Dana Burland

Santa came early for customers of the Steelcase Store site, this year. This morning phase two of my website redesign project —a homepage redesign—went live. Observe the old homepage: ...and the new homepage: Via on-site surveys, I collected research that supported the need for two specific changes: improve navigation and establish a look and feel that matched our high-end products. I shared these concerns in depth, examples from other e-commerce sites and best practices across the web with our web development team. Together, this beauty was built. The new navigation is no longer a brick wall of indistinguishable product names (seriously, do you know what a ‘Bivi’ is?), but a starting point to explore. The longer, more scrollable, homepage means users get to see more of our products before making a click commitment to dive deeper. I think it’s much better—a few weeks of data will determine if users agree. Merry Christmas, online furniture shopping world!

All it did this weekend was snow. Friday night it snowed. Saturday it snowed. Today it snowed. So I lounged. I lounged hard. I lounged too hard, doing so much of nothing on Saturday that I couldn't stomach to do nothing any longer. So Sunday, I didn't lounge. We stayed in and watched five more inches accumulate on top of yesterday's fluff and I found a few projects to keep myself entertained. I made  challah bread . I baked chocolate matzo crunch bars for work. I knit  a few holiday gifts. I read half of my new book . I only left the house once (on an emergency arctic mission for more chocolate chips), but dang it—I could use another day off. Edit: Why is braiding challah so hard! Thankfully this blog post made it so much easier. From right, over two stands, under one, over two. Start again at the right, over two, under one, over two. Duh. :) 

Photos from my weekend of pierogie making and tree decorating .

If holiday glow were a renewable energy, our apartment would surely have fueld half of Grand Rapids this weekend. Friday night I got my host on and threw a ladies (belated) Hanukkah party. Among my favorite holiday memories are repeating the prayers after my dad and eating my grandma's extra crispy latkes. I love exposing Hanukkah newbies to my traditional warm fuzzy moments they're not use to—the latkes most definitely included. My sister and dad lighting the menorah in the pre-Dana days Saturday morning I met my cousins for a lesson in a homemade pierogie recipe passed down from the other side of my family. Why hand-filling and pinching pierogies is not an art form recognized by prestegious museaums is beyond me. It is with a lot of love, patience and a whole heck of a lot of flour that each pillowy potato pasta pouch comes together—and we made 200 of them. That night Ben and I watched the MSU football game and decorating our newly used Christmas tree. It looks funn...

This race marks the first time in a few weeks and the last time in a few months I have/will run. I’m taking the suggestion of my physical therapist and letting my Altras grow a nice layer of dust on ‘em. I’ve been missing my running routine but I’m also plié squat deep into a new workout routine that is harder than any running I’ve done in the last year and a half. Maybe this my-arms-are-so-sore-I-can’t-blow-dry-my-hair soreness is what makes me miss easy Sunday runs. I usually run the Turkey Trot 10K , but downgraded to the ‘Stuffing Strut’ 5K to be safe. By the time my race started, the streets of Detroit had a thin layer of snow, and in some areas ice, packed down by the 10K’ers. So, I raced slowly—partially to be kind to my aching hip, partially not to slip and damage any more parts of my body and partially because slow is my new fast. The initial goal was to run with my dad and cross the finish line under 30 together. I lost him early on and cruised on solo hoping to...