New site launch

UPDATE: I’ve now replaced the “Lorem Ipsum” with actual content, but everything else below is still valid.

Today I launched my new site, but unlike most site launches, it’s half missing. Currently, the only real content is on the homepage and the blog. There are some screenshots of a few websites in the portfolio section, but the text is all “Lorem ipsum”, as is the about page.

So why have I done it? Why would I take down my existing site and replace it with this one? Firstly, this version has no less content as the old site has almost nothing for the about and portfolio sections. If anything, this site now has more content, as there are an additional 2 blog posts.

But that’s not the real reason for launching my site just yet, it comes down to the key benefits of agile/iterative/release early, release often/call it what you will.

1.       Get user feedback
2.       Changing needs
3.       No such thing as a perfect version 1.0
4.       Time
5.       Motivation

User feedback

User feedback is one of the most important aspects of any project. Without this valuable feedback, anything you do is purely a guess as to what you think the user wants. This may traditionally apply more to software/web applications but I think it works with a web site as well.

So what do you think works well and what doesn’t? What sort of content do you want to see in the coming months? Tutorials? Articles? Code?

Changing needs

Not only would I be second guessing what a users goals are with this site, I would also be second guessing what I want to achieve from it long term. If I wanted to release a perfect version 1.0 and then my needs significantly changed, I would either delay version 1.0, or I would probably have to build version 2.0 while leaving the existing site to stagnate.

This way, I can make lots of small revisions to the site and keep releasing them helping me to change direction quicker if need be and making sure the site is always fresh.

Perfection & Time constraints

I can be a bit of a perfectionist, so much so, that it makes me cringe to have to put a hack in place to meet a tight deadline. I could easily find 100 things that need doing/improving before launching this, and then a hundred more. The problem with this is that it would never be 100% perfect – This, coupled with the fact I have no actual deadline for the launch of this site is a huge issue, one that can be solved by releasing it now and constantly iterating it to make it better.

Motivation

One of the reasons my old site stagnated is because there was never any urgency to do anything with it. It was performing well and generating leads. This lack of urgency means I didn’t find the time to do the things I wanted with it, be it more content, promotion or design tweaks.

Now, I will have to make time, not only for the content but also design tweaks. One thing I plan to do more in the future is split testing so as to get a better understanding of what works well and what doesn’t.

Going forward

Now that this site is up, I can just sit here. First, I’ll be replacing all the “Lorem ipsum” throughout the site, then I have a couple of ideas for some interesting articles/tutorials I’ll be publishing in the next few weeks and also some design tweaks to experiment with, including some more colour options (I have a total of 50 colour options to experiment with).

So, what do you think of the site and my reasoning for launching it in this state? Let me know your thoughts in the comments or contact me.