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In The Red Deeps dot com is the oldest site I currently have online. I went back to it the other day to see if I could come up with some ideas to make it a little better. I found that I liked the overall look and feel of the site, but didn’t like the content areas (the sections that house the content) much and I felt that I really needed to come back to this project with fresher eyes and give the site a bit of a refresh.

One thing that has really changed about my thinking is that as creative as I try to get in my sites, I try to also think as a user. Meaning that my thoughts go through a filter that checks to see if a particular idea will hurt the user or help the user. I obviously want a visit to any of my sites to be a positive experience, not one of confusion and frustration. And too, I don’t want my users missing out on something because I didn’t make it easy for them to discover a feature or section. With this in mind I went back to In The Red Deeps dot com to first look at what needed fixing before I got to wire-framing aesthetic changes. These are the main points I came up with;

{Section: Problem.}

Archive / mp3s: Both sections need to merged into one. There’s no reason to have them separate, it’s just confusing.

Archive / mp3s: Make sure that track listings are shown, or at least have an easy option to show and hide them if space is at a premium.

Archive / mp3s: The first “page” a user should see when they go to this section is something that shows all the albums/EPs/singles available. And each album/EP/whatever’s “page” needs to have a navigation aid (in the footer perhaps) so they can get easily from page to page without having to go to the first page again.

Archive / mp3s: It needs to be clearer if it’s a streaming file or a downloadable file you’re looking at. (I use streaming for short 30s clips of things I’m working on, or previews of songs available to buy, downloadable for freebies.)

Latest: Needs to be more useful. Like a mini-blog of what I’ve been working on lately. Eg. “I’ve been working on a couple of song ideas for a new album”. I might look into Twitter for this as it would make it really easy to keep updated, rather than editing the .fla file and uploading it and worrying about cache problems etc.

People I Like: Oops! I need to ensure that “favorite track” specifies which album it came from. (And I might need to add Juliette and the Licks to that list considering I’ve been listening to nothing else but them for the past month!)

Wallpapers: I either need a(n easier) way to preview them or have much bigger thumbnails.

Contact: The email link needs to be more apparent.

Contact: I need to think of a better address than info@. Yuk how corporate!

Contact: Friends mailing list sign up needs to be easier. Perhaps a text field to enter your email address with a subscribe/unsubscribe button next to it.

I’ll post a copy of the site as it is now to here and that way you can see for yourself what I’m going to fix. Note: if you see nothing when you click that link, just give it a moment. There’s no flash loader script to give you feedback that it’s loading. The .swf is 1.1mb so it won’t take long at all.

When I get onto wire-framing the aesthetic changes I’ll post them too so you get to see how I think and how close (or not) the finished site will be!