Page Design :
Presentation questions
support@tronics.com on Thursday, August 25, 2005 wrote:
As Robert has mentioned, he'd like me to put together the pages from the site, getting my instructions from you, and design elements, graphics, and a color scheme from Marita, a bona fide HTML designer (which, obviously, I am not!).
Some specific types of feedback that would be really helpful would be:
[1] What items should appear on the home page (for example, I have there now 4 top news stories with lead-ins, and 9 additional headlines)?
From the home page we'll need navigation links to the three main sections of the site: News, Research, & Resources. See the mockups.
As for the home page content, I think we should trying showing four items each in the three sections laid into columns, one for for News, Research, and Resources.
For these individual news items, let's have a smaller font subhead (above and to the left of the article title) that indicates the sub-categor(ies) for that item (you did this in your mock-up under Popular Resources). Design wise, follow the NPR look on their home page for articles with the ALL CAPS light grey sub-categories for NATION, WORLD, TECHNOLOGY, etc. On our home page, we'd have that be the issue category. We would do the same on the "home" page for each of the three major sections. However, in the "home" page for a single issue with News, those subheads would the news type (eg., available funds, proposed legislation, etc.).
We should try having the left sidebar showing the three major sections....with the issue areas hidden from view. Once a section was selected, the sub-menu of issues would then be shown.
It'll take more thinking for me to begin figuring out what smaller item boxes might show up (as you've done with popular resources).
I think we should be designing the overall home page and the lead or "home" pages for each of the three primary sections (news, research, resources). Then, we should mock-up a detailed page on a single entry. This will allow us to determine the full set of page structure issues and solutions.
[2] Your general preferences on colors and layout
For now, let's use the www.npr.org and the www.oneworld.org designs as our starting point for the look/design of the site. In other words, let's copy their site first and then modify it's elements into something more like our own. This will work better than starting with one of my ugly mock-ups.
[3] Is it reasonable to consider that the Issue Area/Category list would be the same for all sections and all sites (i.e., something that you would control as a master list)?
The News & Research section will have the same issue areas but not the resources section. See the issue areas listing versus the resource categories.
[4] I would like to see just the Issue Areas as navigation on the left hand side, and when clicked the user would see a “home page” of the issue, showing news, research, resources, etc. regarding that one issue. Is this something you think would be good? Or, as you outlined in your Friday email, would you prefer to go into the News section at the same time as you select an Issue Area?
Yes, this is basically a sound approach. But, the resources section will need to be able to stand alone since there are categories for issues that are not like those of regular issue areas (e.g., fundraising which isn't defined by a single issue area).