> -----Original Message----- > From: Jerry Johnson [mailto:[email protected]] > Sent: Monday, December 29, 2008 4:39 PM > To: cf-community > Subject: Re: Boston First Night site is asp!!!! > > No, it was a former fellow Bostonian, a depressing depressed press > post. > lol. but the new site ERRORS. Everywhere. Not as good. Boo. And asp? > Boohoo! > > http://www.firstnight.org/FirstNight2009/Events/Search.aspx?id=348 > > Got to love site overhauls that go backwards. > > (Bad First Night. Bad.)
Yeah... there were more than a little politics at play there. We - Myself (CF and "management"), Karin Horlbeck (design and Flash), and Chris Dugan (Content Editor, Artist Information) did the site for 10 years (I was "DepressedPress", Karin was "JellyBean Design" and Chris was "GodDamn Design" - so the site was done, officially, by "Depressed Damn JellyBean Design"). Another designer did the paper program guide and a third group did media relations (TV/Radio). As I understand it the organization (as always strapped for cash) submitted themselves for some grant. The granter considered this arrangement "inefficient" however and asked that all media relations (paper design, radio/TV and web) be moved to a single entity. A small coalition of advertising executives offered to take on the task. So we were let go and the site... well, the site (in my not-so-humble opinion) suffered dramatically. The thing that irked me the most is that the site really did go backwards: the first year after us didn't even have an interactive program guide. People complained and they added it, but they've been following almost exactly the same progression that we followed... this year has the features that we had around year four or five, but lacks many features that we were BEGGED to add. I offered to - for free - consult with the new team and transfer assets. Even if they were going to ASP the DB design that we had would have been applicable (it was SQL Server) and supported many of these features (things like "nearby events", remembering your selections online, etc) - but they completely ignored me and just devolved the whole thing. Even now I just can't bring myself to like this site... I mean really, drag-and-drop on a general interest site? Has NOBODY there done any usability testing? Why can't I select sites in my itinerary by location? By time? Why is the map of locations impossible to reference while I'm selecting events? These are all problems that we had, worked out and (if I say so myself) did a damn fine job of solving (for the most part). But I'm not bitter or anything. Still... after a decade of work it IS kind of nice to just sit back and ENJOY New Year's Eve. ;^) Jim Davis ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:283471 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
