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Designer Talk: Help ! User Experience improvement

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    • CommentAuthortytanic11
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2007
     
    I've been asked to help improve the user experience of this site; the owners like the current color scheme and overall look, but I do have artistic license to work with it. Also, it's going to be edited by someone with no CSS knowledge whatsoever - so it can't have any divs, stylesheets, etc,etc. I can, however, use CSS menus - does anyone know where I can find some good, free CSS/javascript menus? I hate the one they're currently using. Any general suggestions would be appreciated - I don't even know where to begin on this one.

    btw, I realize the links mostly don't work - the site is a major work in progress.

    Here's the link : http://editmy.ws/phoenix
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      CommentAuthorgnome
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2007
     
    http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dropdowns/
    http://www.cssplay.co.uk/menus/
    • CommentAuthorMattKern
    • CommentTimeAug 27th 2007
     
    Definitely check out the cssplay guy. His stuff is amazing.

    As for general suggestions... wow.

    http://www.phoenixpoweredparachutes.com/

    Hard to know where to even start. If the owner likes the overall look I would say you might be done before you are even started. It doesn't need some "user experience" tweaking - it needs to be thrown away and started over. See if you can talk him into that.

    As far not using css, I am currently putting together a site for someone who will be maintaining it that has no CSS knowledge and I firmly believe if you put it together correctly, document it, keep it simple and keep all the crap out of their way - someone with no knowledge of CSS can edit that site easier than editing a mess of tables.

    Good Luck. you have your work cut out for you.

    Matt
    • CommentAuthorwfiedler
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2007
     
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      CommentAuthorgreg
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2007
     
    unless the person editing the site is going to be altering the layout, not knowing css isn't going to affect them. all they need to know is to edit the stuff between <div id="main"> and </div>. better yet, you could use a cms like sNews to simplify the editing process.
    • CommentAuthortytanic11
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2007
     
    Thanks for the suggestions; I'm checking out some of those menus now.

    I do wish I could start from scratch - that'd be much easier than keeping the design they're using. The regular maintainer of the site does edit the layout, and has been creating table-based sites since the mid 1990s - it'd be quite difficult to get him to see the benefits of CSS, I've tried.
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      CommentAuthorkirby145
    • CommentTimeAug 28th 2007
     
    Tytanic, why not make him a similar layout, hook him up with some wysiwyg program like Kompozer (recently updated!), and force him into the future of design. Table based layouts are growing out of style.

    His page is informative and information is presented purely, but the layout could use some remodeling to make it more friendly
    • CommentAuthorDreamckr
    • CommentTimeAug 29th 2007
     
    Hi Ty,

    Actually you have a rather simple job. I did this with a humungous site for a library. Same prerequisites. Its simple. What you are going to do is have 3 template pages. One as your main index, the other as your picture, gallery and specs and the rest as informational. Well that is how I would do it. It looks like when you do get done you will have a pretty healthy bit of stuff in the site.

    If the person wants to stick to tables, then do. You can still achieve a healthy and decent site with tables you just need to understand them. Which is very simple.

    If you want some more advice, email me.

    Dreamckr

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