Central District fixer-upper in the rain.
18 ray // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:54 pm

I think Tim is trying to read whats on my Avatar. I’m doing the same look!

http://www.500Realty.net
19 The Tim // Jan 29, 2008 at 8:58 pm

John, I agree, the blue gradient for the polls needed to change. How’s this?

LaxToSnoCo, in reality, I was visiting the Coral Castle when this picture was taken, so I was probably gazing at either the 40-foot-tall obelisk or the north star “telescope.” But on the internet, I’ll say that I’m straining my eyes to try to find the pink ponies.

Olaf, I agree that the header image could use some work. The pictures are ones that I actually took, and I went through all my pictures looking for something better and this was the best I could come up with for now. I’ll probably have an eye out for something better the next time I’m out and about the town.
20 biliruben // Jan 29, 2008 at 9:18 pm

Nice.
21 EconE // Jan 29, 2008 at 9:35 pm

I like it!
22 Ira Sacharoff // Jan 29, 2008 at 9:52 pm

I’m with Olaf on this one. What a better say to say Seattle than a picture of the needle exchange or the steel mill over the Duwamish?
23 Roger // Jan 29, 2008 at 10:00 pm

Looks good. A bit more padding around everything would be a big improvement.
24 Cougar // Jan 29, 2008 at 10:03 pm

Welp, we couldn’t find that…try again? Nice Tim~ Welp?
25 B&W Nikes // Jan 29, 2008 at 10:31 pm

Looks Great! Nice!
26 patient // Jan 29, 2008 at 10:32 pm

I like the new “professional” look as well, though I just got a new widescreen LCD and the old style resized and filled up the whole screen nicely while this new one is a strip in the middle with light blue bars at the sides covering about 50% of the screen.
27 patient // Jan 29, 2008 at 10:39 pm

I should add though that the old bubble style was an exception most sites do not resize to fit a widescreen.
28 Jillayne Schlicke // Jan 29, 2008 at 10:46 pm

Hey Tim,

The new layout loads much faster when I’m using my pocket PC (win mobile) to read the blog. Much improved, thanks.
29 Singliac // Jan 29, 2008 at 11:41 pm

I like the layout. Much more usable. Cleaner design for sure. My only suggestion is about the banner. I like all three of the pictures, but I’m not a big fan of the dissolve between them. I’ll probably get beaten up for saying this in Seattle, but the banner looks like something Bill Gates would come up with.

Let me draw something up for you and send it your way (if you are interested). I will even do it for free since I’m such a huge fan of this site.
30 bitterowner // Jan 30, 2008 at 12:29 am

In the words of Borat, “very nice.”
31 Sorin // Jan 30, 2008 at 12:36 am

I would suggest getting rid of the banner graphic at the top altogether as it’s just visual clutter.

A sans-serif font might be easier to read for sidebar items like inventory numbers.

Otherwise, it looks good.
32 Scuba Steve // Jan 30, 2008 at 7:11 am

I haven’t pulled it up on my Nokia 9300i (Symbian) yet but it looks good from the computer. Does the avatar system require an email or send out spam?
33 Moe Ronn - Realitor® // Jan 30, 2008 at 7:47 am

Could you use a Arial or Helvetica font instead?
34 notabull // Jan 30, 2008 at 8:04 am

I’m in agreement on the font issue. The inventory numbers are hard to read, although not impossible. Otherwise, I think the site looks great! I’ll update with an avatar now…
35 softwarengineer // Jan 30, 2008 at 8:05 am

Hi Tim:

I just helped my daughter with some homework on web site creation graphic arts. The course made it clear:

Keep the web site as simple as possible….minimum clutter…

Ease of navigation, use buttons are easy to find and use.

Consider the audience [bubble heads], so complexity isn’t going to intimidate most of us techie bloggers, but the negative realitors [we have positive ones too] and sarcastic investor moles with no technical education….go ahead, an th next update round, figure out ways to update the site so we can use it and they can’t….lol

Great Job Tim!!!
36 AndySeattle // Jan 30, 2008 at 8:12 am

Clean and easy… I’m also glad that you included a sample graph in the header. I think the data crunching is one of the key features that keeps us coming back.
37 rose-colored-coolaid // Jan 30, 2008 at 8:17 am

This is much much better. It looks much more professional.
38 Runs With Scissors // Jan 30, 2008 at 8:32 am

Where is the picture of the pink pony on the landing page? I would love to see it in front of a different home for sale each week, you know one of those “Won’t Last!” or “Great Investment Potential Properties!”
39 local Realitor // Jan 30, 2008 at 8:38 am

