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

[Heather Quinn]

In advising someone else, I'd say, ask yourself: who is your audience?
who are you? what is your site supposed to give to its public? and go
from there.  Details like navigation, what would stay or go, what wild
things could be risked, would hopefully grow, organically, out of the
answers to these questions.  The trick is giving yourself honest answers
to the questions!

My own answers involved recognizing that art is still the central reason
for my involvement with web design, and my previous site designs were
not sending that message out.

I went through 3 months of redesign thinking, doing & discarding, then
realized everything I was doing was too calculated.  I went with my gut
and did a visual redesign that was very personal, and stopped trying to
impress people with my words.  Because it sends a really honest message
about who I am relative to web design, I published the redesign, though
it and its content redevelopment are far from complete.  The audience
with whom I was trying to communicate with in a more direct, verve-y
way, have responded postively.  Its as if I'd been wearing a
well-tailored suit from the 1940's, when I really live in black jeans
and boots.  The people who thought I was a suit have fled or backed off,
and the jeans-and-boots people (many of whom wear suits a lot of the
time ;-) seem happy.   A less "smooth and controlled" look, risky
colors, and a simplistic layout and navigation, are the main features of
my site, now.

(Like Christy, I still use tables, as I'm a NN 4.x user from way back
and I respect those who still use it.  NN lubricated the expansion of
the web and IMO we owe them a debt - and sympathy after their virtual
rout by MS; until AOL decides to use the Mozilla 1.x engine for its web
browser, I'll keep tables controlling the framework of my pages.)

s t e f wrote:

> Evolters,
>
> I'm faced with a few questions about my personal site.
>
> I've noticed that the more a site looks professional, the less people
> tend
> to write to its owner to congratulate/comment/criticize.
>
> 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?
>
> etc
>
> Am I being clear? It's a bit late here.
>
>
> s t e f


--
Cheers,

Heather Quinn
info at windyhilldesign.com
http://www.windyhilldesign.com