A Brave New World: Welcome to the Get Rich Slowly Re-Design
Published on - May 14th, 2009 (by J.D. Roth) 
It’s been a tough day for me — a weekday without a new money-related article. Not posting something new sends me into withdrawal!
It couldn’t be helped, though, as my elves have been helping me roll out the long-awaited redesign around here. I know it’s not flashy or web 2.0, but that’s okay. Get Rich Slowly isn’t, either.
I’m sure there are some things that aren’t working the way we intended or that are simply bad choices. (I hope there aren’t many, but I do expect some.) So, this is your chance to provide feedback on your initial impression.
I set up a Get Rich Slowly site-redesign survey over at Survey Monkey. It’s easy: six quick questions, including space for feedback on what you do and do not like about the redesign. I’d be grateful if you took two minutes to give me your impressions — both good and bad.
Thanks for your patience over the last 24 hours. GRS will be back in the morning with new personal-finance content!
p.s. One thing that just occurred to me: I’ve never really kept a blogroll with links to other sites. Would that interest you? Would you like to see a list of other personal-finance and self-improvement sites that I recommend?
p.p.s. If you still see the old layout, refresh your browser and/or purge your cache!
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Welcome back!!! I’ve been doing a little technical work on my site as well, though nothing near as complex and complete as you!!! Looks nice!
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Looks good. You’re right, it’s not too flashy and 2.0 like, but it’s functional and suits the content well.
I’m not sure about the adsense ad right at the top, generally they take people away from your site (that’s the only way you make money from them, by people leaving), hope it doesn’t affect you negatively.
My only nicer to haves would have been a sharper logo, it’s a bit dithered, and roll-overs on the menu to guide your eye.
Long time reader, first time commenter btw, good work JD!
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The redesign looks good, glad to see you picked a logo from all those options. Are t-shirts next?
As for a blogroll, it would be nice but the only benefit I would likely get from it is if I was on it.
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I would love if you had a blogroll
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LOVE IT!
Keep the content coming. The site design isn’t all that important when the “meat” of the site, your writing is such high quality stuff that get’s us thinking and commenting, you have done a nice job of it though.
My first thought upon clicking the tab was “What the hell?” After I realized it was a new design it only took a minute or two to decide I like it. I love the logo as well, it communicates more than the website name, well done.
TW
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@Weakonomist
I’m hoping for t-shirts and mugs and who knows what else. That’d be fun!
Right now, though, I’m going through and MANUALLY moving over the last few comments that got lost in the update. There are a few important ones that got lost in the ether. T-e-d-i-o-u-s.
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Looks good although I wish you had selected the coin logo. This one is too old school.
Don’t need the dated archives – does anyone actually use those? (Unless you want the SEO links from your home page.)
The bright colors on your sidebar Quicken ads are overwhelming your non-ad sections. In fact, your Quicken ads are brighter than everything. Is that what you intended?
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i’d love to see a blogroll
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“I know it’s not flashy or web 2.0, but that’s okay”
You do not want to go overboard
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Blogroll would be great.
One comment – the site is quite wide on my system, and the right-hand side content is cut off and I have to scroll to the right to read all of it. There’s lots of space on the left, though.
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Love the new design! I’d also love to see a blogroll, I’m always looking for new blogs to add to me reading list.
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I think the new design looks great! I honestly don’t think you have to make it too web 2.0ish because the value is what you bring to the table with your writing. I really like the look and think it pulls attention to the important portion (i.e. your content/writing)
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J.D. The new design is nice! I’m not computer savy but this is one site that I check out regularly. Its nice to have “kindred spirits” even tho we are all from different backgounds and localities. Your writing and content of the site is what draws me here; that and the chance to write back and forth with all of you on this site. Our sharing of ideas and philosophies is fun to read, as well as informative. See ya later!
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I could nitpick plenty (you probably know I’m good at that by now) but overall, I like the new site better. And I do like the blogroll idea, as long as it’s “these are the sites *I* read regularly” rather than “these are sties that said they’d send me traffic if I put a link to them here”. Sort of like being able to see who you’re following on twitter.
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My compliments. The new design is easy to read and navigate. I also enjoy the logo. All that said, what keeps me returning is the outstanding writing on interesting topics. Finally, your podcasts with Jim are fun and informative.
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Site looks good!
check out what Fred Wilson uses for a blogroll (http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2009/04/blogrollr-two-months-later-my-top-ten.html) bit more dynamic than a simple list, and automatically changes reflecting what you’re reading over time.
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While reading your post and the comments, I did not find myself distracted by ad “noise” so I believe you’ve achieved sufficient simplicity.
People naturally read from left to right so I don’t foresee any potential for distraction unless you allow those annoying animated ads.
As for a blog roll, that’s a personal choice for you, J.D. You can borrow my idea if you want but what I do instead of a blog roll is publish a “blog portfolio” once per year that includes a diverse mix of blogs, similar to an investment portfolio, that includes around eight or 10 blogs.
In summary, if you change nothing about GRS from this point, I believe you will still have something outstanding.
“In character, in manner, in style, in all things, the supreme excellence is simplicity.” ~ Henry Wadsworth Longfellow
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Wow — looking good! I love this design over the last one. Very simple, clean and to the point. I love the logo.
A blogroll would be a nice touch. Speaking of blogrolls, I need to update mine…
I think I just link out to WSJ and such… ::goes to find blogs for blogroll::
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Looks really nice!
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I think you can skip the blogroll.
Instead of a bunch of static links, I prefer to see when you link to someone and interact with this person on a case-by-case scenario. Either an interview, or commenting a blog post, or whatever.
