Taking A Holiday Hiatus

Well, I am off for the holidays. I am going to spend them in Seattle with my newlywed sister and her hubby, along with my parents. I think this is the first time in my life that I have looked forward to a 12-hour car ride as a much needed break. I would take car sickness over this craziness any day. My mind is swirling with ideas and I don’t have enough hours in the day to do them. A forced break from it all is what I need to put things in perspective. I’m also looking forward to being in the big city for a few days, and meeting up with some old friends we haven’t seen since we lived there about 5 years ago. We’re also taking the dog with us, which should be fun. She’s getting old and doesn’t have many road trips left in her. She told me she’s so excited she can’t stand it. Well, that excitement may be over the new squeaky squirrel toy she got for the trip, but that works too. So have a happy holiday, or un-holiday if you prefer, and I will be back with a vengeance next year. Good wishes to you and yours, whatever species they may be.
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My 2005 End of Year List

In the tradition of Good Riddance 2003, I’d like to take some time to point out the things I would like to just end already with the end of 2005. Here we go:

1. Stupid little icons. I’m sick of web sites that rely on icons. Just do it with the typography already.
2. Bright plasticy looking design elements. It’s been taken far enough.
3. Giant headers. If you can’t fill up the space, just don’t post.
4. University sites designed using the school colors. I know this will never go away, but come on— there’s no way to make that look good.
5. Wicked worn— it’s worn out.
6. The XHTML / HTML debate. I’m bored to tears thinking about it long enough to write this list item. Yes, you can tell how much I love the holiday hullaballoo, can’t you? Well, at least I got a gnome, which is guarenteed to keep my spirits up this season.
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HSU University Web Office Site

My newest work project has just gone live: the Humboldt State University Web Office site. The most interesting part for anyone not at HSU is that the site has an “Articles” section where I will be posting information targeted toward beginning web developers. Articles will be focusing on accessibility, web standards, CSS, SEO, tools to help you make good sites, techniques, etc. There will be some link blogging— pointing out good articles by others that are useful for beginners with a short post— which is something I don’t really like to do here. There will also be original stuff by me. I think of it as a kind of a knowledge dump— passing on that information that now resides only in my head and my personal bookmarks in hopes of seeing a light-bulb or two go off at HSU. I am just starting to populate that section of the site now— if you have any favorite articles that may fit in, please let me know. A second goal of the site was to develop a standards-based template that will be offered up for download by folks within the university for use on HSU sites. We have not had any previously, and they are much needed. So the design you see was meant to be simple and work under many circumstances, and also look official. It also needs no hacks for IE, which was a very pleasant surprise when I tested it! Anyway, enjoy, and point me to your favorite resources.

Designing to Your Audience, not Your Administration

I have spent the better part of the last couple of weeks looking at every university or college home page in the US. I did this as research for a new direction we’re thinking of taking the HSU site. It has been a year and 1/2 since our last redesign, and by the time I’ll be able to get something new up it will have been two years. This seems to me to be the ideal redesign schedule for an institution our size. Long enough of an interval that all the whining from the last redesign has stopped, the gaps and shortcomings have become obvious, and the university has new priorities. But also short enough of an interval that the design doesn’t look overly dated and still functions. It was obvious in my tour of US higher-ed sites that some of them have been around for a lot longer than two years. This isn’t surprising— I think that a two year redesign schedule is pretty much the quickest it can be done. But it was surprising to see how many sites are obviously still around from the mid-to-late 90s. But I digress. I promised myself and my colleagues out there in RSSville that I would never point out specific sites and talk about why they suck. There are many, many reasons why this might be the case. Instead, it is much more productive to point out sites that are doing things well. And what better time to do that then when I’ve spent so much time going over so many University sites? So I give to you a little essay about my favorite higher ed home page at the time of this writing:

Mills College: Designing to your audience, not your administration

The Content Conundrum

As I looked over my projects at work the other day, I realized that I am working on close to 25 redesign projects. They are in various stages of the process, but a good chunk of them are stalled while the stakeholders deal with the site’s content. It may seem like content should come first— that the content should be the driving force behind the project. But in the university web site setting, I am finding that the motivation for these redesigns is often not content-driven. I am finding that when folks ask for a “redesign” of their site, this can mean on of four things with respect to the content:

1. Re-skin

Homage to my books

Wow, I haven’t written anything in a while… I have been just plain busy— with client work, the holidays that just passed and the ones that are coming, my sister’s wedding, and a random inspiration to do major renovations in our house. That last point is what I want to highlight here, since it is a little too exciting for me…

I guess you could call me bookish