Website cleanup: the updates feed

Lately as the updates feed was getting larger, my old Instagram or Pixelfed-esque image link feed wasn't really working for me. It felt redundant, a little disorganised, and potentially confusing. It also meant long posts that were not strictly designs might get buried. So today I decided to fix that by converting the updates feed into more of a typical feed by giving feed items thumbnails.

The old updates feed

Originally the Updates feed has a section at the top called Highlights which was basically a list of graphic links going to posts that had a thumbnail, usually designs, because I wanted to draw extra attention to those. It deliberately excluded any text-heavy posts that were not strictly about design, like web development or accessibility related posts.

A complete list of posts was underneath with no thumbnails associated with them, even if the graphic link in the Highlights section had one for a specific post.

The latest post on the homepage had the same treatment, with the addition of a brief summary of the post content.

A little boring, but it worked. I thought it didn't stand well enough on its own since all the other graphics on the homepage overpower it.

The new updates feed

Now, there is no more Highlights section. The Updates page starts directly with a post list and RSS feed link.

The homepage gets a similar treatment - a new thumbnail which is aligned with the text.

Another change I made was to change the text alternative for the internal link from Internal Link to just Internal since when browsing with the arrow keys with the screenreader, it becomes redundant with the link itself. To be honest I was thinking of removing it entirely because it might be a nuisance but for now, I want to keep it around to distinguish with the External Link icon on the homepage.

Permalink: https://futurehorizondesign.net.au/posts/2026-05-23-Website-Cleanup-The-Updates-Feed.html