Boxes and website im/perfection
| ~3 minute read
Since I moved to zola I changed the site's layout to probably the most minimalistic it has ever been. I liked it because it looked good enough for a personal blog, it was responsive, performed very well and was extremely lightweight.
Here's what it looked like:
I am more of a minimalist than not, but this feels just too bland. looking at this doesn't make me too happy. This just wasn't doing it for me, and that is why it took me so long to make a "website perfection" post that I planned a long time ago.
Old design stats
Apart from what it looked like, the old design was very lightweight, not only did it have a 100% score on google lighthouse, it was among the top 100 on 512kb.club (yes I counted). According to this report, the homepage only weighed around 10.8kb. That's the lowest I managed to get while also being happy with the design.
New design's im/perfections
I made very little changes to the CSS but the site looks soo much better now. I think this is the best iteration (but that's just what I feel now; who knows about the future)
I just made the main content, header and footer a different color with some tasteful box shadow and a box pattern on the body. Just these basic things have made such a difference
I really dig this redesign. The box pattern adds so much character, even though it's such a simple thing!
Google lighthouse shows.... 100% score? Last time I checked the performance was somehow at 99% so I don't know what happened, but yay we still have a perfect lighthouse score! Now my homepage is at 11.49kb, which is almost a 0.7kb increase. Not too much but we're no longer at top 100 at 512kb.club. Do I mind that? No!
Technically, the new design is worse in performance, but in the grand scheme of things an increase of 0.7kb or 99% lighthouse score is insignificant. Having a personal website isn't about being technically correct, it's about being satisfied with what you deliver.
P.S. 11kb is still insane. The reason it's so small is because minimalism is my thing. If it's not your thing don't fret about it! As long as your page loads in acceptable time these little details don't have any value over what makes you happy!
This is post 11 of #100DaysToOffload