Hello again,
was re-reading your mail and thought that i did not really answer some
important points you raised.
> 2. Content
> ==========
>
> Our site is full of tons of technical information. It's like a
> encyclopedia in a way. People should find their way around and get their
> questions answered. And I'm sure we could do tons of work on that.
>
> Once upon a time I learned that user interfaces, like websites, can be
> thought has having 5 planes: strategy, scope, structure, skeleton, and
> surface. See http://www.jjg.net/elements/pdf/elements_ch02.pdf.
> And graphic design rather comes at the end of the process. The rest is
> more information architecture or whatever you call it.
>
> Such tool might help us if we want to rethink the website, but then we
> should work from the bottom up, even if we of course already have the
> top planes from the current website to deal with. That might be the
> tricky part in the end: how to do small iterations while dealing with
> keeping all those planes in mind.
Yes, we should definitely work on this from the bottom up, i agree.
I think there is indeed lots of hidden information, like the press page
or pages about funding. We should discuss about what would be important
to bring to the surface out of this whole existing mass of information.
Is there something like a sitemap? This might help already to find out
what we are dealing with.
> I think we need to work internally on the content and its structure
> before calling for graphic design.
I agree.
> But yes, starting with the homepage
> might be a good exercise. So, as a first step, does anyone feel like
> thinking about the homepage in abstract terms?
So the work on the homepage, this is clearly only the tip of the
iceberg, but a good starting point - and could be done quickly without
modifying the actual structure.
cheers
u.
