The Work Edit: How to Use the New Features

Aug 7, 2017

Love the new design?  Explore the new features and make sure you don’t miss a single post.

Nine years ago, I launched Capitol Hill Style to provide Washington, D.C.’s women with a fashion blog for real life.  I wanted my blog to reflect my needs and the needs of other professional women.  Caring about your professional life means caring about how you present yourself.  But for the past couple of years, the design of this blog hasn’t allowed me to present my content in the best way possible.

Today, living in a new city, with readers in all 50 states and a handful of foreign countries, I’m excited to launch The Work Edit, 2.0.  This redesign not only provides a new layout, but also a renewed focus on this blog’s original purpose.  Thanks to some new design features, I can create content that will be both useful and beautiful.

In addition to the new visual options, I’ll be launching some new features.  I’ve asked my friend Sarah, a frequent traveler, to write a new travel column.  I’m also bringing back the career advice and discussion posts, where we can share our thoughts on advancing and thriving in our careers.  And I’ve been working with a photoshop instructor and a photographer to create more appealing visual content for the blog.

So let’s go over the new layout so that you can make the most of the new (and relocated/redesigned) features and content.

The Workday Reading. New Workday Reading posts will no longer appear at the top of the page.  They are now organized in their own spot midway down the page.  If you’re concerned about missing a post, please subscribe to The Workday Reading via e-mail in the box in the righthand sidebar.  You can also find their category tab at the top of the page.

If you want to know when to look for them, they regularly post on Monday, Wednesday and Friday before noon.

Meet The Edit. There are three new features on the blog encompassing The Edit.  The Monthly Edit showcases items that are perfect for right now.  From the splurge worthy to the practical, these are the things that drew my eye this month.

In addition to the monthly edit, there is a Beauty Edit that features my favorite products.  It will be updated regularly to feature the items that I’m loving right now, and the ones I can’t live without.

Finally, there is a Book Edit.  Now that law school is over and the bar completed, I have time to read again and I’ve been sharing a few of my picks in The Workday Reading.  I’m not a book critic, but this format allows me to do short reviews on the books I’ve finished.

In the middle of the homepage, you will find The Weekly Edit.  These are the three products that I’ve recently discovered.  This week, we have an awesome pair of Zara sandals, my new morning smoothies, and the shampoo that is giving my hair new life.

Ask The Edit. New posts answering reader questions will appear at the bottom of the homepage.  You can also submit questions for Ask the Edit through a form in the left-hand sidebar.  No need to e-mail them.

If you don’t want to remember to look for a new post, I would recommend reading in an RSS reader, subscribe to have posts e-mail’ed to you, or follow me on Twitter and Instagram (I’m going to be sharing new content via tweets and Instastories).

Thank Yous.  First off, I want to thank all of you for reading this blog.  When I started it, I never imagined I’d still be writing it nine years later.  I stuck with it in large part because talking with you ladies became the best part of my day.  So thank you for sticking around while I saved up the money to do this right, found the right designer and developer, and worked through the design process.  We’re still working out the kinks, but it’s come a long way.

Also, thank you to Katelyn Calautti and Beth Alessi who designed and re-built this blog.  Katelyn was patient through all of my questions and requests.  She brought a lot of great ideas for how to improve my content through design, and I hope you love what she thought up as much as I do.  And to Beth, who lovingly transferred nearly 2,000 posts and built this site from idea to finished product, thank you for teaching me how to use all the new features and sticking with it through all the bugs.

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  1. Jen says:

    It’s gorgeous!

    I”m finding that my RSS feed does not do it justice- formatting and pictures are lost. Is that something that can be remedied?

  2. Michelle says:

    Excited about these changes! Ditto – formatting and links are not coming up in my Feedly either.

  3. Kelsey says:

    It looks fantastic. Congrats!

  4. V says:

    Echoing Jen and Michelle – I use Bloglovin and since the redesign the posts appear as a solid block of text with no pictures and no links. I’m happy to click through it to read directly from the website, but wanted you to be aware of the issue.

  5. Kim says:

    Another one having trouble with my RSS feed. Most of the formatting is lost, pictures and links don’t appear at all.

    The site is beautiful, but it seems a bit complicated. Can’t remember the last time I needed instructions for navigating a website. But it looks awesome and I’m excited for the new content.

    • Belle says:

      Mostly the explanation was to show off the new features, but if the format ends up being too much for users, we’ll do something less complicated.

  6. Meghan says:

    I think it’s extra cool that you hired women for your tech team. Congratulations on the redesign!

  7. Ann c says:

    Enjoy your content, but this redesign is much too complicated & convoluted for my taste.

    • Sara C says:

      Have to say I agree–I love the blog normally, but find this new formatting to be overwhelming, hard to navigate, and frankly frustrating. In this day and age, content should be intuitive—you should not require a user-guide to read a basic blog. Too hard to find if there is new content and where it is, and I definitely don’t want to subscribe to any newsletters/emails.

      • Belle says:

        Like I said above, if this doesn’t work long term we’ll look at changing it. Just because I wrote a post explaining where to find new content, that doesn’t mean you couldn’t have figured it out by just using it.

