Lexus Enthusiast 5.0
Welcome to the latest edition of The Lexus Enthusiast! Developed over a two-month period, this is the fifth redesign of the site since its debut in May 2007.
First off, some key points:
- The entire site navigation has been simplified and reworked—gone is the needlessly complicated model database, and in its place is a simple top navigation that makes it easy to read news about your favorite Lexus model.
- Image size has been increased by a substantial margin, along with entire content area. This will also mean much larger videos.
- The comment system has been rebuilt and is now uses quoting and direct replies, similar to a forum (and a dash of Twitter thrown in for good measure).
It’s best to think of this redesign as a new “platform”, built to be as light-weight and flexible as possible. The previous site had grown far too complicated under-the-hood, making any improvements difficult and time-consuming. Thankfully, this will no longer be an issue, as all future development will be able to take advantage of this new foundation.
As always, all feedback is welcome. Please let me know what you think (or if you experience any issues) by posting in the comments or sending me an email.
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So far, so good. Thanks!
Wow, neat. Thanks for all the hard work!
I like it! Streamlined and clean.
Thumbs up! The navigation by model feature is especially appreciated.
Love the new site! Keep the the good work!
Everything is virtually perfect.
Not perfect, but Lexus is the same - “Pursuit of Perfection,” just as how Americans are promised the pursuit of happiness but not actual happiness.
I love the simplicity of making words bold, italicized, and into smileys and all the support for pictures, links, replies and quotes are excellent, but the thing is that all the previous comments that were replies are a bit confusing. lol Still, I, well, I love everything! I swear I can go on complimenting your site for quite a while.
Remember how you said the banner on the top of the page was supposed to suggest what you are considering for your next car?
Right now I’d settle for a LFA hot-lap.
lol…
WHY CAN THEY STOP WITH THE SURPRISES AND JUST TELL US STRAIGHTFORWARDLY?!
Your text to link here…
^ whoops…
btw, I meant to say, “Why can’t***...”
wow, this is perfect, the emotes ,the LFA banner, this this and [s]this[/s] and that ctrl+p is very helpful as well.
[s]this[/s] doesn’t seem to work?
and i love the carbon fiber trim on the background, it looks amazing
Excuse-me sir, but links to the site when I read RSS feeds from Google Reader diesn’t work anymore. Will agree if you fix it
The site designs in the past have been superb. I believe you are encountering the Lexus dilemma—how does a person actually improve on “perfection?”
But my goodness, hasn’t this LFA business been fun? Here is a car so technologically advanced, it makes everything else look like it was beaten together with stone hammers. I’ll bet even the Boeing guys who are having so many problems with their carbon fiber 787 parts are impressed.
But the automotive journalists—they are so technologically illiterate they don’t have clue one of what they are looking at. There have been moments when the Lexus guys must have been tempted to label the LFA introduction as their “Pearls Before Swine Tour.”
@Paco: I have fixed the RSS error, thanks for letting me know!
When I browse this site at work I do so with images off (too much download = get in trouble…), the new comments are fantastic, it doesn’t splinter up and go all over the place like with the previous version. Nice work!
Were you using Internet Explorer?
@Tony D: You might want to consider signing up for the daily email digest—that way you can see the article images without loading the rest of the site.
Congrats to Krew for the newly redesigned website. The addition of the smileys & font options was something I was looking forward to. Also the Lexus model bar at the top looks good, better then in lexus.com. Overall everything looks neater.
@LEXUS BOY: That was my intention, to simplify and clean everything up. Glad you like it!
The new design looks really great.. pretty neat