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Rehab Progress

Just want to keep everyone apprised on the changes I have made thus far. Some have been minor and barely noticeable, but hopefully will prove to make the site more navigable and user-friendly in the long run.

1. The first change I made was the background. I wanted to clean it up a bit, so that all those dots didn’t distract from the material on the page. I kept the matching color to keep the site tied together.

2. I wanted to keep the dots around somewhere…so I incorporated them into the Header Banner for the site. You still get the look, but without the overdone dots on the entire page.

3. That header is now linked to the main page for UrbanCincy (http://urbancincy.blogspot.com). This will come in handy if you link to the site via cinplify or somewhere else and are viewing a single post. Instead of retyping in the url or simply moving on…you can now just click the header and it will redirect to the main page with all of the recent posts.

4. I have increased the width of the content on the page. Previously I was annoyed by how narrow the content appeared on the page. So I tweaked with it and came up with a little wider format that I feel is more visually pleasing.

5. I’ve also added translation buttons for those international readers.

6. I have added a poll at the top of the page. This will stay around, but will change each month. The goal is to continue reader engagement on the site and get people thinking/discussing things about Cincinnati. The more discussion and exchange of ideas the better.

7. Finally…I removed the Google AdSense feature that used to be at the bottom of the page. It really added nothing to the page in terms of content, and just added more clutter in my opinion.

I am still working on another feature that will link to my photography collection, but that is still in the works and will take some time to get going the way I want it to be. If you have any more suggestions please let me know and comment on this post. Or if you would like, you can send me an email and I usually respond quite quickly.

By Randy A. Simes

Randy is an award-winning urban planner who founded UrbanCincy in May 2007. He grew up on Cincinnati’s west side in Covedale, and graduated from the University of Cincinnati’s nationally acclaimed School of Planning in June 2009. In addition to maintaining ownership and serving as the managing editor for UrbanCincy, Randy has worked professionally as a planning consultant throughout the United States, Korea and the Middle East. After brief stints in Atlanta and Chicago, he currently lives in the Daechi neighborhood of Seoul’s Gangnam district.