Well hello there future reader! It is the first of July as I am typing this, and I am currently working on the UI/UX of GIA GAIA to make sure it’s better than before. It’s been more than a year since my last post, and in that post I made a promise to revamp said project. Yes, I introduced a name and stuff, but that’s really about it. Right now, however, I really would like to talk about why it has taken me so long to get back to the project.

Why so long?

I think it’s safe to say that one doesn’t find the motivation to do things unless they are extremely bored and have nothing else to do. For the past few months, I have been dealing with tons of things that are not at all related to my social presence (not that I have a glaring obviously one, but let’s just slide that under the carpet for now; we’ll work on it). When I first came up with this blog, I didn’t have much of an idea about what I was using or what I was doing, and while I put all my effort into understanding things, I didn’t put up a fight to properly use them. I came across things I wanted, and I loosely slapped them on it. I didn’t take into account that besides the content, the whole interface needs to be appealing as well. Over the past few months, I have argued with myself about moving the whole project to Substack or the likes, so that I don’t have to worry about meta-details, but every single time I have concluded that what I have been working on is far more valuable. This blog doesn’t really generate much of a revenue, it’s really just an output for me to blatantly share ideas and say whatever I want, but I have done neither of those because of that lingering need of changing up the UI to make it enthralling.

So that covers why I haven’t been writing as much, and the reason I haven’t focused on the revamp is because well you get discouraged when you see a large codebase, and have tons of ideas in your mind - all trying to make their way into our reality. The original creator of this Jekyll theme is Michael Rose. And I am by no means calling his work unmanageable - in fact it’s very well documented, and has continued to showcase its seamless experience despite my no-thought just-tack-it-on add-ons. The way I have dealt with it is something that I can’t exactly manage, however, and as such I am trying to rework things bit by bit. I think almost all of the world has shifted to beautiful components with curves and whatnot, and I think it’s time for us to jump on that train as well. Since this is a science blog (for the most part), I am also planning to add things that either enhance the interface in that aspect, or complement my writing for the better.

My goal

About a month ago, I downloaded a music player app. It’s more of a playground project sort of thing, and I just wanted check it out. Despite its newborn-label and the fact that the main offering is listening to the music, it came to my notice that I absolutely hated the UI. To sum up in one word, it was incoherent, and that’s something that GIA GAIA was turning into with every thing I added without a thought.

I have been doing my research and looking into proper interfaces. And this time around, my main goal for this project is simplicity - making sure it gets the things across in a minimalist way while not lacking any features. The interface should be friendly, simple and coherent. I believe we already have the friendly side of things. Simplicity is out there, and I won’t mess with it too much, but coherence is something I need to ensure by myself all the time. I have decided to not have two themes - a dark theme should suffice for all. Sure, the option to change things would be lovely, but I am not sure if devoting my time to both right now is the best thing (also dark rocks!). I am also playing with different color schemes, and you’re probably seeing it all right now.

The (second) name change

Oftentimes we try to be different from the norm just for the sake of it that we forget the obvious - I think that’s something that might have happened to me when I was deciding the name for this blog. I completely overlooked that I could just name it GAIA and be done with it; it suits the way I want it to be pronounced, and it quite literally stands for “Generally An Information Arsenal”.

Aren’t ya wonderful for reading this far?

Either way, this post is oriented more towards the people who are curious about the history of this blog because you’re probably seeing the finished work right now. And I thank you for sticking around and reading this. Means a lot!