[thelist] Redoing a site's design from the grounds up

[aardvark]

> From: s t e f <notabene at members.evolt.org>
[...]
> I've noticed that the more a site looks professional, the less people
> tend to write to its owner to congratulate/comment/criticize.

interesting observation...  i skipped the other posts in this thread, figgered i'd
wanna reply to this, instead of the other stuff first...

> I was wondering if any of you here has ever thought about this
> kind-of-large, not-too-specific question.
>
> Namely:
> - What pitfalls would you avoid? (like, what would give your site too
> professioanl an appearance) -- if any - What navigational tricks
> wouldn't you drop at any cost? - Crazy things you'd do? Wouldn't do?
[...]

you talking personal site?  or company site?

company site is one thing, and i'll leave that out of this...  personal site,
however, needs to be somewhat carefully considered in my case... as a
business owner, i have to expect people will come to my personal site to see
what i have to offer, see if i'm for real, or a neo-nazi, or whatever...

it also means that a blog would be inappropriate, since i don't think i want
clients reading all that stuff about me, or anyone else for that matter (not that
anyone would want to)...

i also rely on my corporate portfolio to show my work, so showing it on my
site, or even trying to outdo myself, seems kinda pointless...

instead, i show some of my other capabilities -- ok, just my articles and photo
manipulation, i pulled graphic design and web design in the last rebuild...

i also want to show that i am more technically capable than my client sites
might let on (what with browser support and client needs and all), so my site
is an experiment in XHTML, CSS for layout, and some of my other UI widgets
(CSS switcher, not an ALA JS rip-off; breadcrumb nav; resizable text; etc.)...

so, there were no photoshop mock-ups, no major design concerns outside
basic positioning of content and nav... i kept a similar layout to my previous
version, as well as default color scheme, but that's partly because i was lazy,
and partly because people had said they liked it...

i've actually put more design time into photo galleries of day trips with
friends...  i wonder if that means anything...

anyway, rambling over... gotta find some more ham...