So, why the delay?  The truth is that this update is really big and I want to make sure it is done right.  A lot of attention is being given to even the smallest details of the site and I have some completely new things up my sleeve that I haven’t even announced yet.  So stay tuned!

I wanted to bring our readers a little taste of what is coming to DANK.org this summer, and I thought all of you may enjoy playing around with the new Interactive German-American Journal which is embedded at the top of this post.  This will be how our online archives will be displayed and it will make viewing the paper online more life-like.  For those of you who like to download the paper, that option will still be available.

For now, feel free to test out the new feature with our latest issue.  Click on the embeded journal above to go into full screen mode.  Also, your feedback is always welcomed.

Enjoy!

It has been a little over a month since the last mention of the redesigned DANK.org.  The new site is still on schedule, and that schedule has the website launching this summer!  Over the last several weeks I have been developing a roadmap for the website and deciding which features will be included with the initial launch.  We have some great features coming, including automatic site translation into German, new travel content, improved membership services and signup, tighter forum & blog integration, chapter pages and more!

The updates won’t just stop there… work is also underway on another update in the fall (not another redesign, but added features).  As the summer release gets closer, I will create a series of posts that take a more in depth look into the major new features.

Revising the Current Content

When DANK.org got it’s major facelift last year, we essentially took the old website and gave it a new look.  There was some new content and a few new features like the blog and forum, but around 80% of the content was unchanged.  The goal was to completely update the content after the initial launch in February last year, but in reality it did not happen.  So that is one of the main goals of this new update…to tackle the remaining 80%.

Keeping Up-To-Date on Design Trends

The web is constantly evolving, and what once looked fresh and up-to-date now looks stale.  DANK’s current website design was done back in 2008, and at the time it featured design elements that were popular.  2009 saw some large changed in design trends, and DANK.org quickly looked outdated.  There has also been a change in the way people are accessing the web.  More and more people are visiting websites using a mobile device and it is important to have a site that functions well on touch screen phones and devices.

Working Out the Bugs

One of the most time consuming parts of managing a website is to make sure everything works they way it is supposed to.  The current website has quite a few bugs in its current form, and part of the difficulty in fixing them has to do with problems in the websites core structure.  Not only that, but when designing a website it is important to make sure it looks the same on all web browsers.  59% of our visitors use Internet Explorer, 25% use Firefox, and 13% use Safari.  Designing a site for that works for that 59% is what takes the most time and effort.  Internet Explorer does not follow the official standards that are in place for web design, but since a majority of web users still use it, the time has to be taken to create workarounds so that it looks the same as the standards compliant browsers.  To make a long story short, a lot of work is being done on this new site to make it look and function the same in all major web browsers.

Hopefully I have answered a few questions and in future posts I will be giving a sneak peak of the new design, and detail some of the new features.  So check back frequently for the latest updates!

We have some really exciting changes coming to DANK.org this year.  Over the next several weeks I will be posting some details on the new DANK.org, which will definitely be getting huge redesign.

Stay Tuned!

After digging through pages of code, the problem is finally resolved, so if you’ve tried to register and got stuck with this error please try again.  If you come across problems with any part of our website, please send me an email at website@dank.org as soon as possible so that the issue can be fixed.  DANK’s website is growing everyday, and the larger it gets, the harder it is to find problems like these.

There are two ways you can post your suggestions… by leaving a comment on this post or by writing it on the corresponding page of our discussion forum.  Both ways will work.

I am looking forward to all of your suggestions!