You may have noticed that Hover looks a bit different lately. Ok, maybe a lot different. This morning, we launched the biggest visual refresh we’ve done in quite some time. It’s still the same Hover you already know and love, just updated to better tell the story of who we are and what we do.

While we’re confident that the new design won’t incite an angry Internet mob demanding we immediately revert back to the old site, we still wanted to share our approach to the new design to give a better understanding on why we decided to update the site and what this means for the future of Hover.

Better Telling Our Story

Fundamentally, the driving force behind updating the site was better communicating the who, what, and most importantly, the why of Hover. The old messaging was largely focused on being a simple and helpful tool for finding and managing your domain names. That’s of course still the case, but there is much more that can be said of our approach to why we have built and continue to develop Hover the way we do.

In a nutshell, we want you to do something with your domain. Whether it’s making a single-serving site with your dog wearing funny hats or launching the website for your new startup, for us it’s all about helping you with your domain name so you can get back to working on whatever you’re the most passionate about.

This mindset finds its way into everything we do and has since the very beginning of Hover. It’s why we only offer domains and email so that you’ll spend less time deciding if you need 30 additional services or upgrades. It’s why we introduced (and are expanding) our Connect feature to let you point your domain to your website without having to change a single setting.

Looking at our old site, however, did not really tell this story. This refresh is an attempt to better explain why we do what we do, and also to more effectively explain how we help. There are of course many behind-the-scenes improvements—notably a much faster load time—but perhaps the biggest change was doing a better job of communicating our story.

Explaining Why We Only Sell Domains & Email

One of the benefits of only offering domains and email is the freedom that it provides to use your domain with whatever website builder you’d prefer to use. This creates a better experience by not pushing our own products that you don’t need. The updated website puts this message front and center as one of the key benefits and differentiators of using Hover.

Additionally, one of the biggest new features of this year was Hover Connect, which lets you connect your domain to one of the integrated website building services by clicking a button instead of finding and replacing a handful of settings. Besides our blog, there was no mention of this new service anywhere on the old site. This design puts connecting your domain with another service at the forefront, and as we continue to improve upon Hover Connect, we’ll better incorporate the service into the design as well.

Showcasing Innovative Projects

Over the past year, we’ve made it a priority to find and help support people who are working on innovative projects that challenge the way we use the Internet. From podcasts to festivals to improving diversity in tech, we want to give back to projects that we find inspiring and remind us why we want to provide a great domain name service in the first place. Now, we’re able to spotlight these projects and help get them even more attention and interest.

Inspiring With Our Customers’ Stories

We’re always curious to know what people are doing with their Hover domains, so we figured the best way to find out was ask. Over the past year, we’ve been seeking out cool sites whose domains are with Hover to learn more about these sites and, more importantly, the people behind them. After all, we’re trying to get people to do something with their domains, so what better way to showcase that then to show real-world examples from our customers?

With the new design, we do just that by putting our customers on our homepage. It will always be you, the Hover customer, who motivates what direction Hover goes in, so it was essential to make you a part of our story. Plus, we also get to give some of our favorite sites (and the people behind them) the exposure that they deserve.

Hopefully, this post has helped shed some light on the thinking behind our site’s new design. We believe that the update was not only necessary but long overdue. Though things may look different, we promise to be the same great domain service you’ve come to expect and to always be working on making Hover even better.