Redesign / rethink check list

Apart from the obvi­ous need for a visual over­haul (some­where down the line the design just sort of self destruc­ted), I’m think­ing of going through all my code once again, as I’m not quite happy with the lack of lean­ness. It almost val­i­dates so that’s not the goal — it’s more of an exper­i­ment to see if I can make some real improve­ments while test­ing a few new tricks here and there.

First of all I’d like to rethink the struc­ture of the con­tent — too much going on at the front page, not enough atten­tion to the goal of the blog, which, by the way, need some more thinking…I even promised a mis­sion state­ment on the future of my dig­i­tal home after last year’s blog­fo­rum. About time to blog the con­tent of that document…

But it’s time to drag out the good ol’ IA and UI skills while keep­ing focus on the con­tent — this is a weblog. What are best prac­tice weblog wise? How to respect con­tent, serve it in var­i­ous ways, pro­vid­ing thoughts on the ideas behind etc.?

So far, I’m think­ing of (in no par­tic­u­lar order):

• Doing a more clean front page design
• Arrange archives in a more intel­li­gent way
• Pro­vide feeds with var­i­ous con­tent combinations
• Keep a page updated with the var­i­ous plu­g­ins, hacks etc. used in build­ing the site
• Exper­i­ment with mix­ing types of con­tent in sin­gle view
• Seri­ously worh with lan­guage and com­mu­ni­ca­tion (need to. badly.)
• More tech and dev. Less rant­ing (as if…)
• More com­mit­ment to the stuff sur­round­ing us; gad­gets, orga­ni­za­tion, soft­ware I use etc.
• Play and exper­i­ment more with dif­fer­ent tools
• Nice urls
• High­t­light addi­tions to the blogroll — explain why

And so on and so on…

What do you like to be on a blog? Any spe­cial fea­tures you love at some blogs and miss at oth­ers? Any par­tic­u­lar struc­ture that works for you? I’ll update this list as progress is made. Com­ments greatly appreciated.