Well I finally found the time to redesign my site. With Hammersmith United Charities going live I had more free time to actually work on this site.
So I did.
After finishing my usual process of analysis I came to a following conclusions:
I was going to change the IA
I was going to change the markup language
I wanted a more ‘interactive’ feel to the site
Information Architecture
As well as classification and arrangement of information I wanted to keep a common theme among the naming of the categories.
Therefore Journal has become the Notebook (keeping the design theme).
Markup Language
In case you missed the title of this post I decided to go with HTML 5. There are also some CSS 3. I was keen to try these newer models of markup, especially as a lot of the modern browsers (Firefox, IE8, Opera and and Opera) support them already.
Thumbs up especially to Opera on this.
Then I discovered there was a way to get it working in older versions of IE the decision was made.
Interactive Feel
The old site was starting to feel a bit static. I wanted a more interactive feel. Something more ‘Flash‘ Like (for want of a better term).
But I didn’t want to use Flash.
I also didn’t want it to be ‘AJAX’ crazy. I was looking for enhancement. I wanted to degrade for users without JavaScript.
I have been commissioned to redesign, re-information architect and rebuild (that a lot of re-something-ing) the Hammersmith United Charities website.
One of the most crucial things that forced the client to contact web designers was the publication of various reports they commissioned by the London School of Economics, some of which run to 80 odd pages of A4.
These reports are to be published both as downloadable pdf’s and hyperlinked documents (for reference and bookmarking).
Currently the website is based around a simple CMS written in ASP, which allows the user to input basic text for a given page. Whilst researching the project after meeting with the client a few things became evident:
The CMS was rather limiting, a ‘post’ style CMS would allow content elements to be reused around the site
The url’s produced by the CMS where horrible!
It didn’t offer much functionality with regards to templating.
All these things lead me to recommend that the CMS was replaced, I simply would not have enough power or freedom using the existing system to do this efficiently. Key to this was the reports for a TOC at the header (or footer) of each page would be crucial.
So it is being replaced! All in all it’s quite an enormous job, featuring not only a redesign, a new CMS, video encoding, improved semantics, improved accessibility, pdf generation and a whole rethink of the information architecture.
Off the back of the work I’m doing for SDS I have secured the design for the Security Excellence Rating website, a partnership between Frost and Sullivan and SDS group. Security Excellence Rating is a system that offers a grading for hotel security, like the star system does with comfort. The site will be built in Joomla!, as is the SDS site as the client is familiar with this.
I am pleased to announce that my latest project the OpenOn website has gone live.
At the moment there is a slight domain problem with the DNS so http://www.openon.co.uk and http://openon.co.uk show different sites, I hasten to add that I was not responsible for the DNS problem and upon noticing it informed the client immediately.
Update: as of the 13 June 2009 the DNS problem has been solved.
The site is built using the xhtml 1 transitional doctype, the reason for this are that the CEO (my main contact within the company) wanted certain links to open in a new window. Something that does not conform to web standards in xhtml 1 strict without JavaScript. I discussed my reasonsagainstthis, but they disagreed.
As always, the site is built for the client, so the client wins. I just share my experience and opinion.
Originally the client wanted the site built in Joomla!, a cms familiar to the CEO. Upon discovering that the development and management team use WordPress for their personal blogs and are therefore au fait with it, I showed them some of the thingsI can do in WordPress and they were convinced that WordPress was up to the job as the CMS.
The site is being populated and I am “on board” to rectify any changes of heart / changes / mistakes for the short-term but as of writing the client is extremely happy.
I realize there hasn’t been an update it a while but things are moving along!
The SDS website has been completely redesigned, the client has signed off the design. Templates have been built and content populated. This should be live in the next week. I will update when it is.
Yesterday I started building the SER templates in Joomla! and they are already on the testing server. The client approves the design at the tail end of last week and are having a meeting today about content. This is due live in the next weeks and again I’ll keep you updated.
I’m also working on a series of mockups for an ‘actors services for corporate and educational clients’ website, for which i am currently looking for a suitable C.M.S. (at the moment expressionengine is looking good), and last but by all means not least and a redesign of this site.
This site (in its present state) was created overnight so I could start adding content, it has WAY outlived its shelf life.
I’ve got the gig of designing / building the new OpenOn website. I must admit I was pretty lucky with this, being giving minimal spec, usually not a lucky thing, but as they are a forward thinking company I went to town on adding value with every useful bell and whistles I could think off.
I have done an initial mockup and it was received well. So well in fact that I have been told to start on the markup!
We are yet to decide whether to use html 5, html 5 ready or xhtml 1 strict. This decision will be taking next week (the site is due to be up by the 12th June).
What have I got myself into? What have I designed!
I was simply told to “design a new site” but where is the fun in that? A site should suit the client.
With quite a lot of information to present to a (largely) non-technical crowd, the IA and the design where worrying points for me. I have based the initial design around a 12 column grid, with liberal use of the golden section. At the moment we are undecided on fixed-width, fluid or elastic layout.
Great news, and for those of you following me on twitter – old news!
To cut to the chase, the new project I have been given by OpenOn is for a French ‘erotic film’. The site is to have live streaming webcasts, biographies of all the actors and crew, call sheets, video libraries, image galleries, forums, chat – in short quite a few things.
This I was given yesterday at about 4pm. It’s due live on Friday…
So last night I was mocking up in Photoshop and this morning I got a barrage of email’s from the client on specifications and finer details, that it would have been useful to have yesterday before I actually did the mock-ups for the site.
Back into Photoshop…
By 10:00am I was emailing the clients speculative mock-ups, and diving into Joomla! to try and get the bare bones of the CMS in shape and sort out the IA of the site. After that was done I started creating a Joomla! template and adding the relevant modules to the site, I must admit I haven’t used Joomla! much but i can’t say I’m impressed… I suspect a lot of the problems I am having is due to a lack of familiarity but my first impressions are it is outdated, bulky and slow.
At around midday i get a Skype call from the client…
They love my mockup!
The journalist thought it was GREAT (capitals his), the web editor loves it and the director and writer is very, very impressed (and apparently this is a very, very rare thing).
So I’m rather pleased, it’s nice when people like your work. It’s even nicer on such a tight deadline. By the time I left the OpenOn offices this evening the majority of the work is done and the editors and writers are adding copy. The domain hasn’t changed over to the new site yet but when it does it will be found at www.q-lefilm.com.
Finally got round to building my own site, I sometimes wonder if web designers are like doctors in that respect, to busy taking care of other people to take care of themselves.
I have built the site using WordPress, primarily because I find it very easy and it does everything I want (or there is a plug-in to do it for me) and it is a doddle to use. I initially starting using it after I was asked to use it by a client, before that I used to ‘hand-roll’ most of my CMS’s, but after using WordPress for other people I cant see a reason to not use it for myself.
Off course I always end up writing a ton of functions anyway, but that’s my job isn’t it?
Quite busy at the moment (always good), doing some work for OpenOn as well as having just pitched for a few freelance gigs which i should here back from shortly. So I am taking this opportunity to dig back through my archive of work and put it online.
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