Soapbox has been up and running for a few weeks now. I’ve only told a few people about its location because it’s currently so ugly. It’s functional but it’s very hard to look at and the layout needs more than a little help. It won’t remain ugly for much longer now. I’d like to have a pretty site deployed by the end of the month and then I’ll start marketing the site in earnest.

I’m good at making web sites work and I’m awful at making them look pretty. That’s one of the reasons why I’m working with Samedis Design. I met with Rich Powell of Samedis last night to talk about the progress. I was once again amazed at Rich’s artistic abilities and his insights into design and usability. He also shared a number of ideas for enhancements to the site, two of which I’ve already implemented and deployed. I’m extremely excited to be working with him. Soapbox will look absolutely nothing like it currently does when Rich gets done with it. It will be completely transformed from ugly into beautiful.

The decision to focus completely on the functionality and spend zero time on aesthetics turned out to be an excellent decision. I was able to create the site way faster and the end result will look so much better than anything I could have come up with on my own. I never realized how much time I had been spending on previous projects trying to adjust the layout of my screens. When I don’t have to deal with layout and aesthetic issues, it feels like I’m moving at ludicrous speed.