To fully utilize my Claude Code Pro subscription, I decided to redesign this blog just by prompting. The new design has been deployed since Saturday, 27th June 2026.
I have been blogging here since 2002, and for as long as I can remember, the site has had a sidebar. With version 6.0, it is finally gone. This is the biggest structural change to the site since version 5.0 in April 2020, replaced by a wider single-column layout with posts laid out in clean card grids instead of long lists. To be clear, this is not a re-skin. The color scheme and overall identity stay the same. What changed is the structure and the reading experience, along with a fair bit of work behind the scenes on speed, search, and code quality.
There are some AI telltale signs, like the solid bar above the breadcrumbs and beside the subtitle latest. Since it looks good enough for me with some of my personal customization, I am going to leave it as it is.
What You Will Notice
- Card-based layouts – post listings are now a clean card grid instead of long lists, led by the latest post.
- No more sidebar – a wider single-column layout that puts the focus on the content.
- WordPress comments – switched back to using the WordPress commenting system from Disqus.
- Redesigned landing & data pages – the About and Site pages, Portfolio, and the live React dashboards (Analytics, Users Online) all got a fresh, consistent look.
- Accessibility overhaul – meets WCAG AA contrast in light and dark mode, with a skip-to-content link, visible keyboard focus rings, screen-reader landmark labels, and reduced-motion support.
- Polished visuals – restyled tables in posts (striped rows, cleaner borders, dark-mode aware) and contrast-tuned colors across the site.
- Cleaner archives – dead links, broken HTML, and images across the entire post archive have been removed.
- Faster pages – optimized database queries, cached read-time estimates, and lighter image handling.
- Better search results – post summaries are now indexed, so search matches on excerpt text too.
- AI-generated post summaries – every post now has a concise summary, shown in full on cards, in search, and in feeds.
- Smarter related posts – ranked by shared terms rather than just matching categories.
Under The Hood
- Automated test suites – Playwright computed-style visual-regression and axe-core accessibility suites, plus expanded JS/PHP unit coverage.
- Codebase refactors – social syndication and SEO/meta-tag generation unified, theme CSS deduplicated into shared base classes, and Webpack asset handling modernized.
- MR stats – 177 commits, touching 358 files, +43,873 lines of new code (mainly test files and excludes switching back to WordPress comments) and -9,619 lines of code removed.
This blog is already 24 years old and has undergone 6 major design iterations, including this.
- lesterchan.net v5 (April 2020)
- lesterchan.net v4 (January 2013)
- lesterchan.net v3 (June 2008)
- lesterchan.net v2 (January 2004)
- lesterchan.net v1 (June 2002)
If you notice any bugs, please leave them in the comments on this post, as AI can make mistakes, and I might have missed them during my review.
Testing comments. If you notice any bugs, please leave them in the comments on this post, as AI can make mistakes, and I might have missed them during my review.