Nice!
40 brettro // Jan 30, 2008 at 8:43 am

it’s pretty!
41 Brian Yi // Jan 30, 2008 at 9:06 am

I hope people realize that this Wordpress theme is called Cutline and is designed by Chris Pearson. Tim or whoever made small modifications to adapt it for Seattle Bubble.
42 Jess-Pumpkin // Jan 30, 2008 at 9:29 am

This is fun, kind of a myspace look for us adults worrying about more adult things (markets, mortgages, and money, oh my!).
43 singliac // Jan 30, 2008 at 9:30 am

Glad to see the change to a sans serif font throughout. Good call.
44 The Tim // Jan 30, 2008 at 9:32 am

Brian Yi,

I’m not trying to hide that fact, as you may notice I left the Cutline footer link intact. It’s a great theme.
45 Lake Hills Renter // Jan 30, 2008 at 10:15 am

Why would he hide that it’s a non-stock theme? I doubt many people care, other than other Wordpress theme creators.
46 WestSideBilly // Jan 30, 2008 at 11:21 am

Like the layout… though I miss the black on light-blue color scheme. Black on white gets old when staring at text 10 hours a day.
47 Brian Yi // Jan 30, 2008 at 11:30 am

I wasn’t trying to accuse Tim of hiding anything. I was just browsing through the comments, and I thought it would be nice to give credit where credit is due.

It is curious though that Tim would go through the trouble of creating a blog entry announcing the design change without at least mentioning where the design is from. If Tim had made the effort of announcing the design change, it couldn’t have hurt to mention the origin of the design. But, I already understand that Tim is complying with the licensing of the theme.

Also, I liked it better when the font was Georgia. :-)
48 disbelief // Jan 30, 2008 at 11:35 am

Nice clean look, and much easier to read / scroll through! Might have to change the images to something more depressing though if the market goes downhill in this new year.
49 John // Jan 30, 2008 at 12:42 pm

Love the general feel, but whoever said it above is right… that banner at the top needs to go.
50 SunTzu // Jan 30, 2008 at 12:53 pm

Great!

I’d suggest getting a photo of some soap bubble and superimpose that over photo of Seattle in the headbanner picture? Just a thought…….
51 Tom // Jan 30, 2008 at 3:36 pm

The new design looks much better. Thanks!
52 Madrona // Jan 30, 2008 at 3:44 pm

May want to make the content scale more dynamically do the browser window size. I like to view my windows not in fullscreen mode. If you try this… the content is rendered at 0px off the left margin. It would look much better if the post column was % driven as well as the sidebar.

Just a thought…
53 WestSideBilly // Jan 30, 2008 at 4:43 pm

Tim…. We need bigger Gravatars! :)
54 tlw // Jan 30, 2008 at 7:04 pm

Tim,

Did you mention in any post that you start monetize seattlebubble.com with google ad? Smart move! It’s about time with all the traffic this site is getting.
55 disbelief // Jan 30, 2008 at 9:39 pm

Yep, as WestSideBilly said above, slightly bigger Gravatars would be great!
56 WestSideBilly // Jan 31, 2008 at 8:25 am

Did you mention in any post that you start monetize seattlebubble.com with google ad? Smart move! It’s about time with all the traffic this site is getting

I’m assuming most of the ads will be for RE companies. ;-)
57 Everett_Tom // Jan 31, 2008 at 9:14 am

Looks nice!

I don’t know about anyone else, but I use the “Recent Comments” section to determine if there’s anything new to read.. could this be higher on the sidebar?
58 [troll] // Jan 31, 2008 at 12:20 pm

f yr nw dsgn ctlly gts ppl t spnd LSS tm vstng yr blg, thn y’v dn grt jb!
59 Orion // Jan 31, 2008 at 1:13 pm

I agree with Everett Tom, the Recent Comments is more useful more often than the Inventory, so moving it to the top like it used to be would be helpful. I understand you’ve got 2 columns instead of 3 now, so it’s challenging to arrange the proper hierarchy.

Also, it’s really helpful to have a link back to the home page at the bottom of every page, so after reading all the comments, the user can easily go back to the home.
60 TJ_98370 // Jan 31, 2008 at 3:50 pm

Test
61 TJ_98370 // Jan 31, 2008 at 3:52 pm

Test 2
62 TJ_98370 // Jan 31, 2008 at 3:53 pm

Test 3
63 TJ_98370 // Jan 31, 2008 at 4:24 pm

Test 4
64 Alan // Jan 31, 2008 at 5:12 pm

I like the recent comments at the top.
65 Alan // Jan 31, 2008 at 5:13 pm

I also like how everyone is using b@b.com as their email address.
66 Alan // Jan 31, 2008 at 5:14 pm

Or maybe that is just the default image.
67 Everett_Tom // Jan 31, 2008 at 7:37 pm

Thanks Tim! (”recent comments” now at the top of the sidebar).

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News & discussion about real estate & the housing bubble in the Seattle area.