Baby Steps...

As soon as Joli asked us to help redesign the website, we started work on a basic layout. We weren't sure at first how much of a change they really wanted, so we tried to keep it at least somewhat similar to the existing design.

Website version .01

Step one was to strip out all of the random links and "ads" that no one probably even saw. Again, we wanted the main page to be no more than a single screen; if it made the user scroll, it had to go.

Step two was to rearrange the left menu a bit. We grouped the links a bit more logically and added indents for grouped items. We also added a basic menu across the top of the page of the links we felt were the most important.

We placed an Announcements section at the top. It's not really evident in the screens from the previous website, but any announcements, lost pets, etc. appeared under the "Welcome to HART!" text. We wanted give them their own area so they would stand out more.

Other small changes, the "HART Spotlight" became "Featured Pets" and got bigger, the Events section moved up the page a bit, and "Overlooked," "Special Needs," and "Needs Fosters" lost their images and were condensed a bit to make it above the fold.

Website version .02

We made a slight revision of this layout later on. The biggest changes were losing the color behind the left menu and the "Events" sections.

In addition, "Events" became "Upcoming Events" with a heading that matched the Announcements heading. We also added a "Fund Raising" section. This section would have some of the more "ad" type things, such as the Awesome Sauce, GoodSearch, etc.

On one hand, we like this second version because it had more white space, and felt more open, but at the same time, it is a bit boring.