Eminimethods.com 2.0 is finally here!
The original version of this site was launched in mid-December, 2005. That was nearly 8 years ago. June 2013 brings its second version, certainly a bit overdue for things change pretty fast in the world of web technology.
What was great in 2005, was not so anymore 4-6 years later, at least in terms of web design that probably changes faster than anything else on the web, and, as time kept marching on, it eventually became dated and even hard to use with some browsers (such as Chrome), so the need for changes would grow more and more imperative as well.
The second iteration of eminimethods.com sports a new design with improved navigation being its most prominent feature. While working on it, I also tried to keep things simple, as flashy sites are not much to my liking and their pages usually load slower, so the site uses graphics only when it makes sense. In other words, frugally. It is also for this reason that I decided against social buttons, though they may come later if I see that their addition does not deteriorate the website performance in any major way. I am not a big fan of them, either.
When I launched this site in 2005, it was a pretty simple one and so its organization was not an issue. Eight years later this is a rather complex website, more complex than most sites dedicated primarily to trading e-mini futures markets out there and the need for the better organization of its sections and pages is more obvious now. I tried to improve things in this department as well.
I have no doubt that 4 or so years down the road, this site will look as dated as its previous version due to the relentless changes in the web technology, but I am not sure if I will want to redesign it once again. It is easier to build things from scratch than to revamp a relatively complex site with hundreds of pages and over a thousand of various elements. It took me about 2 months of solid work to redesign this site, and it might as well be the last time I have ever attempted this, though small, cosmetic changes to it are expected and can even be frequent.
I would rather focus on content than design, not to mention that this is also where my forte is. Plus, how well-designed a site in a small niche of day trading e-mini futures has to be to be really useful? I think a pretty basic design is just fine. It's always possible to make a site snappier, fancier, trendier, more sophisticated (you name it), but all that takes time and time is hardly something we have in abundance, so a compromise has to be made.
I redesigned the site using no glasses, but I have noticed that it looks even better when I wear them. I mean reading glasses, which I still use rather infrequently. You may want to grab yours to see if this improves things.
I have examined this site in many major browsers (Chrome, Firefox, IE 8, Safari, heck even Netscape!) and it worked well in all of them, so I don't expect any major problems with it, but if you find any glitches (such as broken links, for instance), please let me know.
Posted on June 14th, 2013.