2008 has flown by for us at Nature Network and what a year it has been! We hosted a hugely successful science blogging conference and we’ve grown by leaps and bounds in traffic and users. So we thought we’d end 2008 with a big bang: a makeover.

Today, we unleashed a new and fresh look on Nature Network. And like any good makeover, we have posted the “Before” and “After” screenshots (below). You’ll see that Nature Network now has less clutter and more space in the middle of the page for all the great blog and forum conversations that have made Nature Network such an interesting place to hang out.

Before

After

Below are further details on all the changes we’ve made.

1. We have done away with the left-hand margin, to make more room for actual content. This means that the red login box has been removed. The login link has been moved to the top, right-hand corner of the page.

2. Once you’re logged in, you’ll see that some of the links that used to be in the blue box in the left-hand margin…

…have now been moved to the very top of the page, on the right-hand side. These links include: “Your profile” “Your network” and “Your snapshot”.

3. The rest of the links that were in that blue box can now be found by clicking on the new “You” tab in the main navigation bar.

By removing the left-hand margin, we’ve opened up a lot more space for actual content such as blog posts and forum threads.

4. For each main menu item (Forums, Groups, People, Blogs), we now have a new level of navigation that appears when you click on any of the main menu items. This new navigation takes you to pages that highlight more of the best and most popular forums, groups and blogs. With the new navigation, you’ll be able to more easily and quickly jump to the most interesting content on Nature Network.

For example, under “Forums”, we now have pages that show off more of the most active forums and more forums recommended by the editors.

5. There’s another new item in the main navigation: “Hubs.” Here, you’ll find links to the growing number of city-based hubs on Nature Network, including Boston and London. Soon, you’ll see a tab on this page for our upcoming new hub: New York!

6. Finally, we’ve vastly improved our Forums search. When you now search for, say, “genetics”, you’ll be given results for both forums with “genetics” in the title or description, along with results of forum discussions containing “genetics”.

We hope you like the changes. Let us know what you think! You can send feedback to network@nature.com or post it here.