We would like to thank everyone who has submitted a survey response with feedback and a list of any bugs or concerns you may have found while reviewing your site in the early preview of the redesign we provided in our Dev environment. To date, we’ve received 87 responses, and you’re still welcome to submit one if you haven’t yet.

A Second Dev Refresh in April 2021 May 17th May 14th, 2021

Our team has spent the last couple of weeks closely reviewing the feedback, comments, and bug reports you’ve sent in and we appreciate the time and effort you took in doing so. We used your submissions to create a punch list of changes so we can incorporate as much of your feedback as best practices, accessibility, and adherence to the new branding standards will allow. This includes exploring other calculations for dynamic font sizing to improve usability on all screen sizes as font size, by far, was the biggest issue mentioned.

At noon on May 14th we’ll begin performing a complete wipe of the existing Dev server and republishing all your sites again to display them with our latest redesign updates for a second review. What you see in the next refresh is another preview, not necessarily a final version since we still have issues in our backlog to be addressed that won’t be ready in May.

We’re hoping, by incorporating your feedback and bug reports, we’ll greatly minimize the amount of work you may feel is necessary to “make it look good” and instead allow you to focus on any subtle adjustments necessary such as column layouts or block positioning. Our senior developer, Mark Miller, has outlined the need for changes to the number of columns used in order to optimize page presentation across multiple devices. We recommend you review his recommendations to plan for how you may need to change your layout choices once the redesign is released.

If you have made any changes to your Dev site you would like to keep—code or visual references—we encourage you to take down a copy of the code or take a screenshot and save it to a safe spot elsewhere. When we’re prepared to share the second preview we’ll need to completely erase the existing sites currently in the Dev environment in order to present the latest versions.

We’ll also be sending you a link for a second survey when we announce the release of the redesign refresh closer to the end of the month. Just as we did in the first survey, we would like to get your overall impressions and give you the chance to submit comments, questions, and any bug issues you may have spotted in this second iteration.

New Redesign Launch Date - Late June mid-July July 10, 2021

Many of our users have expressed serious concerns with our originally proposed launch date of late April or early May citing the amount of work potentially necessary to make one or a multitude of sites look appropriately clean and professional in such a short span of time. We’re moving the launch date to after graduation in late June mid-July July 10th, both to give us a chance to make requested changes and for you to make adjustments as you feel necessary, though you may want to minimize your work until you see the second refresh to your copied site in the Dev environment. When we’ve finalized the theme design work, we will be sending out an announcement with the official date for the launch so everyone is prepared.

We would like to remind you that your site in the Dev server is a clone. You can experiment as much as you like and it will have no impact whatsoever on your live site. Please also be aware that any work you do in Dev will not be copied back to your live site or saved for any longer than strictly necessary for this process.

Thank you for working with us

Again, we want to thank you for your frank responses, questions, and concerns during the early stages of our redesign. You have been a source of great ideas and thoughtful feature requests since SiteFarm launched, and we consider ourselves lucky to have such an engaged community of users who not only want to use our service but collaborate to make it better. Your time and involvement are always appreciated.

As ever, let us know if you have questions or concerns.

Thanks,
Your SiteFarm Team