Today, the new NevilleHobson.com makes its appearance – version 4.0 of this site I started writing in 2006.

Not wanting to make a huge deal out of what, essentially, is the installation of a new WordPress theme – like a new wardrobe – I’ve given the site a new look and and a better feel with the News theme from StudioPress running on the Genesis Framework.

If you’re reading this on the blog itself, the design is what you now see and is shown in the right-hand part of the screenshot above, with the left side the previous look of the Thesis theme that I’ve used for some years.

My goal is quite simple – enable a website that has a minimalist appearance, is quick to load, easy to navigate and lets you quickly find the content you want to read, watch or listen to. I felt the previous design was getting too blinged out with tweet streams and widgets here and there; it was slow loading and required a lot of maintenance.

The major obvious change to the previous design is how content is presented on the home page. Before, you’d find the full content of five posts, resulting in a lot of scrolling which tests your patience. Now, you see an excerpt from the first part of each post plus its accompanying image so you can read the ones that interest you while you only need a click or two to see what there is in total on the home page.

A big appeal of this News theme is that it’s been developed to be mobile responsive, meaning it will work equally well on a desktop computer screen as it will on a smartphone screen or a tablet screen without the need for a separate theme or – worse – no separate theme at all.

Unfortunately, it’s the one thing that I can’t get working properly; with some help from StudioPress, I hope to have it fixed soon. In the meantime, if you visit on a mobile device you should see the site fine via the WordPress Jetpack mobile theme.

The design is almost out of box as the theme comes, just some typographical tweaks here and there plus a little bit of personalization. The News theme is fully widgetized which offers interesting design and other possibilities. I’ve not used any of that – minimalism in overall presence is what I looked for. And it’s not yet final – call it a work in progress. But the key things are here: posts, pages and related content.

If you subscribe to this blog’s content via RSS or email, or read the content syndicated elsewhere, you won’t see the new design. That’s ok – please continue to enjoy the content! But why not pop over for a look?

Let me know what you think. Thanks.