We’ve launched a new design for our website! This new design maintains our classic look and feel while making it much easier for new (and existing) customers to find the information they are looking for.
Since we launched OpenDNS over two years ago we’ve learned a lot from our users. That’s largely because it’s no secret that we’re huge fans of feedback. There are two pieces of feedback about our website that we receive most often.
- People love the signature OpenDNS look and feel. We consistently hear this bit of positive feedback from our customers and our friends at other Internet companies. We knew that as our website matured we had to keep it true to its roots.
- People say they find our message to be a bit confusing. This is because our service appeals equally to parents at home as it does to network administrators at large companies. We’re too technical for the parents who want a safer Internet — and we aren’t technical enough for the IT guy who wants to know how it works.
To fix this we realized that we need to talk differently to our different audiences. This seemed unintuitive to us at first, but over time it began to make sense. While our service is the same for everyone, the benefits of OpenDNS are different to different people. Our goals for this new site were to better recognize the different audiences who use OpenDNS and explain our benefits to them more clearly without losing the simplicity of our old site.
We hope you will browse around and let us know what you think.
PS: There is a ton of new copy, so if you find any typos or grammar mistakes please tell us about them and we’ll send out some t-shirts to our best copy editors. I’m looking at you, mom. 
David Russell
I love most of the new updates to the site design. Terrific job!
The only thing I don’t really like is the new home page. Specifically, I feel like there isn’t enough going on above the fold. Because of that and because of the low contrast of the body background color and content background color, it wasn’t immediately noticeable that the home page had “tabs” on it. Once I found them, it made sense—it just wasn’t immediately clear. I do love the speed at which the content loads, including the tabs. Even though there are large images on each tab, the load time seems superb.
So high praise from me on the general direction of the new design and kudos for clearing the path for new customers to the goodness that is OpenDNS.
posted on September 8th, 2008 at 1:59 pm
Dave Innerbichler
Thanks for the specific tab for K-12 Schools. That makes it much easier to present to our school community. I’ve only just discovered your service, and I can see the benefits, so I’m in the process of communicating it up the line.
Dave Innerbichler
Technical Resource / Webmaster
St. Joseph Catholic School
Placentia, CA
posted on September 8th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Ben Pintilie
I do like the new look and feel to the website - my only thought would be the same as David Russells.
Please move the K12, Home Network, Small/Med and Enterprise tabs to the top rather than the bottom of the page and give better contrast to make it more obvious.
One thing I do like is the great contrast at the top of this page Dark Grey / Light Grey and Orange, this is a lot easier to read.
posted on September 8th, 2008 at 2:37 pm
Chris Sorenson
How about putting up a webstore? I would totally PAY to have an opendns t-shirt…
posted on September 8th, 2008 at 9:35 pm
David Bradley
Congratulations David, looks great. I’m still flying the flag for openDNS over on Sciencetext.com, although I noticed it proxy/anon filtered out one of my favorite sites - ghacks.net - which is odd, I’ve whitelisted and flagged it for approval.
db
posted on September 9th, 2008 at 3:03 am
MDN
The first thing I noticed was that the green message telling me I was using OpenDNS is gone. I use www.opendns.com as my home page so I can check to see that my settings are correct and to alert me when I need to tweak them. This happens when I go roaming and hook up to WiFi networks where I don’t have control over the router. For various reasons, these settings changes have to be temporary. So, it’s been nice having an easy way to remind myself to use OpenDNS.
posted on September 9th, 2008 at 5:15 am
Richard Hailstone
Just scanning the new look site (a bit busy at the moment) and noticed you’re wanting to speak to your different audiences about the most excellent OpenDNS service.
You have a British/UK audience also - and we also have schools you know
can we have a UK OpenDNS Please?
You may be single handedly restoring the balance RE: kids and the internet - they deserve it don’t they?!
Many Thanks
posted on September 9th, 2008 at 11:52 am
Aaron Best
MDN, thanks for pointing that out. Check the homepage now — you should see a message at the top right of the page if you’re using OpenDNS.
(You could also check http://welcome.opendns.com or add a button to one of your own sites.)
posted on September 9th, 2008 at 3:16 pm
Ahmed
I’ve been using OpenDNS for a while, and I sure can feel the difference. The new website is terrific! Please keep it all up
Regards,
posted on September 11th, 2008 at 3:57 am
Mark
I love the website design
Can you tell me/us what tools you used to make it?
Thank you
posted on September 11th, 2008 at 5:41 am
MDN
Thanks for the fix, and for the link to the welcome page. I’m going to switch to that because it loads faster.
posted on September 13th, 2008 at 3:51 am
OpenDNS lança novo website visando melhor atender diferentes níveis de usuários | Open2Tech
[…] ao seu painel administrativo e funcionalidades. Mas concordo com o pessoal da empresa quando mencionam que existem problemas e reclamações de usuários no tocante à maneira como o serviço e…, de forma idêntica para todos os usuários, sejam eles de que nível técnico forem. Era […]
posted on September 15th, 2008 at 3:59 pm
Ramzy
Excellent update. Also noticed that my guide for Netcomm modems was added to the tutorial page :D!
Anyway, best of luck to you guys, keep up the good work.
posted on September 23rd, 2008 at 7:03 am