The 2023 website redesign committee is excited to announce the next major design change for the Streets.mn website.
We launched the committee early this year, made up of Streets.mn board members Fran Di Caprio, Brian Mitchell and Erik Ruthruff, with help from volunteer Dakota Sexton. The Streets.mn website dates back to 2011 and had large updates in 2015, 2020 and now again in late 2023.
According to our Google Analytics data, in the past six months, nearly 75% of our users used the website from a mobile device, even more so once an article had gone viral. A goal of this design change was to improve the experience for that largest group of users.
A special shout-out to the 17 readers who used a smart TV to view Streets.mn!
The process to plan and discuss changes began early this year. Active development started in the summer, and we think we’re at a good place to release the changes made so far. This has been a great opportunity to get more familiar with how the website is built and have a new baseline for any future changes we make.
Major Changes
Starting Monday, December 18, you can expect to see the following major changes, among additional minor updates.
- New typefaces that are based on the platform you are using, removing the requirement to download additional fonts.
- Improved color contrast.
- Improved dark mode through better management of colors, if your browser or operating system are set to use it.
- Narrower area for page content to help readers keep their place in long lines of text.
- Dynamic text sizing and balanced line wrapping in headings for more clearly breaking up sections.
- Redesigned contributors’ page to more clearly group authors and support mobile devices.
- Redesigned site header for improved usability (and bring search to the top!).
- Redesigned footer with lists of links to pages on the website and to our social media profiles on Facebook, Bluesky and elsewhere to help readers find more information about us.
- Improved accessibility for readers using text zooming, screen readers and other assistive technology.
- Show authors, categories and published dates for all posts on the homepage.
- Removed the map from the homepage to reflect our current lack of tagging new posts with location.
Feedback
We would love to hear your feedback about the website redesign with our feedback form, which is embedded below. Please let us know if you have anything you especially like, think could be improved or if you’ve found a bug or issue with the website!
We’re looking for ideas on a larger homepage redesign and would be thrilled to hear if you have any ideas or examples that you think would be a good fit for the website.
What’s Next
This phase of design changes is wrapping up, but we plan to work with our editorial committee to continue making changes to the website in 2024. This could include additional changes to the contributors’ page (with different sorting, pagination and search), home page and “recent posts” pages. The update today lays the groundwork and will help make it easier to make additional changes in the future.
We’re eager to hear from you!