Returning visitors to the site will notice it has been give a facelift. Any opinions on the new look would be welcomed (in the comments below, or contact me directly).

After looking at the profile of website visitors (in particular, the statistics to do with screen-size), the old design wasn’t making the most of the machines being used to view it. The old site was designed to take into account the recommended minimum screen size that should be targeted (800 x 600). However, since the site went live about 5 months ago, there haven’t been any visitors using this size monitor.

A second consideration was the type of browser being used. The majority of visitors use Firefox, with Internet Explorer 7 coming in a close second. There are also still a good number of visitors using Internet Explorer 6. This is something that made the website redesign take a little longer, as this browser doesn’t support a number of recognised Web Standards (which means more time spent fixing all the things that this browser breaks on the website). While it’s not an ideal situation, it is still important to ensure those using your site are catered for, however they choose to view it.

After looking at the content that people are viewing, the new structure should make it easier for users to find what they (emm… you!) are looking for. Hopefully you are finding the new site more usable, and feel free to add a comment or send me a mail to let me know what you think.

So, the lesson learned here is that putting up a website and not touching it again is not enough. Instead, businesses should re-evaluate their site regularly to ensure it is meeting the needs of their customers. It should also be assessed to ensure it’s meeting the objectives laid out when the website was originally developed. There are a range of statistics packages available that can give detailed information on the profile of your websites users and the content being viewed. Using these packages can give useful information that can be used to guide future design and development decisions.