Why I changed Bansko Blog’s website design

Welcome to Bansko Blog’s new web design. A new site site for a new season.

Like when selling an old car, you feel mixed emotions — both relieved it’s out of the way; but also a sense of loss that it is gone.

So it is with the old site. It has served me well for over 3.5 years (with a few small tweaks 2 years ago); but there’s a time it has to to undergo a more thorough update and refresh.

The time has come from me to let go of the old and brush in the new.

I am especially excited for the future of the site as there is lots more under development to further improve the browsing experience. My goal is for more and more visitors to enjoy using Bansko Blog as the Bansko reference site.

A place where you can gain local flavour and arrive as an informed traveller rather that a tourist.

And much remains the same as before. A determinately independent guide and the place for events, weather, web cams, snow, activities and general news.

They say feedback is the most valuable thing one can have, so I would appreciate your suggestion whilst we tweak the design and layout.

Why I changed the design

As Bansko Blog has grown, the shortcomings of the old design were becoming ever more apparent. With over 350 pages and articles, it was becoming a challenge to quickly find the content going back in time.

Overall, I admit it somewhat clunky to use; and a little slow.

And most of all, new visitors could not see the local story of Bansko in both summer and winter seasons.

The general layout sees clutter removed and a simplified structure. Then a matter of customising, organising and coding.

Keeping the site logical to use was the goal. But we had to achieve this whilst ensuring that the most topical, and relevant, information can be found quickly and easily.

Simplified site categories

The complete reorganisation of all the content is now into twelve categories. So most content is no more than two clicks away.

The web cams and content remain the same. You’ll see the introduction of a few sub menus, on the second line menu.

New magazine looks; improved photographic content

My brief was for the new site to still keep the familiar blog style, but to integrate this into a more magazine style format. The purpose was to be able to feature more stories and more photographs — all at a glance at the home page.

White space dominates.

A spring clean of the old site was required to deliver a clean layout, with no distracting elements. The information is more accessible. The solution to enable this was to go for an extended two tier menu system.

Have we achieved the goal of quick access to content without the need to search? I hope so, but your comments are welcome.

It’s not all changed. The larger font size and the two column structure remain the same.

Further improvements

More enhancements to the new site are scheduled. In particular, watch out for a nice display for the info on snow depth, ski lift and piste opening.

The improvements are also been reflected in the Android and IOS (iphone) Bansko apps. To download your (free) Bansko apps click here.

Thank you for reading. What do you think could be better, improved or is now improved? Please comment below.

If you enjoyed this article, then please share it! Connect on twitter, @Bansko / facebook page / pinterest.