Gerry McGovern writes an interesting article on his 10 predictions for web content management in 2005. I especially hope point number 1 pans out: 1. The editor—the person who knows the difference between good and bad content—will get increasing authority for the website. More and more, I’m frustrated that “content manager” means a technological solution, rather than a person who knows their content. As the university web site get more and more pressure to standardize it’s web content, institutions are turning to sophisticated and expensive CMS solutions. I am tending to think that we would be better served to hire...… →

OK. My New Year’s resolution is to turn this blog into something I’m proud of. I’ve come to terms with the fact that writing is kind of painful for me, but that it’s also necessary. Kind of like exercise or public speaking or waxing. So, expect the site to be stripped of its design yet again. I’m going to come up with something good this time, I can feel it… …

Ok, I’m going to start posting more regularly now. I spent yesterday hooking up a router and upgrading Bri’s laptop to OS X so that we can have a wireless connection. This is supposed to enable us to at least stay in the same room with each other while we’re online/working. We’ll see how it goes. At least it doesn’t seem quite as antisocial. I am working on the gallery that I promised, and I have some real gems. Just got to get the backend set up, so that all of you can participate in my biggest pet-peeve. I know...… →

Just got this beta up Friday for Freshmen Admissions Day. For some reason, I’m really digging this site. Maybe because it came together so fast— about 1 day from concept to fully browser-tested templates. Content will go in Monday, and we should be able to launch this baby by Wednesday at the latest. …

The Poynter Institute published a fascinating eye-tracking study last week, that shows how users see and use news sites. It’s nice to see some actual research done on this— it’s commonly understood that readers look at the top left of the page first, but these are the first actual numbers I’ve seen. The part about text size is interesting— people tend to scan pages with larger type and read pages with smaller type more carefully. Also the larger the size disparity between a headline and a blurb, the less likely the readers were to read the blurb. There is a...… →

As you can see, I scrapped the old design. I just wasn’t feeling it. I kept trying to improve it, and it kept getting muddier and muddier. So I spent this afternoon stripping all the styles and working on the structure. I wasn’t going to even deal with design until I gave it a rest for a while. Then, when I was about to stop, I had a burst of inspiration and had to get it down before I lost it. So there you go. I ended up spending 3 times as long as I intended, and I haven’t eaten...… →