  8. Kate says:

    Gorgeous! I love the new format and style and am so excited that the career advice pots are coming back as well! I would have been lost without your blog when I moved to DC five years ago and have been a loyal reader ever since.

    One tiny typo you might want to fix: “I’m not a book credit, but this format….” I believe it should read, “I’m not a book critic.” (Only pointing it out because I’d want to have it pointed out to me!)

    Thanks for all you do!

  9. Katelyn says:

    Congrats my love. Cheers to being an amazing woman and multi-talented PROFESSIONAL boss lady that juggles and does life the best way. It was such a pleasure working with a smart woman who knows what her and her READERS like. I’m over the moon for how this turned out. You should be so proud. PS Your intro post is so detailed and amazing, I couldn’t have even said it better myself. xo

  10. Cat says:

    I think the color scheme and style are pretty, though looking for new content in multiple places (rather than just scrolling down) will take some getting used to. Most blogs I read have just one main “feed.”

    May I suggest that you not have the “subscribe” box pop-up on every view? I prefer to keep my email uncluttered and as such won’t be subscribing, and I note you’ve given the option to subscribe prominent placement anyway.

    Lastly, one graphics-related note – in two places, I see a square amidst the text, first in the “join the list” area (before “to stay up to date”) and second in the “dress for the job you want” graphic (before the word “want”). Viewing on Chrome.

    • J says:

      Agree with the above regarding the subscribe pop up, and echo the thoughts about looking at different places for new content–definitely used to just scrolling down a chronological list on most sites. However, it looks great, aesthetically speaking!

    • Anna says:

      I agree with this. I love the style and the blog does look very pretty, but it is harder to find new content. I also don’t want to sign up for more emails, so it makes it harder to come on the site and figure out if something new’s been posted. I’d be interested to know the thinking behind setting it up this way. Was it stylistic or in preparation for a changing focus or purpose for the blog?

      • Belle says:

        Well, I moved the workday reading based on reader feedback that the blog was becoming too focused on that post. The feeling was if we moved it to a different location we could minimize it’s focus.

        As for The Edit, it was just a way to add new content easily when I find something I love but there’s not enough there to write a whole post about it.

    • Belle says:

      The subscribe box is only supposed to pop up once. If it’s popping up for you every time, I’ll get on fixing that because that definitely is annoying. For the boxes, if you wouldn’t mind, send me a screenshot so I can forward it on. You can still find me at capitolhillstyle at gmail.com

  11. KLC says:

    I have to echo the sentiments of a few other readers. While I love the look and layout of the new design, I really am finding it difficult to find content. I really miss having the content in chronological order, and one way around that would be a subscribe button, but don’t want to have to subscribe to two types of post resulting in two separate emails. Again, just to try and end on a more positive note, your content always is incredible, and your style is always on point. However, I am struggling with the new design very much.

    • Belle says:

      Let me clarify, if you subscribe using the first option you will get all the posts. No need to subscribe twice. There is just the option to subscribe to ONLY the Workday Reading.

  12. SC MD2 says:

    Like many of the other commenters, I like the new streamlined aesthetics of the website, BUT the site is a bit harder to navigate now since it feels like it’s been fractured into 3 sub-sites.

    Could you please consider linking this “explanation/navigation post” either in the about section or on the right sidebar?

  13. Prague says:

    Have to agree with the other comments – this is complicated enough I nearly missed the explanatory post! I don’t subscribe to anything or I’d subscribe to everything. Plus, I can’t take a week off and catch up easily by scrolling through. Looks great, just not easy to use.

    LOVE the work, Belle. I hope this wasn’t too harsh.

    • Belle says:

      It’s good to know what doesn’t work for user experience. I’ll give it a couple of weeks to see if people adjust, if not, we’ll look at making some changes. My boyfriend always says user experience is like a joke, if you have to explain it, it’s not working.

  14. Susie says:

    Your new updated blog is WONDERFUL, nothing less that perfect!

    Cheers,

    Susie

  15. Adrianne says:

    Sorry to say I agree with the previous comments. I only have time and space in my life to read blogs in Feedly on my phone and it is super confusing in this format, and It would get even more lost in my email inbox.

  16. Christina says:

    hi belle! the new format definitely looks beautiful, but it sure is hard to navigage! it’s probably because I’m not incredibly tech savvy and also because i read the blog on my phone. i knew you had written this how to use the new blog part one, and came to the website to try to find it, and the only way i could figure out how to get to it was to go to the newest post and then hit “older post” through the last couple to finally end up here. but this does seem to be a new trend in blog websites. i thought i could give you a suggestion, grace from the stripe did a new fangled layout, but then has a sub page called thestripe.com/blog for those of us who like to read things in chronological order. just an idea to keep everybody happy and to not have to lose the layout I’m sure you worked so hard on!

    also, i LOVE the workday reading posts, they’re my favorite part of the blog! (i did take your survey a few months ago, but maybe i was in the minority)

    • Belle says:

      The blog page might work. I’ll look into it. Thanks.

      I think a lot of people like those posts, I like them, but many readers expressed that they wanted more fashion content, so we were just trying to refocus. Thanks for the idea.

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