I see two big~ish design problems with this site. This makes me question your slogan Design by Design, because I see very little constructive or thoughtful design here. Firstly, the structure is confusing and secondly, you?re breaking conventions in a bad way.
From what I see, the site has structure but it simply isn't working. I'd consider myself a designer of sorts, defiantly quite web savvy in any event, but I still find it extremely difficult to navigating your site. Firstly, the menu structure and the menu item names are confusing. Having both a "Home" and a "Main" link that are actually both the same is a bad idea -- just don't do it.
The "pages" section tells me nothing. Pages of what? Pages of a book? Pages of your resume? Web pages? -- funny, I thought I was already on a web page. See how confusing that can be?... I'll come back to this section later after I?ve touched on the rest on the menu items/options?
The "sources" section has exactly the same problem. What kind of sources? Research Resources? Programming Source Code? Some other kind of resources, which could mean just about anything. Do your self and your visitors a favour and just call it "links".
The "notes" section is horribly confusing as it's more like a web log or a news section that anything else. This constant misnaming of many common conventions is something you need to pay attention to. The last things you want to do is confuse your users, which usually means they simply find another less confusing site to read.
When designing you should always be look at your site as if you're a clueless surfer that comes to your website confused to begin with -- what are you doing to to make them feel at home? What is your site doing to help them find their feet? Taking things like a "links" section and calling it something else certainly isn't going to do you any favours, nor is calling a news section "notes" or proving horribly ambiguous menu options like "pages". So, this clueless user clicks a few links, doesn't figure it and thinks "bah, what a shitty site" and leaves. Not cool.
I'd also argue that the "notes" or news section is likely to be the most updated part of your website, so move this information to the "home" page, which is the gateway that all visitors enter your site through. Seeing as this is what you'll want your return visitors to see first.
The contact link is also a problem. I see no reason to devote a menu option to an email link. Those kinds of elements are better placed on the "home" page, or on an actual contact 'page' along with an email form, maybe your address too etc etc...
The archive is mildly confusing as it should say "old website" and it really doesn't need its own menu option. A simple link form the "home" page should suffice.
The "pages" section is what needs the most work. But let?s assume you'd actually take my advice and revise your main menu, if so then this is what you'd have:
> Home
> Pages **
> Links
Kinda barren eh? That's ok, because if you take the "pages" section, which is the meat and potatoes of your site content, and break it up into individual menu items then you'll end up with about the same amount of menu elements. Although, you don't ever want to go above 7 menu items as it becomes too difficult to take em all in an once. This magical number 7 limit (sometimes referred to as ?Millers Limit?, named after the cognitive scientist who?s research concluded in this magic number) is currently a problem with your "pages" section, it's too overloaded with content, and will only get worse as time goes on and you add more too it.
Looking at the pages section, I see two things, CSS and Poems. Poems are relatively straight forward, but the CSS stuff confuses the hell out of me. I click a link and I get sent to some CSS page things with no explanation as to what makes it important enough (or any reason whatsoever) for it to be part of your site. Anyways, for starters move the CSS and Poems into the manu menu, so now you'd have:
> Home (News, Contact details, Misc information like links to old websites)
> Graphics (or some other more pointed name that describes the kind of graphic work you'd put here like illustrations or paintings)
> Poems (Pretty straight forward)
> CSS (Same old, but now you should have space to add explanations for what you're doing here)
> Links
Seeing as you're likely to have a "graphics" section, that should round things off to a healthy looking 5 menu items, and it'll provide you with a site that's 10 times easier to navigate, update and maintain.
posted 01-22-2004 18:20
