The differences between pages had been growing
Over time, I have gradually added pages with different roles to SideKick Lab, including product pages, AI Lab, and the Development Log. In the process, the header and footer began to vary from page to page, which meant checking several places whenever I needed to update the same piece of navigation.
If I updated only one part of the site, an older version could remain on another page. For visitors, this could make the menu or language switcher look different depending on which page they opened.
I chose not to replace everything at once
I am now moving the header and footer to a shared template. However, I chose not to change every page in one operation.
Each page has a different purpose. A product page, an article, and a page used to complete a purchase or download do not necessarily need the same navigation. I decided to migrate one page first, check its layout and links, and then continue with the next group.
This time, in addition to the home page and the individual AI Lab tool pages, I moved the Legal Notice and Privacy Policy pages to the shared structure. I also prepared English versions of those legal pages and added a way to move between the Japanese and English versions.
What changes for visitors
Using a shared structure should make it easier to avoid missed updates when I add new navigation or language links. For visitors, it brings the site closer to a consistent experience where information can be found in the same way from any page.
At the same time, applying the same navigation to pages in the middle of a purchase or download could make the intended task less clear. For that reason, visual consistency is not the goal by itself. I am deciding where to use the shared structure according to the role of each page.
The migration is still in progress
The migration of the whole site is not complete yet. I will continue expanding it gradually while checking that the existing content and navigation have not been broken.
This work reminded me that moving to a shared structure is less about changing everything at once and more about checking the role of each page as I go.