Annie’s Eats is getting a bit of a makeover. We are always working to make the site more user friendly, and I think the newest set of changes does that in a big way. The best part? All the enhancements are live right now. But before you run off and start exploring, check out a tour of some of the most exciting features below.
We’ve been working incredibly hard behind the scenes the past few months to make Annie’s Eats responsive. What this means for you is the site will automatically restructure itself based on the screen size you are accessing it from. No more pinching and zooming. Menus, text, images and most importantly, recipes look great whether you are on a desktop, iphone or anything in between. Go ahead, pull the site up on all your devices and check it out. Which bring us to our next feature…
Mobile traffic to the site has been growing exponentially the last few years, which tells me more and more of you are cooking from your phones and tablets. Starting today, we are going to make that experience much easier. We are proud to introduce cooking view. If you click on the cooking view icon (the orange square shown below) from anywhere on the site you will immediately be presented with a view of that recipe built specifically for ease of use in the kitchen. This stripped down view features an ingredients list that stays stationary for easy reference and cooking steps that are presented so that you can swipe through as they are completed. You can even cross out ingredients out as you gather them. I’ve come to rely on this new feature and I’m sure you will too.
I am often asked about grouping recipes and dishes that go well together for a particular type of event or season. We have developed a section of the site that allows me to present complimentary cuisine in and easily accessible and interactive way. In the main navigation you will see an additional tab labeled Menu Builder. You can collapse and expand the various groupings to unveil the recipes I have chosen and read a bit about why I think they go well together. You can even jump right into cooking view from the menu builder. I’ll be updating this page frequently with seasonally relevant groupings, so be sure to check back often.
Another big feature that we have added is alternate display options for blog content. Gone are the days of scrolling for five minutes to get to the bottom of the first page. After the most recent post, older posts are gathered into previews so that you can see much more on page one of the site. You can still jump right into to cooking view from a full post or a preview post. And if you are looking for even more of an editorial experience, there is now a toggle at the top of the sidebar to turn the entire layout into more of a pinboard feel, truly maximizing the amount of posts viewable on page one.
My crazy talented team at Second Street Creative has worked hard to make the site more user friendly and I am so thankful for them. We have done our best to make these features available on all browsers but you may be prompted to download a more modern browser if you are running something too old to handle all of the amazing functionality we just added. One more fun update is still on the way, but for now please explore the new site and let us know what you think. I hope you love all of these new features as much as I do.
