How do I design within a "required" format?

[ag5t]

I am the webmaster for one of the departments of a large city. City government requires a specific format that includes a top banner with specific links and a bottom banner with other required links. In the left of the page, between the top and bottom banners, is a required 200-pixel wide column with links specific to each city department. That leaves only one area for design - a 550-pixel wide column (the entire pages are required to be in landscape format, something I'm not excited about, but I have to conform to it). -- In my search for a better, uncluttered design, I am finding it difficult to be real creative by a space limitation, yet it seems everyone wants to come up with some super fantastic splash page type thing. They don't want a bunch of links. In my newest design, I have split the required links on the left and those on the right by having small photos of employees in action. I had seen another web site with small photos in a random pattern and I liked what I saw. I have considered using Flash to make something fancy, but I have to remember that many of our browsers may be looking at our web from places like libraries where the Internet browser may be quite limited, or they are surfing our site on Netscape Gold or something like that. I have also considered javascript drop down menus, but I have been told not to put the words "click here" on the page - but what about those browsers who won't click if they aren't told? Anyway, I am looking for suggestions. It seems the harder I try to design some fancy award winning super page, the more criticisms I get on the design. If anyone can offer me any suggestions, I would appreciate it. Maybe I should show you the city pages format that I am supposed to work from and we could take it from there. Thanks.
Marty

 

[harrymossman]

Do your customers (the public) want or need award-winning creativity? Speaking as the webmaster of a U.S. Government site, my answer would be "no". They want to find some information without sitting through a Flash intro. They may not be computer savy. They may not have a new computer. They deserve service just as much as the computer nerd with the lattest gear.

The layout you are required to use immediately orients the user to the site. Think of your task as being like writing haiku or sonnets. It is possible to create art within very narrow bounds.

I recommend checking out

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/

 

[Foamcow]

Exactly.
Unless your site is about art then it shouldn't be "arty".
The main purpose of a site is to give the user access to information that they will find useful.
Of course this still requires design, but this design isn't about flashy images, it's about usability.
At the same time the site should not look ugly as this is an obstacle to successful communication. Design is about so much more than the visual aspect.
Avoid gimmicks. Give the end user what would most benefit them, not what someone who probably wouldn't know good design if it handed them a copy of Creative Review thinks.

http://www.targetgroup.co.uk

http://www.avoncrusade.co.uk

http://www.almanzora.com

 

[ag5t]

Thanks for the ideas. I also use a software program that records the numbers of hits on various pages and I set up the first page links according to the most accessed pages. For example, I maintain the health department site and our top pages include information on birth certificates. Other popular pages are animal control, employment postings, Area Agency on Aging, food inspection, the daily pollen and mold spore report, communicable disease and community services. Would it be best to play these up early in the site and then put a secondary page of other links? I think I have the main page with too many links right now - so maybe instead of design I should be focused on navigation and ease of use. I have visited other government web sites and some of them have front pages that are way too busy. For some reason I'm not too impressed with Flash graphics on the government pages I've visited. I guess people just want to get to the info - quickly and simply. Sounds like a better goal to me. Thanks.

 

[ChrisHunt]

You (presumably) have a lot of information to get across. Concentrate first on how to structure it before worrying too much about presentation. I would suggest you try to develop some kind of tree structure - where you drill down through general pages to get to more specific ones.

A good way to work this out is to write the name of each page (or tight-knit group of pages) on a slip of paper and juggle the pieces around until you have a workable structure. You should be careful to avoid following your own departmental structure too slavishly - that may not be the way the public perceives the things that you do.

I'd concentrate on having links on the front page structured as determined above. They may include unpopular ones, but you need to make it possible for people to find the path to whatever it is they're looking for. Have a seperate area on the page that links directly to, say, the five most popular pages (ideally generate this bit dynamically).

Maybe I should show you the city pages format that I am supposed to work from

That might help. Could you just post a URL?

-- Chris Hunt

http://www.mcgonagall-online.org.uk

http://www.napitalia.org.uk

http://www.leicesteryha.org.uk

 

[ag5t]

Ok, here goes. I work for the City of Houston. The main page for the city is:

http://www.cityofhouston.gov

- from there you can click on departments on the red navigation bar at the top, then go to health and human services. Or you can go to

http://www.houstonhealth.org

directly and it will roll to the health department home page. The city webmaster designs and maintains the main city pages and some of the departments, while some, like health, have their own webmaster (which is me). --- You will see that the health home page is pretty heavy on the links. I've been told it's too cluttered and doesn't look like a "splash" page. --- Here is the URL for a draft page I have designed ---

http://www.ci.houston.tx.us/departme/health/draftpage.htm.

---- I took off the narrative, added photos and put the focus strictly on the most linked pages. The photos are supposed to show what the department does. Hope this helps show what I am trying to do. Thanks.
Marty

 

[Kjonnnn]

When I go to a website, I want to find what I want easily. If its pretty fine, but I don't care if it's award winning. Choose function over form. Even if its pretty, but I can't get what I want, I'm not coming back to it.

And the thing about trusting counters is, they don't take into account how EASY or HARD it might have been to get to a certain pages. Maybe one page is showing up in search engine searches, and another is not. I'd concentrate on making the ALL the site information easily accessible, then worry about the "look." As someone above mentioned, Structure.

 

[harrymossman]

I like your page. It seems very usable. One suggestion to reduce clutter is to use less wordy Current Interest titles. E.g., "Heat-related illness prevention" instead of "HDHHS recommends precautions to prevent heat-related illnesses". You are bound to have lots of links on a government home page. I think you have handled them well.

 

[Foamcow]

If accessibility is an issue, as I would imagine it is with a US govt site. Then I would steer clear of using red/blue to denote links etc. as these are colours effected by colourblindness.

Then again, I might have that wrong! Can anyone else shed any light?


Regarding the cluttered links. Just put a bit of space between each one.

The page seems to work OK to me. It's alot better than many of the pages out there produced by "professional" web designers.

http://www.targetgroup.co.uk

http://www.avoncrusade.co.uk

http://www.almanzora.com

 

[harrymossman]

Blue/red/purple has become the standard for links, so using that scheme aids usability. Other combinations confuse people and slow down their access to the site.

The most common form of color blindness is the inability or reduced ability to perceive green. Red deficiencies are less common than green but much more common than blue.

The ideal is to use another method of indicating unvisited, visited and active, e.g., lightness/darkness or font weight, in addition to color.

 

[Foamcow]

Blue/red/purple has become the standard for links, so using that scheme aids usability. Other combinations confuse people and slow down their access to the site.

Yes, you are absolutely right! lol
I didn't think about what I was saying!

And I agree, underlines or bold links help further.

http://www.targetgroup.co.uk

http://www.avoncrusade.co.uk

http://www.almanzora.com