Design*Sponge » Blog Archive » new section: budget-friendly design

over night we made a few small changes at d*s and i just wanted to point them out quickly. if you look above this post you’ll see the top bar menu has changed slightly: in addition to a biz ladies page (new dates will be announced in january!) where our information docs are available to download, we’ve removed the job board (sadly it just didn’t generate enough interest) and added a new page: budget-friendly design.

with the economy being what it is, i know it’s important for everyone to have options that are easy on your wallet. so from now on i’ll be tagging posts that are budget friendly and they’ll appear on that page with a little thumbnail image to explain what the post is about. for me, diy posts are a great way to keep costs down, but i won’t be tagging them there because at this point there are so many on d*s that it would push everything else off the page. so the budget page will focus on cost-focused product roundups and posts that have a specific budget angle. i hope this will help with our tightening budgets. stay tuned for our budget-friendly holiday gift guides after thanksgiving!

also: we’ve added the “in the kitchen with” recipes and all d*s videos to the left menu bar (they havr the word “new” in bold next to them)

It’s obvious you’re thinking about your readers by offering the budget-friendly section. The sincerest thanks from all of us; we all want beautiful homes to love and enjoy, and we’re grateful to you for making it less expensive but no less fabulous.

thanks guys- i’m trying to come up with a good way to inject regular budget friendly content into the site (on a weekly basis). should have something ready for next week.

i don’t want to go too budget crazy and focus on cheap disposable things but rather find a way to round up quality design at a reasonable price.

I’d like to suggest that you also add Guest Post to the link column on the left – and include those guest posts on the DS homepage as they come – I’ve always been confused about why you keep guest posts so hidden. I think a lot of us forget to read them because of that, and it’s a shame.

Ah – now I see the guest blog link is at the top! I never even noticed those links up there before! Why not just have all category links on the left, instead of some at the top and left?-It would be more userfriendly that way.

julia

the guest blog posts are far from hidden. there is a link to the guest blog in the top menu and i tout the guest blog posts in the main column on a regular basis (in most cases on a daily basis).

i don’t like when the blog’s front page is so full of content that you have to keep scrolling and clicking “previous posts” to get current content- so i’m not comfortable with adding the guest blog posts on the main site. it’s just too much on one front page for me.

in addition- i like guest bloggers to have their own separate place to speak- i purposefully invite people with different tones, themes, and opinions than mine so i like their voices to be a separate and distinct part of the site.

one last thing- statistically, the guest blog posts are one of the most popular parts of the site, so i don’t think they’re being missed or overlooked by most readers. i check column stats pretty regularly to see if any area needs to be better showcased- because the last thing i want is for anyone’s hard work to go unnoticed.

grace

we’ve tried having everything on the left and found that the links towards the bottom don’t get clicked very often, so i put some of my favorite features up on the top menu.

i chose to put information about the site on the bottom left because i felt it was less important than content, which i always try to keep up top and above the fold.

Oh, thanks for posting about the changes! I didn’t notice, but I’m excited about the budget-friendly idea. Although the definition of “budget-friendly” probably differs from person to person…

Kristan

I totally agree. For our purposes it will mean “Under $100″ in general. I will definitely keep that in perspective though, because a $100 pencil is not the same as a $100 table in terms of a great deal ;)

Grace

I’m love the changes – especially seeing the Biz Ladies meetups. I couldn’t find the information the other day when I was looking for a particular set of notes and now it’s right at my fingertips!

Thank you!

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