Re: Thoughts on web site design

[Michael Viron <mviron@wsdo.sao.uwf.edu>]

At 11:11 PM 09/25/1999 -0500, you wrote:
>Robert Hopcroft <hopcroft@uswest.net> wrote:
>>I thought I would lay out my thoughts on a design for the seul-edu web
>
>>site and see if there are any comments. On the SEUL home page have a
>>schoolhouse for the seul-edu icon. Clicking it would set one in a
>>classroom where a blackboard would have written on it our news items.
>>Next there would be the teacher's desk and on the desk there would be a
>
>>stack of books with titles such as HOW-TOs, Clickable Cell Biology
>>Course, etc. Most of what is on the seul-edu web pages is text which
>can
>>be thought of as pages in a book. Thus clicking on a book on the desk
>>brings up that material. When we get too many books for the table, we
>>can go to the library and continue on. 
>
>I'm not sure how this could be done without lots of quite large
>graphics.  There's definately an emphasis in this group on low-powered
>computing.  (and Macs, popular with many schools, render pages
>particularly slowly in my experience)  I think the page should be quite
>accessible to people on any sort of computer.
>
>I don't see a need for anything too fancy.  More important is useful,
>actively updated information.  Everything else only needs to show that
>SEUL is serious enough to make a professional-looking page -- what form
>of professionalism (school motif, computer, commercial, etc.) is almost
>incidental.
>
>A simple school motif might simply be extensive use of primary colors
>against a white background.  
>
>Another possibility is to look at textbook design and mimic that.  I
>kind of like sidebars, at least in narrative text, and that's very
>popular with textbooks.  We could even put excercises at the end of
>pages, though that would almost seem satiral.  The notion amuses me at
>the moment, though... 
>
>Anyway, like a textbook you could have references for more information
>at the end, a fair amount of color, something like chapter headings
>(except more navigational), maybe some of the icons (like ! on warnings,
>magnifying glasses on in-depth items, etc)...
>
>That's my thought, though the basis for the design might end up being
>lost on most people.
>
>Whatever it is, I think simplicity almost always looks better in design.
If that's the case, you might consider something along the lines of
http://wsdo.sao.uwf.edu/ --it uses table rows / cells with colors instead
of using many images--in fact, only one image is on there right now (the
logo).

Just my .02,

Michael Viron
Webmaster for Web Spinners Online, http://wsdo.sao.uwf.edu/
>
>
>  -- Ian
>