One of my favorite public deceptions between businesses and consumers is any sign, placard, or web text that begins with the phrase: ‘To serve you better…’ Almost every time, the phrase is followed by an action that doesn’t serve you better, at all, and in fact serves the organization that made the sign:
- To serve you better, we’ve removed all humans from the bank lobby and replaced them with ATM machines.
- To serve you better, we’ve added a surcharge to an on-line ticket transaction that actually costs us less to complete.
In the spirit of that socially accepted sham, I have reconfigured and shuffled the design and structure of this weblog…why? To serve you better.
Gone is the long and complex ArtsJournal navigation bar on the left side of the page (you can still get to the main ArtsJournal site by clicking the logo at the top of the page). I’ve also squished and shuffled elements on the right-side column. I hope it cleans up the look and feel. But at the end of the day, I did it because the site felt, to me, like it needed a sprucing. If it serves you better, it’s a happy accident.