I really appreciated the suggestions I got during the presentations on Monday. I’ve tried to incorporate them in my latest draft and I think they’ve improved things. I really like the idea of putting all the information about each site on one webpage, which will make things a lot simpler and not make the website so dense.
One of the interesting things about the presentations was how so many people, especially including me, needed tweaks that seemed obvious after they were mentioned but weren’t thought of initially. There must something about design that lets people go so far and not farther. A real argument for collaborative efforts in projects generally and, I’d have to think, websites in particular. With websites, it seems to me, little changes can make really big differences, given the limited amount of space you have to get people’s attention (and the amount of space you have to play with if you can keep their attention).
It’s really interesting how a class can change the way you look at things. When I go to websites now, I’m looking for the things we talk about all the time and not as much for the subtance, at least initially. My Dad’s a dentist and he notices teeth first and just about everything else second — I suppose it’s something like that. If you think about something a lot, you refocus your vision around those things. Just one of the many ways I’ve noticed that school changes the way I see things — which is as good an argument as any to keep doing it. Like yoga for the brain.
-Tracy