It’s more dynamic, more relevant, more conversational. BTW, the posts I like the most are the ones when you describe the conversations you had with friends.
Best,
Diogo
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Love the redesign, actually. It’s much cleaner and easier to navigate than your old theme. I’ve been thinking of switching to something similar for my own blog, in fact. I think the new right sidebar layout will help with monetization, as well. Simple, not too busy, easy to navigate, focus on the content…nice.
As for the blogroll question, it’s probably unnecessary. Most of your readers probably already know of the blogs you’d be most likely to link to (flexo, nickel, etc) and those guys probably don’t need the link juice, either. I’d only do it if you mostly populated it with smaller, less popular blogs your readers probably don’t know about. It doesn’t do much of a service to your readers telling them what they already know, in my opinion.
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I think it looks great JD, but what really matters is How Do YOU Like It?
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Hey JD, First of all the site feels really cool, calm, colorful, pro and attractive (too many adjctvs there
) and the logo also suits exemplifying “Slowly” 
I would like to see blogroll and btw who’ll get the t-shirts???
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I’m a great fan of MoneyRates.com and you have placed that window on the top right just so neatly. I can use it even more frequently now
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i think the new design is a step in the right direction! who do you use for site design, web services, etc?
and yes yes yes to blogroll…and add GloombergNews to it!
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Overall, I quite like it. Very nicely done.
My suggestions would be to add a rollover effect to the navigation and increase the font size on your links to articles on the right.
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The redesign looks great and reads well on a 1024 x 768 monitor. I like the idea of adding a blogroll – it is a good way for readers to find more information related to Get Rich Slowly’s topics.
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Made me come out from behind my google reader. Looks great!
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Love the simplicity of it. Good choice in logos. Congrats, JD!!
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Long-time reader, first time commenter.
I just want to give encouragement on the new design. The old one was rather tired. Good time to switch.
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> One thing that just occurred to me: I’ve never really kept a blogroll with links to other sites. Would that interest you? Would you like to see a list of other personal-finance and self-improvement sites that I recommend?
HELL NO. The entire right colum is just a load of crap. You think anyone gets ANYTHING useful out of that? It’s a wall of text. A wall of worthless junk.
Trim it down to something small, usable and usable or get rid of it all.
Recent articles, “Best off”, money skills, news letter, archive, all the spammy and crappy ads. Get rid of those for starters. Create ONE, ONE page that indexes all your posts in an organized fashion and/or have them sortable. None of this “random crap” on the side bar. Seriously, it’s ugly as hell and not usable or useful at all. Are you retarded, seriously, this stuff people knew was dumb in 2004
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I added all your ads (that aren’t already blocked) to a couple black lists. It’ll propagate out to those sites in 24 – 48 hours. Seriously, animated flash ads are bad.
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Actually, I’m going to go ahead and blacklist and filter out all your stupid side bars while I’m at it.
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wooo-hooo. Looks great (not a professional, just a reader), but the font overall seems small. LOVE turtles, so I’d get that new logo as my next tattoo. Kidding – i’d prefer a CafePress t-shirt when you get around to rewarding my lurker-hood.
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LOVE the turtle.
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I think it looks good, JD.
I don’t know if you kept in mind that not everyone has sooper dooper high speed internet or not, but it’s nice to see a site that isn’t filled with excessively large and flashy graphics.
The blog roll is a good idea so we know what sites you like and may find a new one or two that we don’t already know about.
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So far it looks good, though I never had any problems with the old design.
I tried posting a message on the forum earlier today, but I got an error (“broken link”) message when I clicked “submit.” Was this a casualty of the redesign?
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I really, really recommend adding an option to the quiz, “I get GRS content through my RSS feed and thus never interact with the actual site.”
I want to help and give feedback by taking the survey, but my feedback makes no sense without an “RSS feed” option.
But, then again, this is a site geared towards the mass public, most of whom probably don’t use RSS readers. It may not matter.
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I like the double columns for archives and categories
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love the new design! very clean and fresh! A blogroll would be something interesting to look at while on your site.
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@RJ (#37)
I’ll see what I can find out about the forums. I’ll admit I haven’t paid much attention to them lately…
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Hi JD
Looongtime reader.
I miss the old site
The color scheme of the new site is a bit drab. If the blog titles were something other than black, that would probably help.
Good job on doing all of the work. I’m a bit change-averse, so take what you will from my comment.
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Also, I prefer the old font.
But I do like the improvements to the side columns
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Hey,
I just noticed that a “regular” RSS subscription is either missing or hard to find. I can see the email subscription, but not the regular feed url.
Just a heads up. Still love the turtle.
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Oh! I see it now. I’m an idiot.
I was looking for it near the email subscription thing, since that’s where it usually is.
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JD,
Your efforts to keep us informed and host this exellent blog is appreciated.
Keep up the good work.
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Overall love the new design, but a small quibble. I miss having the number of comments listed at the top of the article. I like to see what other people’s opinions are, and I’m finding it harder to notice activity when the only place to see it is at the bottom of the article.
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Simple and nice, I like it – though I miss the old font too
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Looks good to me. I’ve already forgotten what the old site looked like! A blogroll would be nice, so we could see who you’re reading. Time to head over to the survey…
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I don’t know if it’s just me but I am getting invalid PDF files on some of your links. Could this be because of the redesign? Specifically the PDF’s on this post.
http://www.getrichslowly.org/blog/2009/02/16/save-money-with-regular-home-maintenance/
On another note, the redesign is very nice JD.
Good work!
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